Fancy Napkins and Impractical Love
BY MARLOWE BJORKLUND
Parties can be stressful. You have people in your house, which in and of itself is a nightmare half the time, but you also have to be nice to them all. And talk to them? And make sure everyone feels welcome? Maybe you’re feeding them, maybe you are plying them all with drinks? It’s a full-time job to host a party, especially if you want it to be a successful one. However, parties are pretty damn fun at the same time too. They are occasions of gathering, of life, and of the enjoyment of time spent in mutual company. They are an opportunity to focus on the small moments. Moments like when your favourite song comes on, like when your friend squeezes your hand after you tell them a secret, like when someone spills on the carpet and rushes to clean it before the host sees. They are moments of small things. That is something pretty big, and no time struck me more than quarantine for the joys of little moments like these.
I don’t know about you, but my family has never been one for big parties. We do attend some big events, a charity gala here, a political event there. I mean there’s a whole smörgåsbord of things one can attend in a big city. However, we normally end up always talking to the same group of people: ourselves. We go, rub some elbows and touch some toes, but our favourite company always has been our own. We’re an introverted family, I suppose. So when we all moved out to the countryside during quarantine, there was an expectation, at least in me, that we would not really do anything. Boy, was I wrong.
We celebrated eight birthdays of our nine quarantine members, mine was the only one that went uncelebrated, being a November baby, and we even threw two parties just for the sake of having the time and a very manageable guest list. It was me, my parents, my sisters, my grandmother, my best friend, and her parents. Plus, the three dogs we shared amongst us. The first birthday on the horizon was my Mother’s. She was born in early February, and we decided we were going to throw her a little party. Why not?
Seeing as I had fulfilled all but one of my high school requirements and was set to graduate early, I ended up being one of the main cooks over quarantine. As my teacher proselytised her favourite philosophies and tried so hard to engage us over Zoom, I was busy cutting courgettes and wrapping Spring Rolls to my heart's content.
It was during this point of time I realised I wanted to do something special for my mother’s birthday. Normally, when we are in the country, we sit outside and enjoy the beautiful summers in Sonoma. However, it was February, and it was a cold February at that. With our food kept in the garage to kill any of the Covid it might have had on it - what a time to be anxious quarantine was for us - I had nothing but time on my hands. It was in this special moment that I saw something. I saw an Instagram Reel of fancy ways to fold a napkin, and I just about pissed myself. What a concept.
A table laid for a dinner party, with fancy napkins, plates, wine glasses, and flowers, by Annie Spratt via Unsplash (2016)
I like to go the extra mile. I like to coordinate to the nth degree. I like to make the ordinary extraordinary. I like to beautify the world around me. So, with this all in mind, I sat down, took nine linen napkins, and decided this would be one of my daily fixations. I learned about a dozen ways to fold a napkin, and at every fancy little party we threw, I would set a full table. Wine glasses up the wazzoo, too many forks, loads of spoons, platters of food, and you better believe I had opulently folded napkins to wow the crowd of people who’ve known me since I was but a babe.
So what? I hear you asking from afar. Well, here is the point: why not? Do you know what you only get to do once? Live. Not everyone cares about fancy napkins. To a lot of people, it’s probably a slightly frivolous thing, in fact. Not to me. I did not sit there, mindlessly looking into the void of a world where fascism is on the rise, where people are littered across rubble buildings, and hope is nigh. I did not nullify my brain with napkin folding. Au contraire, mon frère. While all of those might be true, I didn’t get overwhelmed by the weight of human existence. I listened to podcasts. One about forgotten women in history (What’s Her Name), or things I might not have learned in history class (Stuff You Missed In History Class), or Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History. I also listened to other podcasts that were not about history, such as My Favorite Murder, Normal Gossip, and the Daily. Now, of course, there were other podcasts that were much darker that I listened to about the rise of fascism and all the woes this world has to offer, but we’ve already explored one tangent, and one is quite enough.
What is the point of fancy napkins? Well, simply put, because you can fold napkins in a fancy way and feel fun. You can spend some time folding napkins in a fancy way, and you can learn marvellous things about the world while you do so. It does not have to be a waste of time; it can be something delightful that you enjoy and that is a distraction for your body while your mind expands. It’s like knitting, except the end product should ideally be covered in sauce and salty crumbs.
Haven’t you ever been to a party, and seen a napkin folded into the shape of a swan, and thought to yourself “Wow, somebody did that, that’s crazy?” Maybe. Alternatively, Maybe not. Swans are a hard shape… The idea I am getting at, though, is that there are small luxuries you can do every day. You can get yourself a coffee, spend those pounds, drink that caffe-latte, and feel fulfilled. My small luxuries are things that make me, and the people around me, feel special. It’s how I plate my food, with a garnish and with layers of colour and flavour. Everyday, we have so many opportunities to create small moments of beauty. Let’s say it’s your birthday, and you are going over for dinner at your friend’s house. You arrive to a beautifully set table, and they have intricately folded napkins, and a scrumptious-looking cake. Wouldn’t that make you feel so special? Putting care into otherwise “unimportant” things has a unique degree of beauty, and it is something I think we all could benefit from doing more of.
Life is made up of small moments. Perhaps you’re online enough to have seen the same set of memes as me, and if not, let me explain one that I saw the other month that has really stuck with me. It was essentially a person making a joke about how mourning doves have disappeared as an allusion to the dissolution of their childhood. This symbol they associated with early morning soccer games - or football games for you Europeans - is gone.
That is — for lack of a better word — bogus.
The birds are there; you just don’t listen to them anymore. The birds have not flown to the moon or the bottom of a frozen lake; the birds are out there singing their mournful morning melodies. Life is small moments, and as we get older, but not old, I see so many of us forgetting them. We get caught up in this, that, and the other. I think the truly young and truly old have a special appreciation for the life that buzzes around us every day, and a special appreciation for the small moments. Children and elderly people stop to reflect on the particular beauty of a flower or the unique shape of a cloud. Everyone in between is busy with blockchain, video games, and the crippling weight of society. I recommend the following remedy: make your own small moments. Share them with someone, and share them with yourself.
Fold the napkin in a fancy way, sit down, and eat your two-minute noodles like you’re the Queen of Spain. Write in that fancy journal sitting on the shelf you’ve long been too anxious to crack open. Get the special pistachio syrup in your latte that you’ve been debating over, and really taste it. Drink it slowly; don’t guzzle it down. Take a moment when you wake up, walk outside, and listen. Listen for the birds. Appreciate the small moments of being alive. We are still young. Better we learn the lesson of enjoying the small life now when we should have so many years ahead of us than when we’re wizened and old and all our summers have passed. It would be a shame to only then appreciate the crisp birdsongs on a Sunday morn when they’ve been singing all your life and will do so beyond your years. Live your life with impractical love because love is not rational. It is silly and random and shows up in unexpected ways. Sometimes, it’s a swan-shaped napkin that took me twelve minutes, but damn, those twelve minutes were worth it to get to see the way mom smiled.
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