Zoe my god, so this past seven days has been amazing. I got to spend time with no less than three
of my favorite families! Sometimes when
life is being a little weird, I have a hard time not letting the situation make
me feel like I’m a terrible person. I
guess I automatically go to that place where I feel like things went wrong
because of me. And you know what that
means of course! It means that somewhere
in the recesses of my mind, I must think I am really that important that the
success or failure of any given scenario rests on me… a truly ridiculous notion
and one that just isn’t logical.
Spending time with friends is so great because you get to tell your
story, get good feedback, and then move on to their stories! Because, oh wow! Big surprise: other people have wild things
going on in their lives too! Oh, and
then there is the laughing! It is so
healing. I wish I could live my life on
the set of a Will Farrell movie and just laugh nonstop. It would be super fun. But going to a house with a kid helps with the
laughing part! My little friend Mr. Jack
always makes my heart feel lighter whenever I get to see him!
I am always so honored when someone invites me to dinner at
their house and makes a meal for me.
It’s literally the nicest thing anyone could do for another person. It’s just so personal and takes real effort
on their behalf. And I love having the
opportunity to just sit and talk with no other distractions. It’s really unlike going out to dinner,
although that is always great too, but in the summer, we musicians are a little
tight on dough, so it makes more sense to eat at home. It also gives me the chance to practice my
nice manners, like waiting for the hostess to start eating, grabbing my napkin
from the correct corner, using the right forks, you know. Even though no one cares if I do it properly,
it’s nice to try anyway.
Since most of our friends are musicians there is never any
end of things to talk about—we know all the same people and have had a lot of
the same gigs. But I especially love
when there happen to be dinner guests who are accomplished at other things
too—there is so much to learn just from talking to people. I always have to be careful not to drink too
much wine so that I can actually remember everything!
Having people over for dinner is becoming a little bit of a
lost art, but I am determined not to let it be one around here. It is so civilized and so special to create a
special evening for people you love, and fun to introduce friends from one
circle to friends from another, creating an ever-widening circle of good will.
There are so many things to celebrate and no end of excuses to have friends over, but I think
that especially during the year it can just get so completely insane, and we
are all too tired. But I always feel so
good if I plan ahead and just do it anyway!
I think this will be one of my goals for the coming year—to try to make
time to do that even though it’s not summer any more. When I feel happy and connected to people in my life, I have more energy and drive, and somehow, I'm way more productive!
So, this begs the question: can we start writing dinner parties off on our taxes? :)
1 comment:
See here in Malta going to friends houses for dinner and inviting people over for dinner is done all the time. In a week i sometimes have 3 dinner invitations.
The time i spent in the US i noticed that many Americans like to go out to eat perhaps more than cooking at home. Going out to eat here is something we do for occasion and not everyday. Perhaps that is why dinner invitations are not that common.
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