[Sorry: the photo and the story are completely disjoint today, I think.]
Mark would talk with anyone. His daughters were appalled when he brought home a die-hard Trump supporter for dinner one night. Mark and his entire family had more left-leaning politics. During dinner, the guest held forth on the wonderful things Trump was doing for the country, oblivious to the fact that these statements, unlike other topics, led to no discussion whatsoever. The girls barely managed to keep it together during dinner and scattered immediately afterwards. The next night, they excoriated their father for bringing the man home. Mark said that he was a nice man. “He supports someone who molests women! He wears cowboy boots and acts as though they are the height of fashion! How could you think we would feel safe around him?” cried the daughters.
It seemed obvious to Mark that one could not tarnish a politician’s supporters with the politician’s personal failings, but his daughters didn’t buy that argument, though they did concede that it was ridiculous to decide that the cowboy boots were a meaningful badge of anything other than liking cowboy boots. As they talked, Mark recalled the many times they had had Bill V. and family over. The girls didn’t know that Bill V. had actually seriously assaulted his own wife and that Mark himself had called the police to bring the episode to a stop. Mark hoped that the assaulting had been an unrepeated singularity, but you could never be quite sure what went on behind closed doors in someone else’s marriage. He and Bill went way back and he liked Bill tremendously. By his daughters’ logic, they would not be happy having dinner with their own father if they knew this story. Mark reflected that there were very few people in the world untarnished by some past crime or association with a criminal, be the crimes peccadillos or really bad stuff.
His own daughters had dabbled in crime! The youngest had gone on a shoplifting binge in her early teens, for reasons she had never been able to explain. Should he bar her from the table for that spree? Of course not! She had also taken to criticizing what she called “the capitalist corporate lifestyle,” which everyone except a few purists like herself had apparently adopted. She idolized a lunatic yoga guru who believed the world could be remade using the power of “intentionality.” Should he bar her from the table for that naïveté? Of course not! The oldest had a friend he knew for a fact was one of biggest dealers in the area, possibly had even dealt drugs to middle schoolers. That friend was nevertheless made welcome for dinner on a regular basis, even though there was open discussion about him within the family. No one, including his daughter herself, approved of this guy’s activities. But he was good company and one certainly imagined that he didn’t get many opportunities to sit at a family dinner table. Should he bar the scoundrel from the table for his misdeeds? Of course not! As long as he was not actively harming his family, the man was entitled to eat a hot meal and to feel the warmth of a family setting.
Well, who knew what tomorrow would bring! Maybe his daughters would come around, maybe they wouldn’t. It was fairly well guaranteed, however, that someone in the family was highly likely to bring someone to dinner, so Mark and his wife decided to make a quick evening trip to the grocery store to stock up.
I think that the image and the story might have a link. Life is constantly flowing in the back ground while the transient flowers get the spotlight for a moment or two and then fade away.
