Consumption

My brother, Mike, tells people his favorite holidays are those that center around food and I tend to agree with him. So, naturally, we both love Thanksgiving. When I think about Thanksgiving, I think about turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and three types of pie and green beans and the cranberry sauce which never seems to be eaten. I think about how much work we put into cooking that one meal, about my stepmother organizing grocery lists as early as September, and about my Aunts trying to one-up each other's pumpkin pie recipes. I think about how--for one meal--we dedicate an entire holiday and close schools and banks and spend money we might not have on the right plates on which to serve turkey and fly miles to share that one meal with the ones we most love. Thanksgiving, as I have come to know it, happens between appetizers and desserts.

So, when I came home from Wake Forest University this weekend, I expected Thanksgiving feed me and to feed me well. (And, let me tell you, I have missed being well fed.) I expected to feel it in the fullness of my belly and to look around at the people with which I had shared that beautiful meal and feel thankful for their company. And then, I expected to go to bed and for tomorrow to just be Friday.

But, I was wrong. I felt Thanksgiving when I looked out my airplane window and saw buildings I have walked through. I felt Thanksgiving in the sound of Jeff Tweedy's voice, in the ambient interludes, in the alphabetical stacks of songs I've missed. I felt Thanksgiving in the scent of my house and my mother's obvious attempt to straighten it up. I felt Thanksgiving in the familiar hug of my best friend, in the tears that filled both of our eyes, in how I would only break it so that I could hear her speak. I felt Thanksgiving in the bombarding questions of my friends' mothers, in their overwhelming interest in a life they used to live. I felt Thanksgiving in how quickly we revisited traditions, in how easily we could forget that time had past. I felt Thanksgiving in the songs my friends sang, in the harmonies I have always heard but will never contribute to, in the comfort of never having to. I felt Thanksgiving in the chorus of laughter, in the variety of each laugh from one another, in the comfort of how easily they blend together. I felt Thanksgiving in the conversations that reached beyond us and I felt it in the nearness they still represented. I felt Thanksgiving in Prospect Park, in my cozy bed, in the farthest back booth at Denny's, in the hallways of a school I graduated from, in the cake shakes and the phone calls and my dad's CD collection. I felt Thanksgiving here. At home. Where I have always felt it, even if it took me this long to notice.

This weekend I have learned that Thanksgiving means coming home--coming home to hugs and smells and sounds and places and, yes, foods that I know and love and am thankful to consume.

Happy accidents

We are ignorant. Every last one of us. We know so little about so much and hardly know that. What we do know, we know by accident. We stumbled upon the discovery of this continent, we sparked flames when we weren't trying, and we had to try every poison berry before we knew which ones tasted best in our fruit salad. Of all the facts that are floating around in the realm of possibility, it is by pure chance that we found the ones that we did. Just as easily as we have plucked these things from the unknown and made them true, we could have left them there, plucked something else instead. But we have not. And for that we have the world that we do, full of facts and yet so equally not. And, for these accidents, I am immeasurably thankful. 

I am grateful that we discovered there are different ways to move the pitch in our voices and that these tones can be imitated by tightened strings and pots and pans, for whoever decided these sounds were beautiful and worth progressing. I am grateful that we gave words to things like "love" and "thought" and "purpose" and "enough" and all of the things I cannot hold but so often try to in my head. I am grateful for running water, domesticated crops, multi-story buildings, the alphabet, arithmetic, good smelling soap--things we could survive without but not in the way I have come to enjoy. And, right now, I am grateful to have stumbled into the company I have. I am grateful that, by happy accident, I have found comfort and tranquility and bliss.