{"id":6875,"date":"2022-03-08T07:29:45","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T12:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=6875"},"modified":"2022-03-09T07:17:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T12:17:14","slug":"setting-the-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2022\/03\/setting-the-table\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting the Table"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the eldest daughter in a big family, it fell to me to set the table as my mother prepared dinner each night. Once my father arrived home from work, all seven of us ate together. I grew up with both \u201ceveryday\u201d dishes and \u201cgood\u201d porcelain china, reserved for holidays and special occasions. When I got married, I registered for and received \u201dgood china,\u201d but I set a table for my family using simpler, stoneware plates.<\/span><\/p>\n

When my husband died, our dinners became more casual, with less of a focus on the ceremony and more centered on communicating about our day. Once my kids became involved in extracurricular activities, like sports, scouts and friends, dinner was rushed; no one set the table, it was every woman for herself. Pasta. Chicken nuggets. Pizza. Ramen. Repeat. We often ate in front of the television, then they went off to do homework before bed. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019m an empty nester, my \u201ctable\u201d is actually a tray, but it\u2019s set: fork, knife, water glass, cloth napkin. I bring it to the family room to eat while catching the nightly news and a little <\/span>Jeopardy<\/span><\/i>. This is, actually, what my mother did in later life, when she was an empty nester. My siblings and I would chide her about taking her good china and silver with her to her smaller house where she ate off Pottery Barn plates. \u201cUse the china that makes you happy,\u201d we\u2019d say, to no avail. <\/span><\/p>\n

As I slowly downsize for my next, smaller home, I ask myself why I\u2019m packing my good china instead of selling it. I haven\u2019t used it in a long time, but knowing it\u2019s behind the doors of the china cabinet is a sentimental comfort that harkens back to the promise of my marriage and what the future would hold: proper dinner parties with perfectly plated meals for family and friends. That spelled success to me. <\/span><\/p>\n

My daughters don\u2019t want the china. And like my mother, I wouldn\u2019t use it while dining alone. I don\u2019t see myself doing any entertaining on the scale that would merit the lovely French china, but if such an occasion should arise, I know how to set a table. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the eldest daughter in a big family, it fell to me to set the table as my mother prepared dinner each night. Once my father arrived home from work, all seven of us ate together. I grew up with…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Setting the Table<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6879,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":null,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":null,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-voices-views"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"","source_text":"","source_url":""},"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6875"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6878,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6875\/revisions\/6878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}