Gatherings of the loveliest sort

Jean soon learned that at Ewa's parties there was always a project on. Huge rolls of brown paper were unfurled and everyone painted a mural; a sheet was tacked to the wall and a film projected while the Dogs played, sewing together a melody out of silence and the whirring of the projector. Actors gathered in the middle of the living room and, with nothing more than a spoon or a dishtowel, transformed reality - having a Sunday row on a pond or floating in a lifeboat on the North Sea; suddenly they were lovers on a picnic blanket, or thieves, or children on a swing. Jean knew these actors had worked together for a long time, a bodily history among them. She had seen Avery perform loaves and fishes with objects, with stones on the beach, with rulers and wooden blocks, creating bridges, castles, entire cities. But his magic was solitary and intellectual compared with the instantly complex communication between these bodies, the moment continually changing, deepening into humour or sorrow. And sometimes this pathos was intense, and a hole opened, and everyone watching from the edges of the room found their own sorrow pouring into it. Crack! the earth of the scene split open and down everyone tumbled together into the wreckage of memory. And then the actors melted back into the party, and the food and the bottles were passed around again.

-- Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault 

Some day, I would love to host gatherings like the one that Michaels describes in this passage.

I was fortunate enough to spend quite a bit of time over the long weekend at low-key gatherings with dear friends. It was a pretty delightful way to celebrate the start of summer, if you ask me.