A bigger table holds more people

Bowl, with Arabic inscription reading, "Generosity is a quality of the people of Paradise and good health is a blessing." 4th century AH/10th century CE, East Iranian World, Samarkand, or Nishapur.
The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait City, Kuwait

An internal remembory of a meal last year led me back to this place in the heart of Kuwait where, after the blistering daytime sun has worn through mountains of pale concrete skyscrapers and an endless stretch of low buildings that reflect that sunlight back into the sky and people quickly pass from one shaded or air conditioned space to another, a welcoming reprieve lets people emerge into this souk as old as the city and as the evening deepens the pulse of families and friends quickens and amid mounds of dates and deeply scented cardamom pods, I am drawn to the rows of tables with fans blowing misted water where huge grilled fish and long skewers of meat are served alongside warm billowy stacks of bread and heaps of arugula brightened with lemon wedges, the fresh flaky seabass and sbeiti rubbed and bathed in spices tomatoes and herbs and laid out on platters, pulled from the still rich Persian Gulf, and it is impossible not to think back on these historic waters, the beginnings of human culture and trade and only just a hundred years ago this place had barely changed from what it had been a thousand years previous, when for generations famed pearl divers brought gems of the sea to light and they adorned necks and clothes and jewelry and woven nets cast from wooden boats pulled fish aboard and fed the merchants and traders and families that visited or lived along these remote waters on the edge of deserts and this meal is like the one I ate last year, simple rich and fresh and studded with scents and tastes and the sounds of civilization on the cusp of tomorrow, which in one long generation has pumped an underground ocean of oil into ships and across the sea, transforming this etched land of sea sky and desert sand into a concentrated new world empire whose power and influence is not measured or bound by its borders but whose impact shakes the foundation of our Earth and all of its systems and which, because of that power has been at the center of geopolitics and war and political and climate change, and when I flake a piece of that moist white fish whose flesh is bathed in the flavors and tastes aggregated over centuries of trade and shared influences, and I see kids with their parents doing the same, looking at them to see how they laugh and talk and hold themselves, no different than my own children were at that age, I think about how we communicate and share these similarities and differences, and continue to think the way to connect people is here at the table, where we all belong, because we only have to look to see that a bigger table holds more people, and on my long walk home through parks and along streets still radiating the stored heat of today, through souks crammed with electric tea kettles and everything else modernity has to offer, I'm pulled back home where all these needs remain the same, and as the sun tilts lower and darkness comes too soon, I think I know what I'll serve next.