So who's coming?

Personally, I find that one of the greatest challenges of trying to develop community: when you plan an event you never really know who’s coming.  The last article I wrote was about the Sewing Club retreat.  In the end there were only 2 people who were available so we cancelled. 

I’ve recently returned from a 5-day Ladies’ Retreat.  I started by inviting those who had requested most strongly that I organize a getaway.  For weeks I went  through the process of 1) inviting 2) people accepting 3) people pulling out 4) inviting some more people 5) they pulling out, etc.  In the end there were 9 of us.  That was good.

This is not a new phenomenon.  I remember our first year living in France having several instances where I invited people for dinner and they didn’t show.  I thought it was a French thing, but then a couple years later it happened to us in the States – the couple was just too tired and couldn’t be bothered or were too embarrassed to call and desist.  Odd.  Now preparing for no-shows has become part of organizing any event.  I plan and prepare and then choose to celebrate with whoever actually comes whenever they actually show up.  No sense getting worked up about it.  It really doesn’t help.

Yesterday I had a perverse comfort on the subject when my daughter Anne mentioned that she was in the same position, not really knowing if any of her friends would come to her “I’m Leaving London and going to University” event. 

Maybe there’ll be leftover chocolate chip cookies!  Hey.  I can dream, can’t I?