I have been setting the table for everyone else for thirty years. The children are grown. The house is quiet. And I finally sat down.
This is Truitt House Living.
A 1909 home in downtown Suffolk, Virginia. Sunday Suppers. The Dear Mom: How Do I Host? column. And the argument I will make until I am in the ground — that opening your front door is the bravest thing a woman can do.
Swipe through. If this season is yours, follow along.
The door is open.
I thought I was learning to host.
I was learning to take up space.
The courage you build at your own table walks out the door with you. Into the meeting where you keep apologizing for taking up time. Into the doctor’s office where you keep swallowing the second question. Into the conversation you have been afraid of for a year.
Hosting is practice. The rest of your life is the test.
Today’s Dear Mom on Substack. Link in bio.
For years I treated hosting like a final exam.
The roast. The silver. The lighting. The hostess.
It was never the table being tested. It was me.
The bravest thing you will do is open the door anyway.
The next bravest thing is keep the pizza place in your phone.
Kaftan: @ocean_and_main
Jewelry: @lorenhope
We met with John Rector, City Councilman, and asked him what downtown needs to be great.
His answer: a magnet. Something that pulls people off the highway and gives them a reason to stay an hour. Then two. Then dinner.
A great downtown is not built by signage or a slogan. It is built by an anchor strong enough to hold people in place long enough for them to fall a little in love with the streets they are standing on.
Follow @truitthouseliving for Suffolk on Sunday every week. This is the town we are building, in real time.
I have been thinking about her for weeks, waiting for the words to come.
I was about five years old. My hair was long and thick, my night shirt already on. My mother was dressed for company. A shift dress, probably floral, her hair up with a hairpiece pinned in. That was the style then.
She moved across the room to the stereo console, the kind built like a piece of furniture, and bent to set the needle. The Righteous Brothers. "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'." I know it now. I didn't know it then. What I knew then was the way she moved.
She was so beautiful. She still is.
I called her this weekend and asked if she remembered playing it. She couldn't pin down the night, but the record collection is mine now. I am going to pull every one of them out and play them.
Yesterday Brian and I walked into a thrift shop and someone had a record going on a turntable in the back. It was "How Great Thou Art." I stood in the aisle and I was five years old again. My mother used hymns to shape me. I did not know that is what she was doing.I know it now.
To every mother, and to every woman who has ever stood in for one: Happy Mother's Day. The full letter is in your inbox if you subscribe on substack. If you follow me here, check the Link in bio.
Fondly,
Kristy
If you’ve been calling it busy.
And you know that’s not the real word.
I see you.
Tell me below. What have you been calling busy that was actually something else? Say it out loud.
The door is open.
Comment Tuesday for a Link to the full essay.
Ten adults. One baby. Seven dogs. Empty beer bottles on the deck, left behind by men who are really just boys with grey hair.
This is DeeDee’s July Fourth. She wouldn’t trade it for anything.
In this week’s letter, she tells the truth about what hosting overnight does — to your kitchen, your patience, and to the friendships that get built somewhere between the late-night glass of wine and the next morning’s coffee in bathrobes.
(Speaking of — that’s how she and I became friends in the first place.)
Full letter is up at In Good Company. Link in bio. And join us live Wednesday — we’re continuing the conversation. 5:30 EST
Comment Link for a DM to the article and all the good recipes!
The salad I have made a thousand times and have never written down.
Because it isn't a recipe. It's a formula.
Five things. A real dressing. A platter. Assembled in the kitchen in just a few minutes.
If someone showed up at your door right now, you could feed them. You already have what you need.
The full formula and the way I serve it — At the Table this Friday on Substack. Link in bio.
— Kristy
Choosing to stay in someone's home instead of a hotel means something. To host an overnight houseguest is to invite someone into the unedited version of your life. The mail on the counter, the creaky floor, the dog who hears every footstep. You don't get to present a polished version of yourself to someone who is brushing her teeth next to yours.
Hosting overnight houseguests is a privilege.
Hosting the same overnight houseguests for more than four nights is a calling.
Five essentials. Five indulgences. One very happy guest. The full list is in In Good Company. Link in bio.
