33. Delicious Food and Deep Discussions Around A Large Kitchen Table
Delicious Food:
As Arta hosted international graduate students, I was able to meet many of them and share get to know them and stories over dinners. We always met around her large kitchen table, often over a delicious meal, sharing conversation with people from all over the world. Sometimes it was Thanksgiving, perhaps homemade Indian food, often over steaming warm loaves of bread. We discussed people's thesis and dissertations, shared the similarities and differences we experienced living in different countries, and found friendship. I have no photos but I do have fond memories of these times.
Discussions:
I was down from Edmonton and lucky enough to join Arta and her family around their large kitchen table for many interesting and powerful discussions. One conversation Arta and Kelvin had with several of their adult children after attending LDS church one day centered around violence. We discussed the nature of verbal violence, discussed what emotional violence might look like, and thought about times we had seen or experienced violence. While nothing shared around the table was deeply traumatic or cruel, those speaking did help each other understand the connection between the human experience and violence. (I know, not the most happy memory but one that was significant enough for me to remember it years later.)
Important because I learned that people needed to talk to each other about meaningful topics and experiences. In sharing we connect, understand, and return to life a little more aware. These were my experiences around this magnificent kitchen table.
Always have a place for people to gather, share food, share stories, and share friendship. A large table will do just fine.
The Johnson Home was open to any and all who wanted to discuss and learn. Poor me, I was absent for those discussions because I lived elsewhere but my children often talked about them.
ReplyDeleteOne of the discussions on this important theme, Tonia, included for me hearing that each home has their own limit for the type and intensity of violence that is tolerated.
ReplyDeleteThat was a radical notion for me.
The notion that defining violence was not a clear cut issue, and that units of people might define and/or tolerate what other units did not.
Thank you for blogging this and being open to this topic.
I want to add a few things here, just to acknowledge them, have them witnessed. On the other hand, you raise the important point of trigger warnings, and trauma-informed language.
Perhaps I will find myself around another table, another time, when such hard topics can be discussed in a healthy, healing, informative way. I hope you are at that table, Tonia, and that we are eating out if home made pottery dishes.
PS: Have you read My Grandmother's Hands: Radicalized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Manakem? I'm looking for someone to talk with about it.