There are few televisions programs that I really look forward to. One of them, Blue Bloods, is scheduled for 10 p.m. on Fridays. The important segment usually comes at the end of the program, after the three moral and ethically centered story lines are wrapped up. Four generations of the Reagan family will be sharing their Sunday supper and, each time, encouraging me to try emulate the same conviviality and family strength in my home, around my Sunday dinner table. But times are as they are, and that is more of a wish, a dream, than a reality.
And so, as dreams do come from real life, my sleep last night was wrapped around a dinner table, but, also as dreams do, it was enigmatic, curious and exhilarating at the same time.
The setting was movable, my table of changing lengths was at the same time in the tiny kitchens in Brooklyn, Lake Carmel, Marcellus, our camp and, oddly, in the old teacher’s cafeteria at Marcellus High School. It did seem to be sporting a tablecloth, at least in some areas, and the whole table, the short or long versions, was lit by a line of tapers. I am thinking that these were remembrances of the boxes of tapers that I bought when Chappell’s was going out of business a zillion years ago, when every well-dressed dinner table was expected to be lit by candles. They have been stored in the Hoosier that sits in the corner of our dining room forgotten for too many years. It was only last week that I offered them to my daughter, who had her Thanksgiving table lit by two lovely tapers.
Seated around this surreal table were my family, my spouse and children, grandchildren, my siblings, parents, grandparents … even those who I had never met. There were neighbors from Brooklyn. Maureen Gillen who lived three houses toward third avenue was there, as were my friends from Our Lady of Perpetual Help school, Nora and Anne and Mary and Claudette .. young and smiling. High school friends, friends with whom I still connect, sat among the guests. Was this a reflection of the phone call that I received yesterday from John Lombardi, a man who was a boy in my high school class I haven’t seen in over 60 years? Teachers that I loved and didn’t love were sprinkled here and there as were coworkers from jobs I had over the years. I remember stopping … I don’t think I was serving any food in this dream …to try to talk with Mike Sawyer, the sine qua non of educators at Syracuse University, but the scene changed before I could get his attention and I was then in the kitchen asking for help with the table. I tried to get back to Dr. Sawyer, but the table moved on with friends from Marcellus and Syracuse and pets that I had loved and love – my Tippy, Puppy, Snuffer, Chica, Kiki, Mitsy and more… my companion animals … how they made such a difference in my life. They passed as the I moved down the table, recognizing, acknowledging, wondering.
And there were many of my students, those young lives with whom I was privileged to teach a love of learning, who taught me as much as I taught them. There were two young girls waving papers at me, and several young men in athletic uniforms eating voraciously, waving with one hand. Among them, scattered among the diners was a smiling group of youngsters who spent some hours after school in detention. I’m sure that experience stayed with them. Or not.
My grandsons were there at different ages, morphing as the table moved. The interesting thing about this night time fantasy was that the guests at my table were a mixed bunch, there were people I loved, close friends, acquaintances and people who made my stomach clench, people who created havoc, who steered my life’s decisions in ways that I didn’t want. Beside my dearest friends with whom I shared the best moments of my life, were two gals who spent their high school lives trying to intimidate and bully me. I’m sure that phase passed them by as they matured, but they will always be who they were then to me. Lessons learned. There were men and women with whom I shared work life, whose competency and energies were unassailable, who shared those qualities with me, and there were those who drained life from the job, who made the job untenable. I wondered if the latter were only in my dream to get free food. These characters seemed to be able to be at the table no matter where I was or how long this fantasy table extended, like a physics statement about time and existence.
If dreams tell us anything, this one was clear. Who I am and who I want, wanted to be, is at the very least because of the people in my life, those who lifted me up, those for whom I owe the memory of challenges, those who inspired, who taught me, who frightened me, who caused me great harm … each giving something that became me.
And that table had room for more, at least it did last night. So, while I am awaiting the denouement of the various questions, mysteries of my life, I am prepared to say “Welcome to my table.”
Maybe, some day in the near and dear future I can get my children and their children to join us for Sunday supper. I’ll cook anything they want.
