Look Who's Coming to Dinner

For Day 26 of the @BestSelfCo Edison Deck Challenge, I drew the relationship card that asks who are the 10 “inspirational people you’d like to have dinner with and why?” Dinner parties seem like a distant memory since the pandemic hit. With that said, I’ve been thinking about how many of the great thinkers have died since the COVID-19 outbreak. My dinner party consists of some of these great thinkers that were lost between March 2020 and now. They all are invited to attend at the height of their accomplishments and wisdom. Limiting to 10 wasn’t easy, but here’s my list in alphabetical order:

Joan Didion – “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” -- The Year of Magical Thinking. Didion was a journalist, author, screenwriter, and near the end of her life, a playwright. For those of us that have lost loved ones suddenly, brutally throwing us in the grips of grief, while at the same time being deluged with platitudes and promises, she legitimized our experience. The well-meaning ask that we focus on their emotional deficits as they profess being at a loss for words, or ask those grieving to deal with the empty promises that we’ll "get over it" and "things will be all right." The grieving found a brutal truthteller in Didion’s first memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, penned after her husband suddenly died of a heart attack after visiting their daughter in intensive care for pneumonia and septic shock. She lost her daughter 20 months later. She accurately captured the veil of grief in a way that those that have it as a constant companion can relate to. She considered herself an introvert that loved being the provocateur at high society parties, observing and hearing the conversations in a way that only a Californian mining for gold could. She would keep the conversation, especially as it related to living and dying, apropos topics during a public health pandemic, real.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg -- “If I had any talent in the world, I would be a great diva.” In addition to being a great legal mind, Ginsberg was also an avid opera lover. I had the pleasure of meeting her and hearing her talk about that love when I worked in the opera field. She was a diva, just one of a different genre: a diva of women’s rights and gender equality, her dissenter’s collar was as powerful as any diva’s tiara, along with her written opinion that will continue to pave the way and give both legal and moral guidance for those that continue to fight for the rights that are slipping through our fingers. The witty one-liners and her ability to deliver them as only a diva could, would make for a dinner conversation that would rely on both intellect and critical thinking.

bell hooks -- "Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape." And “It is poetry that changes everything.” No dinner party should be without a poet, a professor, an activist, a feminist. bell hooks wrote about black womanhood, and the difference that race and class have on a woman’s experience. In addition to the more complex subjects such as education, history, and capitalism, she also wrote about love and friendship. Love and friendship are something the entire world needs right now and hearing how we navigate dystopian doom with the hope of lasting relationships, would be refreshing.

Representative John Lewis – “My dear friends: Your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union.” During a time when the right to vote is being attacked through state legislation and redistricting, I would love to have the voice of John Lewis at the table, reminding us of the sacrifices that have been made to give us that right. I’d like to hear how he would respond to the statement that Joan Didion made that she didn’t think voting did much for creating change in the world and was an infrequent voter. It would be a debate that I believe would be both spirited and inspirational. We need more voices advocating for “good trouble” especially as we look at the January 6th incident that directly threatened the constitutional rights that our democracy is founded on.

Sidney Poitier – “You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were.” I took the headline for this blog from one of the many pivotal films that Poitier starred in. He was an icon of integrity, of character, and used his craft to evolve our thinking as a society on issues of racial justice and civil rights. The long list of break out roles were always a choice based on values, never happenstance or motivated by greed. I’d like to ask Poitier about cancel culture, and the chilling effect it has on people being provocative, learning from their mistakes, and being able to find their innocent mind. I’d like to talk with a person of character and ask him why he thinks people of character were first in the supply chain to be disrupted.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu -- “If we are going to see real development in the world then our best investment is WOMEN!” Spiritual leaders play a role in social change, regardless of their belief systems. From Buddha to Christian and Jewish faiths, and from Islam to polytheism, belief systems have a responsibility to provide answers to hard questions such as oppression. Desmond Tutu stood against pervasive South African history that had legitimized apartheid with his unwavering pulpit. He did so in a way that provided hope, forgiveness, and a path to unity. He also stood up for the women of South Africa when it required a male to help transfer agency, to make a safe space for a black woman’s voice to be heard, and doing it when it was unpopular as a black male to do so. He also was reported to have an extraordinary sense of humor, something that makes dinner conversation on weighty subjects possible.

Sarah Weddington -- “They said to me, ‘What would you charge us to do this lawsuit?’ And I said, ‘Oh I’ll do it for free.’ And they said, ‘You are our lawyer.’ And that’s how I got the case.” Weddington still holds the honor of being the youngest lawyer to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. And also the youngest to do so and win. At the age of 26, she argued Roe v. Wade, her first time to take center stage in court (go big or go home as they say) as a newly minted attorney. For almost 50 years, women have her to thank for delivering the solid legal argument that a woman should have the right to choose what happens to her body, her pregnancy; not courts, governments, or other non-personal constructs. She went on to advocate for more women in the court system, and as an advisor/aide to President Carter was responsible for making sure her nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsberg to the federal circuit court made it through the gauntlet of men that were necessary for approval. She was the one who leaked the Ginsberg nomination when a male advisor sat on the nomination in hopes that it would just go away. That nomination led to Ginsberg being appointed and provided the canvas to further her credentials. It was one of the stepping stones that made Ginsberg a candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court under the Clinton administration. I’d like to hear the story from Ginsberg and Weddington, firsthand. I’d also like to hear what we can do to assure a women’s right to choose as we find ourselves in the unthinkable position where courts and governments may soon be able to tell women what they can or cannot do with their bodies.

Betty White -- "You don't luck into integrity. You work at it." Beyond "Saturday Night Live," White was known as the longest working actress with 63 years to her credit. Loved for her vitality, comedic timing, and advocacy for animals, there simply was no equal to White whose greatest success was earned well after the age of 50 when most females are considered obsolete. I’d like to hear her perspective on aging, getting better and bolder with each passing year, and how she was able to tune out the misogyny that is rampant in the entertainment industry. And I think she would keep things lively and unpredictable, two attributes that I covet and appreciate.

E.O. Wilson -- “If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” I would be remiss not to have an advocate for the planet, and there was no better expert, advocate, and researcher than Harvard professor E.O. Wilson. His main field of study was insects, but he applied what he learned as a model for humanity and the health of the planet. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, his skill was not limited to expertise, but expanded his public following through authorship of books, essays, and published research. Gentile as any Southern gentlemen would be expected to be, he never shied away from controversy or critical debate. Any gentleman who would describe himself as someone who was “roused by the amphetamine of ambition” and spent his life studying ants, has a place at my table. Especially when my experience with the word “ambition” was when it was thrown at me as the dirtiest curse word imaginable by those who felt threatened by big ideas. Wilson changed his mind over time on some of his theories, and never sweated those that called him out on a change of stand. Scientists shift when the data and findings shift and are not swayed by peer pressure or public opinion. I would love to ask him why he had such hope for our species, believing we would evolve from conqueror of the planet to stewards.

Bill Withers -- “I write and sing about whatever I am able to understand and feel. I feel that it is healthier to look out at the world through a window than through a mirror. Otherwise, all you see is yourself and whatever is behind you.” I love making playlists. They create the soundtrack of my experiences, my ambitions, and myself. I have a special love for Bill Withers, playing “Lovely Day” when I need a reminder that the best is in the present, in today; or listening to “Lean on Me” when I really need to keep the abandoners at bay; or queing up a war anthem such as “I Can’t Write Left Handed” when I feel attacked for standing strong on my values. Withers wrote his enormous canon over what he says was eight years, because for seven years he wasn’t allowed in the Columbia Records studio for a being a black guy who dared to push back against the studio’s racist culture. And then one day, he walked away from it all, without greed as a motivator, and he lived a happy life. I’d ask Withers and hooks if there is a difference between poetry and lyric writing. I'd ask Withers how his best life was lived after he left the “business” and his thoughts on how his music continues to speak to every succeeding generation, even more profound during the pandemic.

Dinner parties are mostly about the interaction between guests. I would love the discussion between Ginsberg, White, and Tutu who all saw their largest success in the second half of their careers and Withers, Weddington, Poitier and Lewis who were branded by their early successes. Wilson, Didion, and hooks would add a different path as they reinvented themselves repeatedly, but never lost sight of their inner purpose.

Oh, what extraordinary people to learn from. Let us dine on their legacies and be better for it.