DINNER TABLE CONVERSATIONS

There’s a writing prompt that I’ve seen kicking around for years, that I’ve never really thought too hard about using. I think it was just one of those conversation starter questions that teaches you things about yourself before that, because it was certainly a question I read or heard long before people were blogging or needing writing prompts online.

It’s the one about who would you invite to dinner, if you could invite anyone, living or dead?

I find it as similarly useless as the question about what one thing would you bring with you to a desert island if you had a choice? Presuming that you hadn’t ended up there like Tom Hanks with a plane crash and only an ice skate for a tool and a volleyball for company. What ONE THING? Is that presuming that there is food, and water, and medicine, and a WAY OFF THE STUPID ISLAND? Does it presume that you WANT to be on a desert island because you get to be away from all the stress of your current life? How is choosing ONE thing going to help?

I find it also similarly as useless as the question about what is your favorite book? or movie? or song? HOW ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO CHOOSE JUST ONE OF THOSE? Don’t be ridiculous!

At least at the dinner you can assume you might have a table for four. So, theoretically, the answer doesn’t have to be just ONE person. You could choose THREE! (if you are the fourth, and not, say, the chef). Maybe you’re the waiter and you could choose four!

But I think the idea is that you would like to have a dinner-table conversation with these people. What would you talk about? If you choose someone who is no longer living, WHEN do you choose them from? Presumably, since anything apparently goes here, you could choose a younger version of that person. You could decide at which point in that person’s life to interrupt theirs and plonk them down at your dinner table.

And we haven’t even discussed what you would serve! Are you at a restaurant, and you all have to order? Do you have to COOK? What if you invited, say, Abraham Lincoln (who is one of my heroes and someone I could potentially see inviting to my table)? I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be excited at the prospect of sushi (though you never know).

One reason I find this question so strange is that I feel the person posing it (even if it is myself) is assuming that the people you choosing are either people you admire, or people you would like to talk to. I can’t imagine trying to have a dinner conversation with some of those people that I look up to. Imposter syndrome rears its ugly head…what on earth would they think of sitting down to dinner with ME?? What on earth would I talk to Lincoln about? Or Barack and Michelle Obama? or Eleanor of Aquitaine? Or Audrey Hepburn? Or David Bowie?

“Hey, I really like your music” seems like a lame conversation starter. And I wouldn’t even know where to begin with the Obamas. I suppose I could just sit back and let them run the conversation and smile and nod and widen my eyes every time they brought up points that resonated. I think most of the people I could think of for this question would most likely wonder who the hell I am and how the hell did they end up at this table with me, of all people? They all probably have better places to be (even if they’re dead), like with their own loved ones, for example.

I think being faced with your heroes would be a very humbling experience, even if they were willing to hang out with you and chow some meal down together and share some sparkling dinner conversation.

Another choice, presumably, is to invite people from your own life that you miss, or that you didn’t have closure with. But just having a chance to talk to them again for ONE dinner sure seems like it wouldn’t be enough. If I could talk to my dad again, for example, that would be great, but honestly, I’d want him back for longer than a couple of hours, and I’d want him to meet my kids as well. And then what? He wouldn’t be thrilled about the sushi, either, I don’t think. Although who knows? He loved snails and mussels. I don’t even know if he ever even tried sushi. It wasn’t the trendy meal it is now back before he died. I was barely past trying it for the first time myself at that point.

I suppose if I could invite my Aunt Kathie, my Uncle Sam, my Grandad Pangborn, along with my dad…all people I’d love to see again, to talk to again, to hug once more, that would be something.

But probably, my answer would be people I don’t get to see enough of as it is. People who live far away. People I miss a lot. My mom. My sister and brother and their families. Becky. Kathey and Russell. Julie and Benny. Debbie Malone, her sister Jessica, and their parents Roz and Jim. Some of my closer relatives. And I’d want more than a dinner with all of them, as well.

When I was in high school, my gang of friends and I wrote lots of stories and lots of those stories were about ourselves. Our antics, our junior high love lives, and sometimes, what we envisioned about our futures. In several of those stories, we all ended up happily together living in the same town or community, or sometimes even sharing a house like a big dorm of elderly ridiculous versions of ourselves. Nowadays that doesn’t strike me as such a bad idea. I’d love to live closer to ALL of the people I love: my friends, my family, and not just the ones I have here with me in Sweden.

One dinner isn’t enough. Even if it’s sushi.

Mood: contemplative
Music: Tove Lo—Talking Body