Thanksgiving is coming, and while I agree with all the politically correct conversation about how we stole the land from the Native Americans only to send them off on the Trail of Tears, and the rhetoric about this being the starting gate to the race to Christmas, I am still thankful this year.
It will be my first married Thanksgiving. I am grateful for that.
It will be a chance for Mom to reclaim her spot in the leather chair in the corner of the living room beside the wood stove, covered in fleece and blankets. I am grateful for that.
It will be a time of cooking and chaos in this tiny ill-prepared kitchen, with bowls and ingredients on every surface, and the resulting turkey and tofu dishes, cranberries and oranges a la mama, sweet potatoes, applesauce from the tree in the backyard, sparkling cider and prosecco. I am grateful for that.
It will be a time to compare notes on recent stories in The New Yorker and the new book on Steve Jobs, and maybe we will read aloud from the Phantom Tollbooth - a children's story celebrating its 50th anniversary. I am grateful for that.
It will be a time to watch the cats play, walk in the dry leaves, wait for snow fall, and see friends who have made this place our home. I am grateful for that.
And maybe, just maybe, we will make some phone calls to those too far away--to Jerry and Bill and Vearla, Kathleen and Julio, Grazyna and Howard, Elie and Deborah and Neoma and Ben and Susan and Jonno and a few more of the hundred or so people who held us close this year. I am grateful for that.
May all of you have much to be thankful for this year. May all of you have peace in both heart and head. May all of our international visitors find that whether or not they share in this most American tradition, they have much to celebrate.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
how lovely it is to read an appreciation of things small and large. thanks to you two for showing others the way things can be.
ReplyDelete