Currency of the Heart as Potluck Supper
Thank you Jennie Ashlock for the story and your patience, another form of "currency of the heart".
Thursday Nights
How may I describe
our Thursday night gatherings so you will understand their meaning? It is not a clear task, but one which I feel
compelled to tackle. I can begin by
telling you that they have occurred for two-and-a-half years. That is a fact because we started
when Annabelle, our youngest participant, was born and she is now that
age. So perhaps it is best to begin at
the beginning.
 |
| Jennie Ashlock |
My apartment
was too quiet. The kitchen was poised
like a stage ready for actors but there were none. Every time I opened the cabinets, the dishes
and glassware asked “when are we going to be used?” The forks and knives were no less
verbal. It was a cacophony of cutlery,
silent to all ears but mine.
So I
tinkered with ideas and decided, with winter coming on, to invite some women
with whom I was acquainted to enjoy a monthly evening of knitting and eating in
my home. We ate and consumed more wine
than we produced hats and scarves, but at least I had life in the apartment and
the dinnerware was, for now, satisfied.
We took a
break that summer and in early autumn, gathered around a friend’s kitchen table
in the back of her late nineteenth-century farm house. Deep afternoon light graced the room with a
sapphire hue as it shone through old medicine bottles and glassware trimming
the windowsill. Annabelle, barely one
month old, cooed from her carrier in the middle of the table. It was, as dusk turned to night, like an altar
– an infant Appalachian Madonna surrounded by adoring admirers, honoring her
and life with jelly jars of red wine sanctified by the holy presence of new
life.
As dark fell
across the fields and chicken pens, an idea arose that we meet weekly for
dinner and invite husbands, significant others and friends to join us. The idea was intriguing, for we enjoyed the camaraderie
offered through these meals.
If doing a
weekly potluck with what has grown into, at times, twelve to fifteen people
sounds daunting, I assure you it is possible.
For ease, we rotate homes. At
each meal, a different person self-identifies as the host for the following
week. The process is very organic in
that someone, during the course of the potluck, yells-out, “we’ll host next
week.” Then at some point over the next
few days, the new hosts send an email stating what they will make (i.e.,
chickpea ratatouille, dhal, red beans
and rice, ribs, salmon, lentil stew) and the rest of us respond with what we’ll bring (i.e., something
green, “not sure but I’ll be there,” wine, bread, something sweet).
Managing the
menu is clearly not a priority, which means we sometimes have all salads or, as
in one night, several potato dishes.
Pizza nights, however, always fall together. Friends built a cob oven in their garden and
on warm summer evenings, we delight over individual pizzas crisp and warm from
the wood-fired oven. Jelly jars, our
wine glasses of choice here in the mountains, are full and the pizza ingredients
abundant from local farms: mozzarella, goat cheese, sausage, arugala, pesto,
and tomatoes.
As I look
around the table each night, I feel gratitude for and comfort in being among this
rich, dense amalgam of humanity. Our ages
range from 2 1/2 to 65+ with our newest member to join us sometime in August
when he is due to be born. Professions
vary as widely as dietary preferences and religious and political beliefs. Yet we are lively, loud and immensely
entertaining in our being.
I asked the
group, over steaming plates of chickpea stew, quinoa, spinach, bread and wine,
to share a thought about what these meals mean.
One friend stated that we are like an “intentional community” in that we
are intentional about gathering. Our
only breaks are Thanksgiving and Christmas, and as long as two or three can
gather, we eat. We have no social
agenda, we do not ask for money or canned goods nor do we all work for one
cause; our only cause to be in community.
Tonight we gathered
at the park. It was the first warm,
spring evening of the season; a welcome herald of daffodils, vegetable gardens
and fireflies. Annabelle spent
dinnertime running between the table for nibbles of hotdog and the slide and
sandbox. Avram and I played a wicked
game of Frisbee on the basketball court while others held a heady conversation
about the pharmaceutical industry around the picnic table.
When dusk
arrived, I walked up the hill to my home where I proceeded to nurse a thumb
bruised from an awkward frisbee catch. Later
that night, I sat on the front porch with my bare feet propped on the railing
where a moist breeze danced over exposed skin.
I took-in deep breaths, filling my body with the scent of fresh earth and
an impending rainstorm. Meanwhile,
inside, all was silent and content.
Rosemary Williams launched Currency of the Heart to inspire readers to “pay it forward” from the heart’s most precious currency. We’d love to hear from you! To share your story or to request permission to republish this blog post, please email rosemary@womensperspective.org.
Prill went back to college in her 30s, graduated from Georgetown University at 38, began teaching at a community college at 40 and wrote the book, Defying Gravity, at 50. The book highlights other women who are "late bloomers" and “accomplished incredible things at an age when most people are beginning to wind down.” 
