That was a wonderful remark

The waters were calmer and warmer at the kitchen sink for the rest of the holiday season even though the heat broke during the coldest snap in many years in NC and we hosted seven guests for a few days.

As for the kitchen in which my sink resides, my dear friend informed me that it was larger than the home he lived in for three years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal. I reminded him that my kitchen and dining room are the size of the home that I lived in for my first twenty years of my life. And in that home, I was raised by a natural hostess. Mom spun miracles in her little kitchen. Like a clown car, plate after plate would unload themselves from her little kitchen into the hands of guests. Mom probably spent months of her life preparing wonderful food for big gatherings. The real miracle in this is that she cleaned up after every event without a dishwasher- spending perhaps months of her life with her hands in the kitchen sink. Despite these facts of outstanding hostess pedigree and a large well designed kitchen for entertaining- I am not at ease entertaining a houseful of guests. What I view as chaos in a houseful of people, Mom sensed a calm and warmth.

As seven wildly diverse characters gathered around my Mom's newly refinished dining room table in our new home on New Year's Eve, I too sensed the warmth that fueled Mom's entertaining frenzies. (Perhaps a bit of the warmth came from my husband's now traditional NYE shrimp fradiablo, and a new dish of lobster and brei wrapped in phyllo dough over roasted red peppers and mixed greens). Had we not extended an invitation and pushed our boundaries of comfort, perspective and resolution might not have been gained from a wonderful remark of a guest. Post toast, the name of a corrupt and unseemly character emerged. As soon as it did, my dear friend said- if it was not for this character we would not be together tonight. It is true the catalyst of the joys, the hilarity, the drinks, the comfort and the growth shared by five of the seven at the table over the past eight years was this one difficult force. I consider this a small miracle since one of the people who was with us is a refugee of the famine and genocide of Sudan. How many times in much smaller and less poingant ways in my life has the uncomfortable and the unseemly created rich and fruitful unions? I am certain it is many more instances then I ever bothered to notice. I am going to be on watch for such serendipity this year.