I miss playing games. With people. In person.
It’s ironic. One of my last social activities before the world imploded into our viral hellscape was a night of Settlers of Catan. Catan is a colorful board game that, like many board games, looks more complicated than it is. It’s a lively game of haggling over resources, swapping resources and stabbing one another in the back to achieve hegemony over the lands by building roads, towns and cities.
It would be hard to social distance while playing Settlers of Catan.
And, because it is Mother’s Day, my thoughts immediately drift to memories of my mom, especially in relation to games and social activities.
My mom loved informal gatherings. I don’t know what she thought of formal gatherings but I know she loved opening her home to whoever wanted to hang out, watch television or play games. Due to my mother’s love of social activities, I viewed our home as the alternative to the community recreation center.
She never seemed to mind when the house filled up with other people’s kids. If it ever was to her chagrin, she never said so.
I only remember her playing rounds of the card game, Hearts, and I know, like every adult of her generation, she enjoyed a game of Bridge with friends. But it was mainly her encouragement for us to invite friends over for board games, card games, salon games, like Charades, or paper triangle football on her highly glossed dining table. I suspect many moms might gasp in horror at the idea of tweens and teens treating a dining table as if it were their own personal local gridiron.
Not my mom. She valued peals of laughter over things. Jolly guffaws over objects. Social cacophony over decorum.
Come to think of it, we’d have fancy, haul-out the china, and wipe off the tureen meals on that dining table and then, the next thing you know, a rambunctious game of Spoons, or Uno, or Pit had broken out that would go on until late in the evening. She may not always have participated, but she always encouraged and kept the iced tea at the ready.
After everyone had finally left home for college, the silence left behind must have been deafening. The dining table surely felt neglected, as well as, relieved. It wasn’t long before my parents relocated to the Texas Gulf Coast where my father became the pastor of a tiny community church. They bought a beach house perfectly suited for exuberant, socially intensive family reunions and, thanks to my mom, we made good use of it.
As a family, we’d try our damnedest to pack twelve months into a week long Thanksgiving - with games, sports, unending discussions - and my mom, centered in the eye of the hurricane, would embrace the chaos. She was the quiet, pleased epicenter.
Or, maybe she was more like the conductor, orchestrating all of these lives to enjoy whatever small amount of time we had together.
She died at the age of 65. 2020 would have been her ninety-sixth year of joyfully bringing us together.
~~~
Above the front door of my house in Leavenworth there’s a three dimensional sign shaped like a house that reads: “Please, pardon our mess, a lot of living goes on in this house!” I didn’t put it there. The previous owners had.
It’s easily overlooked and I will go in and out of the house a thousand times without noticing it. But, when I first walked into the house before signing the papers to buy it, that sign caught my attention and I immediately thought of the home I grew up in. It was something my mom would have gladly posted above the entrance to 914 Teakwood, Richardson, Texas.
For me, it was a ‘sign’ that I had come home.
###
I am sure everyone realizes there is a website for everything, so I am sure you are aware there’s a website for tabletop games. My favorite is Geek and Sundry. Mainly because Felicia Day used to be affiliated with it. She was the creator of a web series I loved called The Guild. It’s about gamers and it is brilliant, funny and clever.
Also, I saw this posted to a friend’s timeline and I just had to share it:
“IF THIS WERE 1692, SOME OF YOU WOULD BE COMPLETELY CONVINCED THAT WITCHES WERE TO BLAME FOR THIS, AND IT SHOWS”
I will attribute it to Grace Ellis Barber, but I actually have no idea who originally wrote it. I do, however, share the sentiment.
Lovely memories of our very special mother. And so true. 69 would have certainly been way too soon, but she was even younger - 65, in fact. Twelve years younger than I am now.