Inside My Table #88 | Excerpt
Editor’s Letter—The Deluge
By Teresa Byrne-Dodge
It’s been a hair-raising ride these past few months. But even as the economy bucks and twists and plunges, we have to carry on with pretty much the same routine as always. At my house, I drive my son to school every morning. After school, he’s taking driver’s ed (now that’s scary). There’s homework, packs of teen-age boys who drop by to play Guitar Hero, large dogs to be walked and fed. Most evenings he and I have dinner together, sometimes watch a DVD from Netflix.
By day I work at my computer, wait for the mechanic to tell me the car is repaired (again), call my dad on Veterans’ Day, get a haircut, buy groceries, go to aerobics class. The cleaning lady comes on Friday, and I weed the garden on Saturday. I often think the best two hours of the week are 5 to 7 pm Saturday, listening to Prairie Home Companion, as I have for 25 years. My kids think that’s horrifyingly middle-aged, but I don’t mind. They don’t know it yet, but routine is underrated.
No matter how you feel about Barak Obama’s election — and, for the record, I am elated — no one seems to be blasé about the upcoming inauguration. There are folks who dread more punishing taxes, which they seem to believe the future holds. Many of us, however, are so hopeful as to be almost giddy. A new administration is the proverbial candle in the future’s darkness.
Day to day? We need to hold fast and let our routines carry us along. Here’s a small suggestion as we come barreling into another holiday season. In a time of impermanence and scary forecasts, what is more comforting than sharing a meal with friends or family? Our fears are not really about droopy bank accounts and the melting-away of retirement funds. Well, maybe they are. But I think, really, we dread that we cannot provide for our families the way we would like. Hurricane Ike also reminded Houstonians of what is dear and how close disaster can blow. The world is a scary place, and it’s stacked against us.
So could we all agree that the world should still center on love, generosity and celebration of the small things? And aren’t we lucky that in moderately priced Houston we can still get a good meal at a fair price? That we can still have a glass of sparkling wine on New Year’s Eve? That we can eat and drink and laugh together? That we can still spread happiness?
