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Day 2 of the conference, and nice memories of my visit here with my father. At dinner last night (at the always exquisite gem of Matyson) I found myself reflecting on the fact that my family spends a great deal of its time together focusing on meals. We’re not quite so bad as to be talking about dinner while eating lunch, but we do gather around meals, and so meal time (and location) is very important. Food centers us, locates us, and binds us (in positive ways). We all like food, and we’ve tended to bring new people to the family who also enjoy food. So it is a part of our visiting one another; our celebrations shared. Perhaps this comes from the divorce so early on – we quickly found ourselves spending time with our extended family only at the holidays. Holidays, of course, means meals shared . . . and so the pattern was created. (So clear, in retrospect.)

This is not a terrible pattern to manifest, although I can see how it might lead to horrid problems (eating disorders and the like) if the family dynamics are overly warped. (Let’s be clear, shall we? My family, including me, is crazy (aren’t all families crazy?). But we’re working on communicating with one another and healing the wounds of childhood. Not actively, we’re not in therapy, but we are having conversations through the years, and have been since I was in college. That’s about 20 years for those of you who keep count.)

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