Thanksgiving 2007

I looked at my pup the other day and saw a kind of melancholy in his eyes. He'd been sleeping an awful lot, too - more than usual. I confess that I generally speak to my dog in complete sentences, not in puppy-baby-talk or single-word commands. So I cocked my head inquisitively and looked him in the eye and asked, pretty seriously: "Holidays gettin' to ya?"

I was talking to my mother a few days ago, as we were all (my family, that is) settling into whatever plans we'd decided on (this year, it was every man/woman/child for itself - each of us not up to traveling or hosting, for various reasons), and she said to me, "I can't understand why people get so anxious around holiday times. I don't see what the big deal is, whether you get together or don't get together." I think this may be a generational/cultural sort of thing, and I tried to explain to her that her family is the kind that always gets together, their sense of family is so strong, so unquestioned, that she always knows there's somewhere to go. Her problem is that she's often pulled in so many directions that she'd just assume stay home by herself and not be troubled by all the hooplah. In contrast, there are people (many of whom I know personally) whose families are so fragmented and estranged, that holidays are a time when you become acutely aware of how disconnected you are, of the absence of that unquestioned together-ness that once characterized the majority of families... but no longer.

As for me, I seem to be somewhere in the middle. My family would have me, certainly, if I had nowhere else to go. And while we do manage to maintain our relations and semi-regular correspondences - as best we can through some rocky times - we are ourselves rather fragmented these days, and it would be a forced sort of thing for all of us. I have a couple of friends in the city who fall into the category of disconnected-from-family, and who reach out for a casual non-family/urban-type anti-Thanksgiving. For them, I am thankful, and I try to make sure to spend time with them at some point around the holidays; they are and have been my crucial pseudo-family over the years. And then there are the close friends who have large family/extended family gatherings and who always offer me a place at their table (it's a toss-up whether these would be more or less awkward than Thanksgiving with my own family - depends on the specific circumstances from year to year, I guess).

This year, J. and I and the pup are in the country (J.'s family is similar to mine in its semi-together-fragmentedness, and so the forces saw fit to give us time together). We spent our Thursday more or less how we always spend our time here - cooking, eating, working, studying, playing, resting. I am thankful. Yes, I am thankful. The stripping away of typical traditions is, on the one hand, a little sad; but then again, in their stead is a kind of bare-bones gratitude that is perhaps even closer to the original spirit of the holiday than the holiday traditions themselves: for shelter and warmth, for love and friendship, for work and rest, for freedom and choice... I am thankful.

And, of course, for all of you, too - dear friends and fellow pilgrims in this strange and ever-challenging modern world of brokenness, evolution, art, commerce, loneliness, and love. Hope you had a good one.

Thanksgiving Anti-Turkey Meal: Suckling Pig, Sauteed Swiss Chard, Beans n Rice