Maya Angelou is quoted as saying that, “Sitting down to a table is one of the few times we can be intimate with one another.”  Inviting friends to share a meal at home, or making an effort to meet in restaurants for lunch or dinner takes on even more importance in light of that thought.

There’s a lot to be said for the intimacy of sitting around a table. The food is important, of course, but the relaxed nature of being seated while eating contributes to convivial sharing of ideas. When friends connect, there’s often the spontaneous laughter of shared memories.

I’m focussing on the friendship table here because, in retirement, we have the luxury of time. During the child rearing, work centric years, the family table justifiably took center stage. Dinners at home were important, as were restaurant meals where the cooking and clean up were taken out of the equation, and the family seated together at a table became the focus. Our kids are now juggling the work, school, lessons, practices that dominated and shaped our lives for so many years. It’s their turn to figure out how to carve the time for connection around that table.

The table is where hopes are shared and plans are made. Some of my fondest memories are lunches with Betsy through the years. If we found ourselves both free on any given day, the discussion would turn to where we should go to lunch. Now that I think of it, we still do that. Our local college search revolved around lunch opportunities. Babson won. I’m not saying that it’s exclusively because of the restaurants in the area, but Blue Ginger remains high on our hit parade.

Happily, we travel in a circle where shared meals at home and in restaurants remain a priority. May that continue in the years to come.