Family dinners used to be seamless, chaotic yet orchestrated, cajoling the moments like motes in the air around them to bundle together and create each chip of a memory.
They came like the seasons, but daily, so like the weather. The barrier of the dinner table warded off evil omens and negative feelings as fork and spoon took pitchfork and torch to stave off the beasts that would interrupt the meal's enjoyment.
With five faces, there were five sources of stories, of opinions, of know-betters and no-you're-nots.
Just beyond the table lay a portal to abundance, still warm by stove and oven, where one could fill their fill from the fountain before setting back down at their seat.
These times have crystallized in my memories as pure gemstones, ornaments of joy hanging evergreen from the boughs of nostalgia.
These days meals are much more of a build-up to distraction. The work and thought put into cooking must overcome the hurdles of intrusive thought, music, and idle iPhone apps nipping at the heels of my attention. A dish's crowning achievement becomes trying to find the right YouTube video to watch while eating. And I like cooking; it's just that the flow of this moment, this mealtime magic, has subsided, tides stilted by hazier moons.
Part of me feels like I'm flipping playing cards across a growing chasm in the ground, pretending at once that it's a game and that it's no threat to me, really, besides it's still so small in this state, isn't it?
But when you look across the floor and see a checkerboard of holes cropping up on the scene, I wonder if it's playing cards or straws that, once broken, get to raise that final alarm.