vision of an integrated future

Tonight I am thinking about how much I would love to be home, cooking, preparing a meal for a group of people I love.

I have a vision for the future: Sunday dinners, my own personal sabbath meals, bi-weekly, surrounded by the people I love.

I have long loved a good dinner party and like to plan the menu, prepare the feast and the table (a much better festive cook than daily one), invite friends and family, play the hostess. I am sad that I am not able to do this at all given the sad state of my current lifestyle and also, as many of you well know, the sad state of my Boston kitchen (the bitchen).

I have also long felt bolstered, supported, and most happy when I am surrounded by those that I love, and not just my nuclear family, but a diverse and exciting group of friends from multiple areas of life. I've never particularly been good at integrating these group of friends, and this is something I am really working on for the joy experieced not only multiplies, it becomes exponentially incremented. It's happening, day by day; I can actually feel it building, congealing--it is so cool! (And I wonder, if in part, it is due to the fact that the single greatest isolating force in my life is now gone--we can all share in the love now people.)

It all boils down to this: a rotating cast of new and old friends from various backgrounds, experience, and friendship tenure, a large table, good food, multiple bottles of wine. The results are 100% predictable: good conversation, good laughs, a little intensity, and truly a joyful Sunday eve. This is the life I want to create for myself, and hopefully with my partner.

While I likely won't repeat my parents' experiment of a group or dual-family home, I do want life to extend beyond the nuclear family, and have that life extend into my home. And I now more than ever understand what their goals were. I want my children to feel comfortable with adults, to have a seat at the table. I want my friends and family to really know each other. I want to live life alongside the people I love, not just with short visits interspersed in spare moments. I want to extend and support the ecosystem of such incredible individuals that has grown around me. With each other, we are stronger; with each other, we exponentiate our joy and our strength.

People, just you wait. This is going to be great.