106 animal, vegetable, miracle
We set up a sound system on the back patio, dragged bales of straw
into benches, and eyed the sky, which threatened rain all day Saturday
but by late afternoon had not delivered. We carried a horse trough out of
the barn and filled it with ice to chill our Virginia Chambourcin and Misty
River wines, and beer from a nearby microbrewery. The lamb kabobs on
the grill made all our mouths water for an hour while Kay and her helpers
worked their mojo in our kitchen. The food, when it came out, was ap-
plauded: the summer rolls were saucy, the lamb succulent, the frittata
puffy and light. The strawberry- rhubarb crisp vanished into thin air.
Here’s what we didn’t have: the shrimp arranged in a ring like pink poker
chips; those rock- hard broccoli wedges and lathed carrots surrounding
the ubiquitous white dip; the pile of pineapple and melon chunks on a
platter. Nobody seemed too disappointed.
Some of us were in fact sticking our fingers into the rhubarb- crisp
pans to lick up crumbs when the music started. The three- year- olds were
the first ones out on the flagstone dance floor, of course, followed closely
by my seventy- fi ve- year- old parents, the teenagers and the elders and the
middle-aged, recklessly dancing across age categories. And it still didn’t
rain. Nobody fell in the creek, nobody went hungry, and nobody’s hus-
band refused to dance. When the night chilled us we built a huge bonfi re,
and nobody fell into that either. Midnight found me belting out backup
harmonies with my cousin Linda to “You Can’t Always Get What You
Want” by the Rolling Stones. The over- fifty crowd stayed on its feet until
two in the morning. You get what you need.
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I’d asked for no presents. The stuff- acquisition curve of my life has
long since peaked and lately turned into a campaign against accumula-
tion, with everyday skirmishes on the kitchen table. Not just mail and
school papers, either, I mean stuff on that table. (Shoes, auto parts, live
arthropods in small wire cages.) “No presents,” I said. “Really.” But here
in Dixie we will no more show up to a party empty- handed than bare-
bottomed, because that’s how we were raised. A covered dish is standard,
but was unnecessary in this case. To make everyone comfortable we had
to suggest an alternative.