Meatballs
Making sure communal eating actually happens. (Hint: It doesn't have to be meatballs.)
(Expected reading time: 4-6 minutes.)
522. Meatballs
. . . One of the most important things we can do in community is Communal Eating (147), which strengthens our connections to The Family (75) in the broadest possible sense. Eating together is also one of the simplest and most powerful experiences of Mutuality (507 - to be published) available to us. But the pace and distraction of modern life compel us to find new forms of time-honored patterns, ones that will actually work for our lived reality.
Hosting a gathering, even an informal one, has become too much of a daunting task for most of us.
We are worried and self-conscious about cleaning the house before people come over. We don’t have time to cook something impressive. Our friends or relatives are too busy. Everyone is overwhelmed by the nonstop flood of information and disinformation coming at us.
As the forms and rhythms of our housing and our work lives have changed in recent decades, it feels as if gatherings of any kind need to be planned and optimized, the same way we feel pressure to optimize the rest of our lives. Kids used to play together spontaneously in their neighborhoods; now, we drive them to scheduled play dates. The same shift has happened for their parents, and for people who do not live in nuclear family arrangements.
Even those resources which are meant to help us see each other more often and more successfully, like Priya Parker’s wonderful book The Art of Gathering, can create the feeling that hanging out with friends is one more imposing project to tackle, with its own nested to-do list of sub-tasks.
How can we possibly make time for each other, when we are already so overwhelmed?
In 2014, writer Sarah Grey published an article on Serious Eats about Friday Night Meatballs, a weekly practice that she and her husband kicked off to address their own feelings of isolation as freelancers who worked from home all the time.
Grey reports on her experience and shares a number of lessons learned from hosting Friday Night Meatballs. But central to their practice, she says, was learning how to let go of some of the self-imposed pressures to make everything perfect:
Stop giving a shit. Really. Your family and friends want to see you, relax, and eat meatballs. They do not care if your apartment is small or if there is dust on the mantlepiece. They might not even see the dust: That's what the candlelight's for! And if they do, screw 'em. (Or draft them to wash the dishes.) I'd rather spend my life eating with friends in a messy house than refusing to have anyone over because the place isn't nice enough for guests.
Patty Smith made a similar point in a recent widely-shared post from Supernuclear about Stoop Coffee:
Keeping it simple: we’ve realized that some of our best events require the smallest amount of effort. To avoid burnout, we’ve intentionally kept our community building as low-lift as possible, which has the added benefit of creating space for other people to step up.
In the age of social media, even informal day-to-day practices that are meant to be good for us can become performative and stressful. The point of Friday Night Meatballs (and Stoop Coffee) is to reduce requirements to ensure that the ritual actually happens, to the benefit of the community.
Therefore:
Let every family, workplace, and social group find ways to gather for communal eating, as informally as possible, so that the rituals are sustainable for everyone. Look for ways to share the effort of convening these gatherings, so that no one person or household feels burdened by the project. Use the power of repetition - weekly, monthly, or otherwise - to reinforce the habit of enjoying each other’s company.
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Meatballs are obviously suited to a Farmhouse Kitchen (139) if one is available, but the informality extends to the choice of venue - a Six-Foot Balcony (167) or even a Sitting Circle (185) can work just fine. If the community has enough energy to work toward creating a Clubhouse (531 - to be published), that can also serve as a wonderful place to gather. In all of this, make good and wise use of the Activation Energy (543 - to be published) available within yourself and the group. . . .
Next time in Patterns for Thriving: It’s time for us to talk about playgrounds.
In parallel with this project I’m started a new community radio show, Postcards from Jubilee Station (Spotify) (Apple), which uses these patterns to offer a story-based meditation practice. What does it feel like when we all decide to be generous with each other - with all of us? In recent episodes, we’ve hosted Mom for Mother’s Day weekend, and had North African breakfast tacos at the farmers’ market in town. Hope to see you over there.
Yours in noshing, Michael
Michael, that hits home. In an effort to remember to stay in touch with friends I have literally created categories and tasks and subtasks in my reminders app. And it never works because it’s just one more thing to do and I don’t do it. Shame ! 😭 It’s just about showing up in all our imperfection (dusty mantles and all). Thanks.