Visiting vs Entertaining

When I was growing up, people just showed up at your house.

I don’t remember anybody calling first. Half the time they couldn’t have called first because you were already on the telephone and there wasn’t another line.

You’d hear tires coming up the driveway, and somebody would look out the window and say, “Well, that’s so-and-so,” like this was a perfectly normal way for company to announce itself.

Mama might have her hair rolled up. Daddy might have a lawn mower torn apart in the yard. There might be clothes on the line and dishes in the sink.

Nobody cared.

You let them in.

If the house was a mess, you moved something out of a chair.

If you had coffee, you made coffee. If you didn’t, you probably had sweet tea.

And people stayed.

That’s the part I remember.

They stayed.

Nobody looked at a phone every four minutes. Nobody had anywhere terribly important to be. Grown people sat around the kitchen table talking about people I didn’t know, and we children were expected to disappear until somebody mentioned food.

Now, if somebody pulls into my driveway without warning, my first instinct is not hospitality.

It’s to turn the television down and see if they’ll go away.

I’m looking through the blinds with sweaty palms as if the sheriff himself is out there to arrest me.

Somewhere along the way, we got paranoid.

People can’t come over because we haven’t vacuumed. There’s laundry on the couch. The bathroom needs cleaning. The kitchen isn’t straight.

Heaven forbid it appear that people actually live in the home.

People did live there.

That was sort of the point.

I think we’ve confused visiting with entertaining.

Entertaining means you’re expecting people. You’ve cleaned the house and bought something to eat and probably lit a candle that smells like a baked good you have no intention of actually baking.

Visiting was different.

Visiting was somebody pulling up, coming in and sitting awhile.

I miss that.

I miss people who didn’t need an invitation and houses that didn’t need to be ready.

Although I should probably admit that if you’re reading this and thinking about showing up at mine, I haven’t completely overcome the modern world.

Call me first.

Not because I need to clean.

Because I have six different projects laid out, and I’d hate for anyone to get the impression that one day I might actually complete them.

And, in fact, I’m going to need enough time to put on a bra.

—Amanda Hargrove