You know that popular conversation starter/interview question: “If you could have dinner with anyone living or dead, who would you choose?” Sometimes combined with: “And what would you ask them?”
I am sure I’ve answered these questions at least a few times, but I can never remember who I said I’d choose. Not too long ago, however, I landed on the true and only answer that I know I’ll ever give. It seemed so obvious, once I thought of it, once my wiser subconscious pushed it forward like hello!
I would choose the two people who eventually became my parents, individually, long before they even met each other.
Hmm, just now I realize there’s a serious flaw in this plan.
It means that for those whose parents knew each other since early childhood, they’d be stuck having lunch with, say, a three-year-old. Or, if their parents met in high school, this scenario would have them having lunch with a preteen.
Save us.
However, that is not my problem. Therefore, moving on, I would choose having lunch with the young adults who eventually met and etc etc etc and resulting in yours truly. She in her late teens, he in his later teens. What I wouldn’t give to shadow each of them for an average day/week/month. For one thing I’d get the actual uncut truth of how they hooked up and so forth, a huge scoop in and of itself.
Sure I have some stories about them from that before time, far too few, and most of them offered up completely at random by relatives and old friends. But even in the versions of those stories that live in my memory, I can only imagine them as younger/skinnier versions of the parents I know, so the “memory” is forever wrong because I don’t know that person who was not defined in relation to me.
This is like trying to conceptualize my own non-existence … which, considering I’ve never managed to meditate for longer than 20min, is something I’ll not be achieving anytime this lifetime, only afterwards.
Meantime, I wait in eager anticipation of the next party or interview, my answers already prepared, like a nerd. And if no one asks, then I’ll say, “So, like, if you could have lunch with anyone living or dead…?”
…well? I’m waiting… 👇🏾
Rebecca Fisseha, Writer. 