How to be a guest

I just learned something new.

Jessica Fechtor wrote Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals that Brought Me Home. While healing from a brain aneurysm, Jessica was often served meals and cared for in her home by friends and family members. She learned how to be a guest in her own home. For those of you who are home healing from surgery or an illness and are fortunate to have friends and family bring and even serve you meals..this is for you from Jessica Fechtor:

" The phrase "gracious host" rolls off the tongue. We all know what it is to be one. What it means to guest with grace is trickier, because it's not what it seems. A good guest, we think, is an easy guest. A considerate one. She arrives on time with a bottle of wine or maybe a gift, some chocolate or homemade jam. She asks what she can do. She wants to help. She insists.

What these best of intentions miss is the most basic thing of all: that a good guest allows herself to be hosted. That means saying, "yes, please," when you're offered a cup of tea, instead of rushing to get it yourself. It means staying in your chair, enjoying good company and your first glass of wine while your host ladles soup into bowls. If your host wants to dress the salad herself and toss it the way she knows how, let her, because a host is delighted to serve. To allow her to take care of you is to allow your host her generosity. I'd always be distracted by my own desire to be useful to understand this. I got it now. " p 174-175