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Archive for the ‘Invitation’ Category

The Party Alternative – Guest Post from JoAnne Silvia

Posted in Andilit, Feast, Invitation on March 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Rose of sharon

I met JoAnne Silvia in the Andilit writing community. She knows how to get right to the heart of a matter, so it is perfectly fitting that she is my first guest poster for this series. I am ecstatic to share her words here today on invitation. 

Years ago, when I was still licking my wounds from divorce and the rebound from hell, I was at church and overheard some people talking about a garden party.

My church family is loving and accepting, but I was in a bad place. I wondered if would get an invitation as those childhood feelings of being outside the popular crowd rose from dormancy. The personal invitation didn’t come.

I would have liked to have gone to the party, but when I didn’t get the invitation, I scheduled something else for that same time. I’d been struggling with some health issues that turned out to be stress related, issues originating from the rebound from hell on the heels of divorce. Knowing someone who did hypnotherapy, I decided to give it a try. It turned out she was available on the same afternoon as the party.  Not wanting to sit home alone whilst the party was going on, I scheduled the session. That way, I wouldn’t be able to go to the party anyway, because I had other plans.

The hypnosis session turned out to be an important step in my healing. Lying on the massage table, I remained fully conscious, but in an altered state where emotions of grief and insights of my needs were easily accessible. I cried out my anguish. Water and dogs, two constant loves, surfaced from my subconscious mind as the medicine I needed. Swimming soothed me. Dogs offered unconditional love.

I know I was in an altered state, because, when I came out of hypnosis, it was the same feeling I felt after giving birth: a profound shift in awareness, from an extremely inward focus, to a suddenly acute awareness of my surroundings. The intense emotions evaporated instantly.

The next Sunday at church, a friend mentioned she was sorry I wasn’t able to make it to the party.

“I wasn’t invited,” I stated simply. I didn’t mean to sound so pitiful.

“Oh.” She looked bewildered.

Not long after that, the person who hosted the garden party had another get-together. She came to me directly and looked me in the eye.

“I want you to come to my party.”  She said it slowly with clear intention.

I firmly believe, now, that my not being invited to the garden party, was an oversight. I know how that can happen, I guess. You think you’ve invited someone, or assumed everyone knew they were invited. Did my wounded state lead me to assume I wasn’t invited?

If the lack of invitation happened today, under those same circumstances, I would assume it was an oversight, and dig around to get more information. Provided I wanted to be included, I would fish for an invitation, or maybe just ask, “So, I heard you’re having a party, Is everyone invited?”

But maybe I wasn’t supposed to go to the garden party. Maybe on that particular afternoon, I was supposed to be lying on that massage table, in the dim light, in that quiet place of personal healing.

JoAnne Silvia
http://joannaoftheforest.wordpress.com/

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An Invitation To Feast

Posted in Feast, Invitation on March 3, 2015| 12 Comments »

When I think of what it means to be invited to the table, my first thoughts come in broad terms. I think of empowerment. I dream of burning patriarchy’s house to the ground. I look for new ways to lay down my selfishness and spend a little more money in better ways to ensure a livable wage for people who work hard to grow/make/produce the things I want. I remember my Riot Grrrl days, and I still hear the revolution(s).

Soon, more concrete images come to mind:

  • Having dinner for the first time in my friends’ new house
  • How risotto-in-progress looks when it’s time to add more liquid to it
  • Ladybug cupcakes and gallons of sherbet punch
  • Champagne and steak and chipotle mayo
  • Conversation that sparks over delicious treats

photo 2 (3)

And finally, pondering what invitation is leads to thoughts of what it is not. For many of us, invitation carries both hope and sting – both fond and painful memories. It’s seeing the picture on social media and thinking, “Hey, the whole group is there…except me,” and trying to convince yourself that it must have been because they all spontaneously appeared and decided at the last minute to sit together, not because they didn’t choose (or worse – forgot) to include you. It’s the public conversation about tonight’s outing that doesn’t notice that there are people nearby whose invitations must have gotten lost in the mail. It’s being overqualified for what you do because you are repeatedly overlooked for what you could do. It’s all the little intersections that conspire to make the way easier for some than it is for others.

It’s the not-quite-finished spot on my table that matches the not-quite-part-of-it part of me.

photo 1 (3)

In the process of writing Feast, I have been listening to stories that reveal that invitation is not as simple as it seems on the surface. I want to listen to more stories, and I’m going to take you with me. I am going to start sharing and telling these stories every Tuesday. Sometimes, these posts will be link-intensive, because there are a lot of people talking about how wonderful it feels to be invited and how terrible it can feel to be excluded. Sometimes, these posts will be snapshots of my own experience.

I hope most of these posts, however, come from you. I’m opening the floor to your experiences. The prompt is simple:

What does it mean to be invited to the table?

You can send pictures or stories (or both). You can touch on things I’ve mentioned above or, because my experience as just one human out of billions is inherently limited, you can touch on things I haven’t even fathomed. It can be a few sentences, or it can be a whole post. I want to hear from you. In case anyone hasn’t invited you to the conversation before, I want to invite you now.

Email your contribution to coffeesnob@gmail.com, including any pictures, your bio, your website/blog link, or anything else you want to include. I will also take anonymous posts (please indicate clearly in the email if this is your wish, and I will honor it).

I look forward to hearing from you. *hands you virtual cup of coffee/glass of wine/cookie/bacon*

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