With images of glossy bronze turkeys, fine china, and smiley, happy kinfolk who like each other, Thanksgiving can appear an unchanging stalwart of tradition — if not a bit impossible to replicate. It’s the one holiday that refuses to change more than a slight wobble in the menu. With imagery that perfect, why ask it to? Yet my own memories of Thanksgiving have weathered as much change as a barnyard pen exposed to the seasons of life.
My earliest memories of Thanksgiving have nothing to do with food or fancy cutlery but of me repeatedly singing the nursery rhyme “Ten Little Indians” to my Granny. The crinkles around her corn-flower blue eyes outlined a mysterious mix of tears and joy as she laughed and asked me to sing it yet again. I didn’t quite understand the teary-eyed laughter but I knew it to be good and I sang with gusto.
While it’s been almost 30 years since her passing, I still hear the rhythmic beat of that song drumming in my head bringing me a contended peace that reminds me that the world needs our unique song and listening to others is an act of love that speaks volumes.
I remember the enchanting thrill of sliding down a hill of dead grass on castoff cardboard boxes with my cousins and siblings. The Florida hill was hardy high but we were on top of the world inherently knowing that happiness isn’t determined by what we have but who we have by our side through life’s ups and downs.
Thanksgivings weren’t all downhill on cardboard boxes and songs about numbers and Native Americans, there was also the Thanksgiving after my parents separated when we ate a not so traditional dinner in a dark restaurant which felt sober and sad. I learned that life doesn’t always look the way it’s supposed to or turn out to plan, but practicing mercy towards ourselves and others during difficult times can be a comforting expression of hope that is its own kind of gratitude.
I recall one Thanksgiving when I was pregnant with not only my first son but also all of the hopes and fears that accompany motherhood. Being so close to delivery underscored how the very nature of life teeters on the precipice of change. This Thanksgiving Day we will celebrate that baby’s 23rd birthday; another reminder not only of life’s passing but of the bounty of blessings that fill our years making ordinary, everyday moments some of our most cherished memories. Read more
I love pretty stationary – especially the kind where my name is printed in scrolly pastel font that makes me look like I hold a fancy title in a foreign land where I live in a castle with 100 obedient cats. I know it’s hard to believe an ordinary name on card stock can conjure all that. Yet a blank notecard isn’t limited by possibility, only its weighty perimeter.
I sat down to write about gratitude and stared at a blank page. I stared out the window. I stared at the cat. I thought of all the ways this year has been hard for me personally and on a global scale. Certainly, there is a lot in between the microcosm of my life and the macrocosm of the pandemic. There has been deaths, unemployment, division, divorce, disease, and depression. And, while those things exist regardless of COVID-19, adding a heaping of quarantines, isolation, mask-wearing, and closures on top of life’s inevitable loss has sometimes felt like an overflow of despair.
When I reminisce about Thanksgiving, I don’t think about food. If I am being honest, I don’t even think about being grateful. What I recall is the excitement of being out of school, the quiet wonder of gazing out the car window at the rows of pines that lined the highway as we traveled to my Granny’s house, and the creak of her screen door as it flew open and I rushed inside her modest two-bedroom home straight into her warm and wrinkly arms.