30 Days of Dinner Time, Day 21

In the window, Sean and Larissa, a dating couple for the past half a year or so. I had never met either of them until their dinner and poor Larissa had no idea she was going to be meeting me at all. Sean had planned their participation as a surprise, and I must say that her honest reaction was delightful. She did a wonderful job embracing the piece even at the last possibly minute before entering into it.


For dinner Sean brought a feast. It was the kind of meal that was easy to see love had been put into, and the time they spent dining gave the courses value as well as flavor, even for the viewer. There were many stages to their dinner, beginning with cheese/olives and crackers for conversations eating, then onto a home grown arugula salad, an entree of lamb with sides followed by chocolate truffles for dessert. They also had a very nice bottle of red wine and seltzer water to drink.

This dinner embodied all that I had imagined about the piece before it actually came to life. Other nights have dominated one element or theme with style, but this dinner looked very much like the image in my imagination when initially developing the concept.

The weather was perfect, finally absent of cold and cloudy. As a friday night, the children were running and playing and people from the neighborhood were stopping to watch and talk. A very nice filmmaker came to see the piece from Pilsen because he read about it in the Tribune earlier in the day... which made for riveting conceptual conversation on the chairs. Sean and Larissa were highly engaged with both the inside and the outside of the glass and stayed well into dark. Afterward we had a fantastic conversation about the piece and their viewpoints from inside. On my trip home I ran into a young woman who had seen the piece days before, we talked all the way home about it, about our lives. It was just a pleasant evening all around.

Basically, I am so glad that in this dinner I saw the romantic side of the piece. Those evenings where tension and difficulty have prevailed will probably be the most educational and interesting overall, but this dinner felt like a kind gift of soul food...something attractive and nourishing. I'm glad that 30 Days in its entirety will have a complex identity, including gentle days which meet outstanding expectations.