At the turn of the century, Marcus and I chose dishes for our wedding registry. Fact Check: I chose dishes for our wedding registry! I had spent roughly 9 months working in the home department at Herberger’s in Moorhead a couple of years before when I was a junior at Moorhead State University. The same year I began learning Greek, I learned Pfaltzgraff patterns. Both were magical in their own way.
Pfaltzgraff patterns are mesmerizing – maybe even hypnotic! You focus on the pattern and begin to picture your life with these dishes. You imagine who will sit at a table with you and these dishes. You picture the beautiful food you will eat and imagine the rich stories you might share. In your hypnotic state, you dream of how much love be passed around the table among the perfect family you have just made up in your head.
The Rio pattern caught my attention back in 1998. It is pottery dinnerware, which seemed casual and also grown-up. Two shades of blue and cream color these heavier dishes. I didn’t realize they are heavier dishes.
The truth is Rio was not the best choice. The dinner dishes have not fit well in some of our dishwashers and a heavy plate is not ideal for little kids. They have been sturdy, however, which is ideal for little kids. Even so, Rio is being replaced.
With a gift St. John gave me for my 15-year anniversary, I bought new dishes. Again, I chose the dishes! Marcus will place delicious food on them. Our roles have become clearer in 21 years! But the hypnosis wore off long ago. The Rio dishes were not set before a perfect family. I can only guess that never once have we enjoyed a perfect meal without any spilling of milk or careless words. The family I dreamed up has never once shown up for dinner!
Instead, the table is where we gather as human beings who have often had a long day, a tough conversation or two, friendships that were strained, and problems that were hard.
As the Rio pattern is replaced, I now have a better, non-hypnotic picture of the family that will use the new dishes. It is not the same family I had imagined! The same is true for you. The people who show up in our lives are not the ones we imagined. We can pick (and replace) the dinnerware pattern but not the people. We can set the table but not the cast of characters.
Which means you, unlike your dishes, are simply not replaceable.
Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
Lisa Lewton 