I’m a lousy house guest, so busy apologizing for the inconvenience, I never consider that I might be a gift to my hosts. I’m usually a gift to my hosts, like our guest was to us this long weekend. First, he presented a perfect premise for The Muse to beg off work for an otherwise dreary Monday, but that’s just the start. My everyday routine was severely disrupted by his presence. Thank heavens. I need my routine occasionally blasted to smithereens.

I could sit downwind and revel in his second-hand smoke. I could feed him like I feed The Muse, like I forget that I also feed myself. Without company, we’d smother in self-reference. We might mistake our experience as sufficient. We might be satisfied with irrelevance.

Company makes all the difference. In the town where I grew up, it was perfectly acceptable to just drop in for a visit. Every planned everything would abruptly stop and something different would ensue. If you want something different to ensue, and you really should, pray for company to drop in on you.

We seem too proprietary now. We think that what we’re up to simply must be more important than whatever else might intrude. This qualifies as perfectly delusional, and might drive us to claim we’re too busy or otherwise occupied. The first rule of successful living should say: Company’s more important than anything. Ditch what you’d convinced yourself was more important and answer the doorbell. Whatever’s there just has to be significant.

This morning, we circled around each other, small-talking as if nothing significant enough to be life-changing had occurred, but it had. No volume of small talk could erase the significance we’d generated together, just being together.

Nobody should declare a holiday. We need not revisit this peek experience on its anniversary. These are OrdinaryTimes. Old friends stop and stay over, and we both recalibrate our lives. We leave reassured, sure, but also more alive.

Ding dong.

The only proper response has to be, “Come on in!”

©2013 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Working, Writing, Living