Skip to main content

Around the Table


 

Last night, after much scheduling and rescheduling, my immediate family gathered to celebrate Father’s Day and my husband’s birthday. There were seven of us altogether, gathered at a big round table at the Flavors of India in Gateway. 

You may know what I mean when I say that getting the whole family together is a challenge once the kids have grown and flown. Add to that offspring who work in the restaurant business, or retail, or in theatre, and you might as well hire a scheduling assistant to make it work. At one point I despaired ever finding a date that everyone could agree on.

It was worth all the effort.

We ate early, due to various time constraints, so we pretty much had an area all to ourselves. It was peaceful, unrushed. Everyone could hear everyone else talk. There was room at the table to read birthday cards and pass them around, and the pacing allowed my husband the time to open presents. 

This isn’t a restaurant review, although the food was wonderful. It isn’t a treatise on the future of Gateway, although I almost got lost (yet again) trying to find my way out. 

It’s about the sheer joy of getting to be with one’s family and experiencing the reminder that these are people who “get” you and know your stories and foibles and love you anyway. Or maybe even because of all that. It’s about being grateful that your kids feel comfortable bringing people they care about into the family circle. 

The whole world has been pretty terrible lately and the recent news in the US terrifies me. Last night I experienced an hour or so of freedom at an Indian restaurant in Gateway where the food was delicious, the service was excellent, and the company was everything I needed it to be.

Whatever you do today, I wish you the kind of freedom that eases your heart and reminds you of the things you value the most.

What kinds of experiences do that for you? Share them. It will do us all good to learn from one another.


Village Green/Town² Comments




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...
2 comments
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more