The Takeaway

Dearest Rachel –

One thing (for better or worse) about these letters is the fact that it forces me to try to organize the events of the day in a sort of cohesive fashion. I’m all but required to give them a title, and then proceed to parcel everything out into paragraphs. It’s a bit of a challenge, since life doesn’t really come at you in prepackaged chunks, unless you count the arbitrary discrete measurements by which we already carve up our days – the hours, minutes, and seconds that are the building blocks of time. Actual events, however, are not exactly a certain set length long. Sure, the invitation will say it’s from 1 to 5, or 4 to 8, but that’s just the overall get-together; that’s composed of multiple little events, just like a meal is made of separate courses. They don’t land on your tongue all at once, as if you were drinking a single, liquified mass (yuck); they exist in small bites that (hopefully) you can savor and enjoy one at a time.

However, that also means that life doesn’t work like literature. You don’t come away with a sense of having gone through the entire arc of a story, from introduction to conflict to climax to resolution and denouement. You don’t find yourself having necessarily learned a single moral lesson from the day’s events. And yet, in an attempt to condense and explain them to you, despite you not having been there, I’m stuck trying to give them substance that wasn’t noticeably there when it was happening around me.

Then again, maybe the lessons of any given day require one to pull back, like a camera on a crane, and do a little introspection. It may very well be that every day has a lesson for each of us, if we only would take the time to stand back, look at it, and consider what those lessons might be. You don’t get the takeaway of the day’s events while they’re still swirling around you; you have to wait for the dust to settle before you can make sense of it all (and wipe off your glasses so you can see better).

Or, maybe I’m just overthinking things.

***

As I mentioned the other day, Daniel and I had to juggle two invitations yesterday; ’tis the season, after all. They didn’t overlap by much, to be sure, and they were both fairly close geographically to each other, so that worked out pretty well for us. But this is the sort of thing where you would’ve been in your element, and neither of us were, or ever will be. Still, we’re aware of our social obligations; these things don’t happen all that often, so when they do, we need to appear when we’re wanted.

I’m going to make an effort not to compare the two events, despite the fact that they were both described as ‘open houses.’ Comparison invites competition – which one was better on this or that level – and that’s really beside the point of this letter. Besides, there’s nothing for the two of us to learn from doing that, apart perhaps from how to be reasonable hosts at some point in the future. Admittedly, that’s a worthwhile goal for the future, especially with the house halfway to the place where it might be considered presentable for such an event, but I don’t think we’re quite ready for that yet, aside from our usual circle of friends.

The first thing we have to learn is how to be proper guests, and I’m not sure that we’ve managed that yet. Granted, sometimes the question is knowing (or rather not knowing) what that entails. For instance, there’s always a question of whether to bring something or not; the folks informed me that the fact that these events are referred to as ‘open houses’ suggests that there’s no need to do any such thing. To be sure, what we might’ve brought as a traditional gift – that is to say, a bottle of something – would’ve probably been an essay in itself, as the supply we have from Heineman’s will likely never be restocked (unless we stop there while we finally set you to rest, and then most likely never again), making anything from those stores that much more precious and meaningful to us than anyone we might present them to.

Then there’s the question of how much to partake in everything that’s offered. Once upon a time, I wouldn’t concern myself with the niceties of restraint; I would take a bit (sometimes, quite a bit) of everything, like I was at a smorgasbord. Now, that may have been from my upbringing in a large extended Scandinavian family, but I’ve learned that’s not always the way to go.

·If [or When] you sit down to eat with a ruler,
    notice ·the food that [^Lwhat] is in front of you.
 ·Control yourself [^LPlace a knife at your throat]
    ·if you have a big [or to control your] appetite.

Proverbs 23:1,2, Expanded Bible

It’s a lesson I’ve been trying to teach myself a little bit at a time for the past year or so. So, since our first visit yesterday wasn’t for the better part of an hour after we were at liberty to drive up there, we had to kill that time somewhere else. I suggested getting a snack (a bowl of soup, or an order of nachos) at a place along the way. That way, we wouldn’t be spending our time around the food, as opposed to engaging in the conversations, like we would be expected to.

Of course, this plan probably worked too well. Apart from a single piece of fudge, I had nothing at our first stop, and I don’t know if Daniel bothered to eat anything. We managed to restrain ourselves so well that we didn’t indulge in anything that was on offer. And I find myself wondering if, by trying not to be too much of a bother, whether we might have offended in reverse; I know I prefer it when guests eat what I’ve prepared, on the rare times we have people over. Then again, those times that we have guests tend to be specifically for a meal, so that’s a little more expected than just an ‘open house.’ But I still find myself dithering over which extreme to be; do I come hungry and consume everything, or pre-game like we did yesterday and touch nothing? Neither answer seems correct.

At least I can take some pride in the fact that Daniel is able to join in on conversations these days. He may not be able, necessarily, to initiate conversations, but he has plenty to say once it’s started. They do say the travel is broadening, and that certainly has proven to be true when anyone asks him about last month’s trip.

On the other hand, when the entire open house is composed of members of the trip getting together after an absence of a few weeks, it’s not as if we have some special insight to bestow. We all saw the same things together, albeit with varying perspectives, so it’s not the same dynamic. And the travel group was loud; one could barely hold (or keep up with) a conversation without shouting – and with my throat still raw from coughing over the past week, that wasn’t feasible.

Our hosts set up chairs in several rooms, fully intending for the party to spread out throughout the house; for whatever reason, that didn’t happen. Daniel and I found our way to the sunroom, but apart from a few people being shown the place (since the man of the house had built the room himself, and was justifiably proud of his handiwork), almost no one stayed there for longer than it took for him to describe his efforts. It was an oasis, but I did find myself wondering if staying there was just an attempt to hide from my obligation as a guest to participate in the conversation. Again, this is a question that you would never have been concerned with; you would have been in the middle of everything, driving it along. But I’m not you, for all that I feel like I have to be like you in situations like this.

Still, it’s not something I would have missed out on, either. The moments that I did inveigle myself into the conversation were enjoyable, and what food I did sample was lovely. And then, there was the announcement that a new trip has been proposed for the latter half of next year – which I was wondering about what to do with up until now; I should be glad for not having finalized any other plans at this point – that would take us at a slightly more leisurely pace across the towns containing the seven churches of Asia as mentioned in Revelation.

And maybe that’s takeaway enough for now.

Be that as it may, it’s that kind of holiday season, honey. I keep mentioning how I wish you were here, but sometimes the reasons are a little stranger than you might expect. There was more to you than wife, mother, lover and friend; there was a practical element to you that really feels absent on occasions like these, but there isn’t anything I can do about that but imagine what you might do in a given situation, and try to follow, however imperfectly, in your steps when I can bring myself to.

Anyway, I need to get on with this day now. I’ll catch you up again soon, but until then, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.