Celebrate “ordinary” days
Cindy on June 14th, 2008
“It’s a funny thing about life. If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.” â Somerset Maugham
âOh look, you’re using your good china,â my mom said as we gathered at my table for dinner. The winter holidays were long past and there were no anniversaries or birthdays to toast, which is why Mom was so surprised to see my grandmother’s gold-rimmed dishes and goblets gleaming by candlelight on an otherwise ordinary evening.
I’m not by nature a fussy hostess, and excessive formality makes me nervous. Over the years, my mother and other family members have gotten used to being served on casual ceramic dinnerware â or even on leftover paper plates stamped with birthday balloons and purple dinosaurs.
So why the fine china? I think it’s because I’m getting philosophical in my middle age. Why save my best dinnerware for company or so-called special occasions? Doesn’t my family deserve to enjoy the nicest things we own?
Likewise, I often wonder why we reserve our “good clothes” for special occasions. If you’re like me, you have at least one terrific outfit you’re saving for a time when you’ll be invited to some momentous affair — maybe a banquet at the White House or a reception at the Vatican. Outfits like this droop on their hangers, unworn for years, until they go out of style and end up at a local resale shop. Meanwhile, we spend most of our time in sloppy jeans and sweats. After all, our best friends and family love us as we are, and it isn’t as if Harrison Ford is going to ring the doorbell.
You’ve doubtless heard the popular catchphrase, âLife isn’t a dress rehearsal,â which is printed on everything from inspirational posters to shopping bags. But there’s poignant truth in it. Good china and candles aren’t just for fancy dinner parties: We should use them to honor and brighten our everyday meals. And we ought to at least try to look nice for the people whose homes and lives we share. There’s little merit in saving our best for a precious event that might never happen.
This occurred to me last week when I reorganized my files and found an old birthday card I’d purchased for my dad (and quickly forgotten) not long before he died. âI’m so glad you’re my father,â it began in sentimental, greeting-card prose. Because I missed the chance to give that card to my dad, it has remained unsigned in a drawer for several years. But I still can’t manage to throw it away.
While browsing in an antiques shop recently, I found a charming Quimper plate that would fit perfectly in my mother’s collection. (Had I been looking for it, of course, it wouldn’t have been there.)Â So I bought it on the spot, knowing full well that I wasn’t going to save it for her birthday or Mother’s Day. Those occasions seemed too far off in the nebulous future, and I wanted Mom to enjoy her gift right away. Later that afternoon, I drove to her house and gave her the plate â without ceremony, wrapping, or ribbon.
It could have been just another uneventful Saturday on my calendar. But it felt like a real celebration. – Cindy La Ferle
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This essay was originally published in Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion and is included my newest essay collection, Writing Home, distributed to bookstores by Wayne State University Press and available on Amazon.com
June 20th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Cindy, your blog reminded me of a story from my husband’s grandmother. She told me that one night, she heard a television preacher ask his viewers why they were saving their good dishes. She decided that night to pull out her good china and started to use them everyday. After she passed away, I got to keep a platter from her set, and every time I use it, I think of what she said.