The purpose of my new writing space was to, ummmm, write more.
Peoples. It is so cold.
This space is over the garage and has never been what you’d call toasty (except for June, July, August, and half of September) but these past few days it has been downright frigid in here. I can think of an excuse every day not to write so it was a given that I would not be creating in long underwear and gloves. Add to that my work buddy had to go and leave me for a few days and so I was bored and depressed day and night.
She came back today and yelled from her office when I arrived, “Did you miss me?” I wanted to jump in her lap and lick her face but she might have thought that was weird. And maybe crossing some boundaries.
People who need people……
I cranked out the work during the day and brought a space heater into my writing room when I got home. It was time to get back to business.
*****
On Friday I had a dentist appointment to get my teeth cleaned. “Are you doing anything fun this weekend,” my dentist asked.
We were. We had a soup night with new friends and never-met-friends and a dinner party on Saturday. The dentist, the hygienist and I talked about entertaining. Why, oh why, we wondered is it such a big deal to have people over?
I told them about being a little girl and my mom and dad having couples over for dance parties on Saturday night. The women would wear dresses and Mom’s lipstick blotted toilet paper would smile from the bowl before company came. She’d spritz some Avon on and Dad would say, “Well, don’t you look like a million bucks?” Then the other couples would arrive with their lipstick and dresses and go into the garage turned dance club while Dad poured the scotch. Mom once said, “The great thing about being friends with the chief-of-police and his wife is that you won’t get in trouble if the neighbors call the cops because you’re too loud.”
Mom would let us sit on the stairs in our pajamas for a little while to watch and then shoosh us off to bed. I remember falling asleep to the sound of talking and laughing and Frank Sinatra and I thought being an adult must be the best thing ever.
There have been plenty of parties since then but it seems that an abundance of social media these days has replaced real conversation with real people. It’s all so out there all the time that maybe it seems unnecessary to have people over when they’ve already seen your vacation photos on Facebook.
But this weekend we shared stories and food with people we knew a little or not at all. “Where did you go this summer because I want to come along next time?” Debra asked me before soup was served. “Montana and it was perfect,” I answered. And her and I talked about being in nature and realizing how small you really are compared to your surroundings. After the soup and dessert the Tarot cards came out and I was nervous because Mom might have implied way back when that a good Catholic wouldn’t dabble in that sort of thing. I’m a lousy Catholic these days and so I tapped the stack three times to remove the energy and picked three cards. I am on the brink of something big. Mark followed me and picked his three. His cards said that something he’s been working on for a long time is about to bear fruit and I was more excited for his predicted good fortune than my own. We left with plans to make soup on Friday a standing date once a month and I felt grateful to be included in the maiden voyage.
At the following night’s dinner party we knew only the host and hostess and broke bread with some people who had the most incredible stories of love and life and cancer and healing and art. All day Sunday Mark and I looked at each other and said, “Who gets to meet these kinds of people?”
How very small we often feel to ourselves when we are surrounded by the barrage of Facebook feeds and breaking news, but such compelling stories we walk around with every day in our own back pockets.
They deserve time to be unfolded, smoothed out and lingered over.
They deserve to be invited in and served with soup or steak….and a side of Frank.