Anthology: The Tablecloth and the Tide

Anthology: The Tablecloth and the Tide By Mere T.S.

I. The Roots of the Nabanga

Every story is alive,
like the roots of the Nabanga tree,
twisting deep into the earth,
holding the land together,
feeding on the rain
and the stories of those who came before.

My story begins with a tablecloth,
but it does not end there.
It flows like the tahi currents
that circle our islands,
carrying the voices of my ancestors,
the laughter of my children,
and the whispers of the wind
that moves between my island home
and this place is far away from where I sit.

II. The Cloth of Memory

The tablecloth—
orange and blue,
like the fire of the Yasur volcano on Tanna Island
meeting the deep indigo of the ocean—
catches the last light of the day.
It is not just cloth, like the red mat, bwari
It is memory.

It holds the weight of years,
the echoes of my children’s laughter
as they gathered around this picnic table,
the warmth of shared meals—
taro roasted in coconut milk,
fish wrapped in banana leaves,
the tang of wild lemons
plucked from the bush.

It reminds me that time
is not something that passes us by.
It lingers,
like the smell of smoke
from my Tuta’s earth oven,
like the taste of salt on your lips
after you’ve left the sea.

Time is woven
into the objects we touch,
the land we walk,
and the stories we tell.
It is alive,
just like the stories.

III. The Porch and the Past

I sit on the back porch,
a cup of ginger and lemon tea warming my hands.
The steam rises,
curling into the cool air,
carrying the sharp bite of ginger
and the citrus tang of lemons
that reminds me of the wild unripe mangoes
we used to pluck from the trees back home.

For a moment,
I am not just here.
I am also on my home island,
Sia Raga,
where the land and sea
hold the footsteps of wise ancestors—
keepers of kava rituals,
dancers of the Naghol,
the sacred land diving
that ties us to the yam harvest
and the courage of our people.

The ocean between here and there
is not a distance—
it is a path,
a living current
that carries knowledge,
history,
and belonging.

When I close my eyes,
I can feel the salt on my skin,
hear the waves crashing
against the coral reefs,
and see the coconut palms swaying
in the wind,
their fronds whispering secrets
to the sky.

The ocean is not a barrier;
it is a bridge,
connecting me to my roots,
to my people,
to the stories that have shaped me.

IV. Time as a Circle

In Sia Raga thought,
time does not move in a straight line.
It circles back,
it weaves,
it holds.
The past is not behind us—
it is beside us,
within us,
shaping the present.

In the Western world,
time is measured,
controlled,
hurried.
But we know better.

Time is felt
in the shifting winds,
in the turning of the tides,
in the way a tree bends
with the seasons.
Time is relational,
held in the spaces between people,
between land and sky,
between what was
and what will be.

It is not something we chase;
it is something we carry,
like the weight of a woven basket
on our backs,
filled with the stories
of those who came before us.

V. The Table of Continuity

I run my hands over the wooden picnic table,
tracing the grain of the wood.
My son built this table,
carving and shaping it
with the skills passed down
from his great-grandfather,
a man he never met
but whose spirit moves through his hands.

This table is more than an object;
it is continuity.
The trees that became this wood
once held the breath of the earth,
whispering their stories to the wind.
Now, they hold ours.

They hold the meals we’ve shared—
the earthy sweetness of yam,
the smoky richness of pork cooked in the umu,
the sticky sweetness of ripe pawpaw.
They hold the conversations we’ve had,
the memories we’ve made.

This table is a bridge, too,
connecting the past and the present,
the old and the new.

VI. The Threads of Belonging

Nothing exists alone.
The table,
the tablecloth,
the tea in my hands—
all are part of something greater.
The land,
the ancestors,
the people who gather here.

Even in their absence,
they are present.
Their wisdom lives
in the trees,
in the waves that stretch
from the Pacific Northwest
to Vanuatu,
in the rhythm of my heartbeat.

I feel them
in the wind that brushes against my skin,
in the warmth of the sun on my face,
in the stillness of the night.
They are here,
with me,
always.

VII. The Space Between Worlds

So, I listen.
And I write.

The glow of my laptop screen
mirrors the last light of the day.
My fingers hover over the keys,
tracing the space between worlds.

Identity is not a fixed point;
it is movement,
a tide that flows
between home and away,
past and present.

In Sia Raga belief,
all things have two sides—
tavalu.
Nothing exists in isolation.
There is no single story,
no singular way of being.

I hold space for both:
for the voice of my grandmother,
her hands stained
with the red color of the red dirt,
and the life I have built
far from where I began.
For memory
and for becoming.
For the land that raised me
and the land that holds me now.
For the stories that have been passed down to me
and the stories, I will pass down
to my children.

VIII. The Promise of What Is Yet to Come

This is why I tell stories.
Because time is not something
that leaves us—
it stays.
It grows in the trees,
it rises with the tide,
and it breathes
in the spaces between us.

And through these stories,
I find my way home.
Not just to Sia Raga,
but to myself,
to the people I come from,
and to the land and sea
that have shaped me.

Every story is alive,
and as long as I keep telling them,
I am alive, too.

The colors of my world—
the deep green of the jungle,
the turquoise of the lagoon,
the fiery orange of the sunset—
are not just colors.
They are the threads of my story,
woven into the fabric of who I am.

And like the tablecloth,
they hold the weight of years,
the echoes of laughter,
and the promise
of what is yet to come.

End.