In the home
Nov 7, 2015 16:17:06 GMT 10
Post by James on Nov 7, 2015 16:17:06 GMT 10
Using a knife, fork and spoon - having good manners.
We weren’t allowed to hold our knife and fork the wrong way - ‘Don’t hold your knife like a pencil!’ We had to hold it as if we were going to have ‘dinner with the Queen’. And when we’d finished eating we had to place our knife and fork together in front of us on the plate - the right way, the right way we of the ‘upper’s’ lived, not like those uncouth savages who don’t have good table manners.
And why do we even need a knife, fork and spoon, ones made of metal, why not use ones hands like some cultures do, or chopsticks, or wooden implements.
It was sheer hell at times sitting at the dinner table having to ‘eat the right way’, nothing about simply allowing our own self expression to come through being able to do as we pleased; all having to be controlled, having to conform, nothing about trying to get maximum enjoyment out of eating and being together and communicating at those times of day. It was all about destroying any pleasure and putting us off wanting to come together.
And having to eat at specific times; and certain foods you could only have for breakfast and not later in the day; and you couldn’t have fish and chips all the time because they weren’t good for you - and yet vegetables that had had every ounce of goodness boiled out of them and chops that were singed black where good for us?
So much agony about eating: when to eat, how to eat, where to eat, what to eat... so many bad feelings, so unenjoyable. And the sheer pleasure and extreme joy on the opposite end of things when dad would take us out to get fish and chips and we’d eat them at the beach, eating with our fingers, outside feeding the seagulls, the beautiful soothing water, being free and not having to conform and have good manners, and with no washing up to do and the food cooked well. I love reading about the Australian aborigines, all sitting around in one community, group cooking simply in the ashes of the beautiful smelling fire, all pooling the days hunting and gathering, just using their hands and natural implements, all outdoors and easy, not having to behave sitting at the dinning room table pretending you’re civilised. And with everyone free to express themselves as they please, and even though no doubt some etiquette would have been followed and perhaps that might have also been limiting and restricting, still it would have been nothing like how stultifying our family meals were.
When Marion and I first started living together we had a full dinner meal - which she cooked. We’d sit at the table eating properly with knife and fork. Then as our healing progressed, so has what we eat and how we eat and who cooks it, changed - I now cook it all, and very little of it - thankfully, nothing like the monster meals she slaved over.
The next change came with eating in the kitchen sitting no chairs with our meal on our laps instead of at the dinning room table; then we dropped the knife, making meals we could mostly deal with by using only a fork or spoon.
Then I moved to the couch with Marion going back to and preferring the table as she liked to read and eat, we no longer sat looking at each other or side by side talking. Now we both sit on couches opposite each other, read or talk - whatever. And mostly we use our fingers or just a fork or spoon, eating on our laps.
So we’ve moved from being all rather formal resulting from our childhood upbringing to being informal just doing what suits and feels best and is the least fuss, and with no regard to manners because we don’t care how we hold or leave our forks when we’ve finished, although we still use forks and hold them as we did when growing up, but that is because they are the most convenient for us, that is, when we can’t just use our fingers.
We weren’t allowed to hold our knife and fork the wrong way - ‘Don’t hold your knife like a pencil!’ We had to hold it as if we were going to have ‘dinner with the Queen’. And when we’d finished eating we had to place our knife and fork together in front of us on the plate - the right way, the right way we of the ‘upper’s’ lived, not like those uncouth savages who don’t have good table manners.
And why do we even need a knife, fork and spoon, ones made of metal, why not use ones hands like some cultures do, or chopsticks, or wooden implements.
It was sheer hell at times sitting at the dinner table having to ‘eat the right way’, nothing about simply allowing our own self expression to come through being able to do as we pleased; all having to be controlled, having to conform, nothing about trying to get maximum enjoyment out of eating and being together and communicating at those times of day. It was all about destroying any pleasure and putting us off wanting to come together.
And having to eat at specific times; and certain foods you could only have for breakfast and not later in the day; and you couldn’t have fish and chips all the time because they weren’t good for you - and yet vegetables that had had every ounce of goodness boiled out of them and chops that were singed black where good for us?
So much agony about eating: when to eat, how to eat, where to eat, what to eat... so many bad feelings, so unenjoyable. And the sheer pleasure and extreme joy on the opposite end of things when dad would take us out to get fish and chips and we’d eat them at the beach, eating with our fingers, outside feeding the seagulls, the beautiful soothing water, being free and not having to conform and have good manners, and with no washing up to do and the food cooked well. I love reading about the Australian aborigines, all sitting around in one community, group cooking simply in the ashes of the beautiful smelling fire, all pooling the days hunting and gathering, just using their hands and natural implements, all outdoors and easy, not having to behave sitting at the dinning room table pretending you’re civilised. And with everyone free to express themselves as they please, and even though no doubt some etiquette would have been followed and perhaps that might have also been limiting and restricting, still it would have been nothing like how stultifying our family meals were.
When Marion and I first started living together we had a full dinner meal - which she cooked. We’d sit at the table eating properly with knife and fork. Then as our healing progressed, so has what we eat and how we eat and who cooks it, changed - I now cook it all, and very little of it - thankfully, nothing like the monster meals she slaved over.
The next change came with eating in the kitchen sitting no chairs with our meal on our laps instead of at the dinning room table; then we dropped the knife, making meals we could mostly deal with by using only a fork or spoon.
Then I moved to the couch with Marion going back to and preferring the table as she liked to read and eat, we no longer sat looking at each other or side by side talking. Now we both sit on couches opposite each other, read or talk - whatever. And mostly we use our fingers or just a fork or spoon, eating on our laps.
So we’ve moved from being all rather formal resulting from our childhood upbringing to being informal just doing what suits and feels best and is the least fuss, and with no regard to manners because we don’t care how we hold or leave our forks when we’ve finished, although we still use forks and hold them as we did when growing up, but that is because they are the most convenient for us, that is, when we can’t just use our fingers.