Our Table Trek
“So long as we still reflect each other (even deformed) as through silver spoons, wine glasses, and exultant bottles on the table of a dinner party about to begin, things can’t be that bad.”
The offering I bring to you today is a reflection rather than a story. It is a tale that did not exist eighteen years ago. It is a remembrance of a shared journey that has unfolded scene by scene. That is why we have chosen to refer to it as a “trek”, generally described as a long, challenging, journey by foot or (as we like to think of it) a purposeful, extended trip or migration.
I use “trek” in a very expansive sense. For us, Joanie and Clay, it rather connotes a journey of discovery, an inner journey to find meaning in the company of others, in conversation and good cheer.
This site represents our take on life (idiosyncratic and ultimately permeated with romance) life as it is enhanced and expressed through sight and smell and taste and contemplation. We believe that the only “real” answers to the confusion, distractedness and disconnectedness that many of us feel is a return to community—to learn how to be together again. We believe that the “table” (in the literal and symbolic sense) is a good place to start. A place to be approached openly, with open minds, open hands, open spirits. No “devices” (technical or intellectual) allowed.
We try to practice what we preach.
Here, at the table, is where we share our love for good food, candlelight, and flowers with the people we care about.
For eighteen years, Joanie and I have felt ultra fortunate to have encountered each other in a way where we have had the honor of experiencing a melding into something like “one”. In some ways we are exceptionally different. As in life, differences can be a source of separation but, in others, vehicles of completion.
At our table, we have discovered shared values which include the need for companionship, and perhaps most importantly, a strong desire to engage others in discovery of who they are rather than simply what they do. We try hard to view the world and those who inhabit it with as much compassion as we can muster, without losing the essence of who we are and what defines our true identity.
At times this also involves some rather “fierce” conversations when our individual ways of processing come into conflict, sometimes in ways that may seem trivial to one or the other. In sum, this has allowed us to understand each other through a frank sharing of feelings, helping us realize that our friction is more often about the need for better communication rather than true disagreement.
All that having been said, our mutuality about the things that really matter makes us a functioning entity. Where that has taken us is the places and the contexts of life that define our happiness and pleasure of existence, with some sorrows and disappointments as well.
The quotation I shared at the beginning helps to explain what I have said so far. I sincerely hope that what we have written does not come across as too personal an approach, for which I apologize, but without a shred of guilt. This thing that we are trying to do through this site is in fact a testimonial of sorts.
It seems the best way to proceed is to share with you, our reader, some anecdotes of our sharing food, wine, and companionships with others.
We regularly, for ten years or so after we met, entertained in our small cozy house. Sometimes with other couples or small gatherings for wine tastings, or back porch cookouts. In good weather, the back porch has been our chosen venue because it is ten feet wide, runs the whole back of the house and is covered. It shelters us beautifully from the summer sun and looks out over a very private, fenced backyard that is the home to a small vegetable garden (mostly heirloom tomatoes) in the summer months, framed by the gracious generosity of a few muscadine vines that dot the landscape. Our small lawn of soft-bladed Augustine grass looks after itself wonderfully, providing a plush bed for romantic stargazing on clear, warm nights.
“A shared meal is the beginning of friendship.”
The true beginning of our regular dinners was during Covid. We had a small group of friends who we knew were acting responsibly (some we had entertained regularly—others not as much). Most of us were colleagues from my days working at the university. We all had our first round of vaccines and were sheltering in place. We started small, making sure everyone felt comfortable meeting on the back porch around our large farm house table—fans blazing and enough space to spread out. At first, we only met occasionally, just wanting to get out and fight the isolating, monotony. Over time, as it became clear the quarantine-like conditions would not end any time soon, our get-togethers, became more regular until soon dinner time felt like “going home” (family, you might say). I often referred to our newly banded dinner group (or “The Pod” as one member referred to us) as a “functional family at Thanksgiving”. Thankful indeed we all were to experience those gracious and tender moments that lighted our way during dark, troubled times.
What we knew at the beginning was that we all truly enjoyed wine as food. We had traveled together and shared from our respective collections (cellars?). We began the practice of sometimes serving them at the table blind, so that we could play little tasting games. Our palates were not all equally experienced, so we called it “guessing” and, mostly, we developed our descriptive skills and broadened our vocabularies (being careful not to use terms such as “wrong”). We found out that the same wine had distinctly different characteristics for some of us. We talked about whether a given wine went better with (or enhanced) the given menu item. We had fun—serious about the wine but never taking it too seriously.
“Wine is meant to be enjoyed with food, and the best wines enhance the meal.”
All this is to say that what happened was a deepening of the experience of dining. We lingered long after the plates had been cleared, putting off the inevitable need to depart—savoring each moment together. When it was deemed safe to travel again, a few of us took a trip to California where we visited two of our favorite wine regions (Amador County and Mendocino) with a few stops in between. We eschewed hotel rooms for a common house so that we could be together, as was our habit. Our relationships continued to deepen, and even though we came from different backgrounds and vocations, our conversations at the table were anything but superficial. Sometimes they were even “animated”.
All this is to say that as we dined and tasted and explored our respective lives, we also learned some compassion and care for who we were, not just what we do. We all came from very different backgrounds and even though our politics were not the same we avoided, (for the most part), topics such as public policy and religion, holding back when we knew that we were coming too close to a personal line. We also forgave each other, as the bond we forged had become too precious to lose.
It is sad to think that many people do not have the privilege to truly dine. We become disheartened in the rare times we have dinner “out” to observe too often precious moments reduced to the glow of a small screen and silence instead of candlelight and presence.
They are missing the “magic” of being at our table.
The same could be said about most of life’s mysteries. Some just chose to “let the mystery be” thereby ignoring the beauty of the people and the world outside their little islands.
So, we extend an invitation, perhaps an evocation: Be with one another. Break bread. Share a glass of something celebratory. Sit a while and commune. Give each other the gift of presence. We believe deeply that our greatest riches can be found by simply being together.
“Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by doubling our joys and dividing our grief.”
— Cicero, De Amicitia (44 BCE)