Sobremesa

This week the talk began long before the meals were served. As we mixed, diced, fried, boiled, among the questions about where pots were kept, what spices were available, how much more time was needed, we discussed the books we were reading, what we'd done with (grand) child that day, job offers, plans for future visits...

Then the bowls and platters were arranged on the lazy-Susan, the group summoned, the beers opened, wine poured, and the deep conversation began which lasted until long after the crockery had been emptied and cleaned.

Politics, of course, but also child-rearing, family histories (Do you remember the time we...?), stories we'd heard on the radio, news about relatives, the story from the Bible of Abraham entertaining God, was God patronizing?, recent Supreme Court decisions, how much leeway local communities should have to make their own rules, how men and women are different, how each of us are different (and special), how we're not so very different, global warming and what's that about Antarctica?, medical problems: new knees and the amazing things that can be done with them, funny things the kid had done that day and how brilliant they meant he was, how to fix the voting system, how to win in November, how it feels being our age, how it feels living in the country today, who should be responsible for...

The conversations this week among  the four of us, or the five or the six of us, were sometimes boisterous, often passionate, sincere; there was respectful attention and disrespectful interruption, overtalking, circling back, dicting and contradicting, jokey insults, bad puns, exasperation, affection.

Conversation, this airing of our minds and souls in free talk, this confection, delights God-in-love, I feel sure, as an expression of the rich dynamic complexity of the beloved Other, who is all of us. The tradition of sobremesa, after dinner conversation, through all ages of the past, around tables in every corner of the world, on and on into the future as far as we can see, is, has been, will be sponsored by that love affair. The exuberance of it, the memorability of it, all seem wonderful in process and in retrospect...and also in prospect, for we will be together again, new developments will have occurred, our thoughts will have matured, there will be important or funny things to say, we will need to eat and drink and talk some more...