Love this thought about family dinner time from Shauna Niequist - exactly so: "being together puts me back together".
I love us eating together. I'm pretty focused on eating the food whilst it's still hot, but once the meal's well under way, I love the family chat and banter,and I especially love us talking around the table or on the sofas for a few minutes once we've finished eating. We're not "big hot topic" people in our mealtime conversations, but we do need that chatting time to reconnect and catch up with eachother. What I hadn't identified before reading Shauna's words, is that this time together is like medicine for me - reconnecting and calming after a full and busy day.
This week we started reminiscing about our summer holiday - the holiday of a lifetime,travelling around the States - and the topic this time was the food and the various meals we'd eaten. Talking about the meals triggered the memories of different places we stayed, different people we met and different experiences we had. It was great to share and laugh and remember.
I guess that's true if you're eating with just one other person, with family or with friends. Around the table, at the end of our busy and separate days, "Being together puts me back together".
One of our "food memories" from the US holiday - Sandra's Breakfast Casserole