“They came for dinner, but ended up staying for brunch.”
Today was a splendid morning that began at 4:00 a.m. when I got up to pee.
I almost stayed up because I had slept 7 hours and did not know if I could get back to sleep. Then my wife invited me back to bed to keep her warm. I fired up the Kindle and slipped under the covers while doing my due diligence to be a dependable heat source.
In my Kindle book, I read a story about guests coming for dinner and then staying for brunch. That kind of a friendship experience idea impacted me and I pondered it for a while. Eventually my eyes got heavy and I turned off my Kindle, rolled over, and went back to sleep. I was soon in the twilight zone between sleep and dreaming. I knew I was dreaming and sometimes I thought I was awake.
I dreamed about dinner turning into brunch.
I thought, “This dream has a future.”
This is a story based on that dream. I imagined it happening and simply put words to what I saw and felt. It also draws upon some ideas taken from real life experiences.
Dinner to Brunch
We gathered a few couples for dinner at our home.
We grilled charcoal burgers together on the big copper colored Weber kettle grill after dramatically lighting the charcoal with a flamethrower. The Kingsford briquets were glowing orange within about one minute. The burgers sizzled and cherry wood smoke billowed out of the grill vents.
Dinner included Cajun fries cooked in peanut oil on the turkey fryer. We griddled some crisp onions and made some spicy guacamole for the burgers and served them on butter toasted English Muffins.
In advance, we had requested that each couple bring one question to share with each other over the course of the evening.
The thought was that the unique questions would stimulate quality conversation that would mark that night as one to remember.
After burger time, some of us cleaned up the dinner dishes while others set up chairs around the fire pit and got a fire going with hickory and cedar logs and a couple of fine smelling chunks of piñon wood.
Since it was the Christmas season, one lady had the foresight to bring the ingredients for mulled wine. Some of us filled our coffee mugs with the spicy warm liquid comfort. We then gathered close to the crackling fire because it was just a tad chilly. A couple of folks wore wool beanie caps and I wore my leather Australian style hat.
When it felt right we began to ask our questions and share our thoughts and stories.
We experienced deep ideas, kind connections, joyous unrestrained laughter, and a couple of tears. Our faces reflected the orange glow of the fire.
Nobody got drunk, but we had just enough wine to relax us and share perhaps a little bit deeper than we might have done if we were completely sober. My eyes teared up as I considered how grateful that I was to be sitting around a nice fire sharing the stories of our lives. It felt like the tapestries of our hearts wove a bit tighter that night. I felt a tender connection with each person around the fire.
I sensed that we were making important memories in the storybooks of our lives. Some of the feelings included gentle expressions of emotion, crisp night air, smoke scent, warmth from the fire, and a mild wine euphoria. I closed my eyes and expressed my gratefulness to the creator. I locked an image of that moment into my memory for safe keeping so that I could go back to it any time.
It was a precious moment. I felt known, heard, seen, and celebrated and hoped that others were experiencing the same things.
When the fire started fading we went inside to share some music. We took turns choosing songs. We listened together and then talked about what the song meant to us. Some reminisced about what was going on in their lives at the time when the song was popular. We got a glimpse into each other’s pasts. We celebrated our experiences then and now.
The song sharing experience went even better than we had anticipated and it also went much later than we had planned. As some of us were starting to fall asleep, there was a distinct palpable magical quality in the air that we did not want to interrupt. So, we invited our friends to sleep over. Everyone said yes and ended up sleeping soundly.
One by one we each woke up gently and quietly then slipped downstairs to sip fine strong French pressed coffee. Some enjoyed maple syrup and heavy whipping cream in theirs while staring at the fire in the fireplace. Some sipped hot chocolate. And I mixed hot chocolate with my coffee because that reminded me of camping in Texas when our boys were young. I won’t soon forget the image of our friends wrapping their hands around steaming ceramic mugs of hot comforting beverages, while wearing their favorite flannel pajamas, with wild morning hair flying in random directions, and staring into the fire as if it had the answers to important questions about life. Fire therapy. Some watched it. Others backed up to it to draw warmth. There was life in that fire.
While we were gradually waking up together some breakfast sausage patties were cooking in the smoker over pecan wood. Since the smoker is near the back door, a little bit of the smoke scent slipped into the house.
One by one everyone eventually made it downstairs and we began making breakfast together.
One guy made impressive gluten free biscuits. I made mushroom gravy based on the recipe that I reverse engineered from the Denver Biscuit Company. Some sat around the kitchen island on stools and watched and conversed while others cooked.
Morning conversation is different than any other kind. Our friend Cheryl says that is because we receive a re-set while we sleep and therefore we are fresh. Also, we are not carrying the weight and experiences of the day like we would at a dinner or evening conversation. Fires and early mornings are the backdrop for some of life’s better stories and heart connections. One of the things that I appreciated about our conversations was that these people all listen really well. They honored each other by not interrupting, not one-upping, or giving unasked for advice. They just listened. There were several long pauses as the person contemplated how to say something. And it was sweet that nobody jumped in to fill the silence. We simply waited for the idea to incubate, form, and turn into words. Those long silences were perhaps one of my favorite experiences of the morning because they said something about the tender care and honor that our friends have for each other. It is bliss to be asked questions and listened to well.
We also made creative delightful breakfast sandwiches that we invented. We intentionally left out bacon because, as unbelievable as it sounds, two of those in the group don’t like the smell of bacon. Some of the sandwich ingredients included crispy hash browns, hollandaise sauce, scrambled egg patties cooked in hoops, and smoked sausage.
We drank orange juice in plastic Kool-Aid cups and cranberry juice in wine glasses.
We talked fondly a bit about the night before and savored the richness of our well-seasoned friendships.
The day that dinner turned into brunch was a mighty splendid one indeed!
It is a fine chapter in the book of our lives.