Mixed Metaphors

“The only constant is change.” — Heraclitus

“Things do not change; we change.” — Henry David Thoreau

As I write, it’s the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I’ve been rereading Thanksgiving Holiday journal entries from the past 12 years, plus my Thanksgiving blog reminiscences. A theme emerged which I’ve addressed before, yet continues to weave through my life — and the lives of loved ones — things change.

Thanksgiving is traditionally a family holiday, whether you celebrate it with your bio or chosen family. I’ve done both. Another theme became apparent as I reread what I’ve written in the past, grief and gratitude go hand-in-hand.

This year that theme is even more poignant as grief and gratitude approach the thresholds of our homes to knock on our doors. People are dying from the coronavirus and will be missing from the table this year and future holidays. Many are the very people, the essential workers, who were committed to protect us and save our lives. Grief and gratitude.

I’m heeding the advice of the medical and scientific professionals this year and celebrating the Thanksgiving Holiday alone. I’ll cook a traditional turkey dinner with all my favorite sides, including blueberry pie for dessert. Grief and gratitude.

Thanksgivings Past

The past few years, after our beloved mother’s death, I’d arrive at Dad’s house, our childhood family home the night before Thanksgiving with pies and freshly-baked Parker House or brioche rolls in hand and prep for the holiday meal the next day.  I’d make the stuffing, Cherry Jell-O (yes, you have my permission to say, “Okay, Boomer!”), and get all the cookware ready. While working in the kitchen, Dad and I would catch up with each other. Some years, sister Tami would also join us the night before too to prep and reminisce. These are some of my fondest memories.

The next day, I’d get the turkey and the ham in the oven, Dad and I would put the leaf in the table to expand the buffet, dress it with the Thanksgiving tablecloth, paper plates, and napkins sister Kelly would purchase, stage the table with serving bowls and utensils and with the help of three generations, my sisters, niece, grandnephews and grandniece, we’d peel and mash potatoes, prepare the sides, get the food on the table, and carve the turkey and ham. Each year someone would volunteer — or be drafted — to say grace.

This was never a seamless process without some degree of stress or drama. Our childhood home is a small Cape Cod house which barely accommodated our family of six kids growing up, so on holidays it was difficult to prepare and serve a meal without the constant disinviting of hungry and curious children and adults from the kitchen who simply wanted to check on the progress of the dinner and grab a small taste to satisfy their hunger.

Besides being the chef, unfortunately, I also felt like I was the police or border patrol, shooing people out of the kitchen, and not always doing it in the most patient or warm manner. Afterwards, I often needed to make amends for my controlling and brusque behavior.

Once the Thanksgiving buffet was ready for guests, since the kitchen is so small, people would fill their plates then retreat to different rooms, downstairs to Dad’s 1960’s Knotty-Pine Basement Bar, or the small guest bedroom which would feature the football game. Dad and/or a couple family members would grab limited real estate at the buffet table to avoid the cold basement and/or football game.

One benefit and reward for being the lead chef was I didn’t have to clean-up afterwards or do dishes. Usually, my sister Kelly and Tami would take the lead, get food in the refrigerator, and prepare leftovers for family members, including Dad. The last few years, to the credit of our male family members, they did dishes.

The reward for all of our hard work was once they were finished, I’d stage the table for the pie buffet, which featured family favorite blueberry pies, sister Cindy’s Elegant Farmer apple, or caramel apple pie warmed in a bag in the oven, some years a pecan pie, and a featured guest pie from chosen family member and pie-baking maven, Leanne. One year she made Mom’s pumpkin pie, other years Dad and Kelly’s favorite cherry, or banana cream. We were fully stocked with Reddi-Whip, since for some of the younger kids, they preferred a little pie with their whipped cream, after taste-testing the Reddi-whip by filling their own mouths or each other’s.

Most years, I would return home to Madison after the pie course exhausted — emotionally, physically and spiritually — yet grateful — plus on my drive home I’d make a mental list of the amends I needed to make the next day for regrettable behavior. Yes, I’m a work in progress. Some years, the next day on Black Friday, I would make a second entire Thanksgiving dinner with my favorite sides so I’d have leftovers. Oh, My!

“After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.” — Oscar Wilde, A Woman of Importance

Years earlier, when I first got sober, I was estranged from family (my choice) and celebrated Thanksgiving and other holidays with my chosen family and lesbian friends in recovery. We dubbed those The Orphan Holidays. We created our own potluck holiday traditions, and welcomed friends and ‘orphans’ who had no place to go to join us in a meal and celebration. My specialty at Thanksgiving were my mashed potatoes, slathered in butter. At Easter it was cheesy hash browns.

In my committed relationship of almost 15 years, before I returned annually to my family home after my partner and I separated 12 years ago, my partner I and created our own holiday traditions. We rotated Thanksgiving celebrations. One year with my family, one year we’d join The Orphans, and another year just the two of us. Yes, things change.

Thanksgiving Present

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” — Desmond Tutu

This year things change (again!). Before I whine a little, let me state I’m grateful. I have a home, a job, food in my pantry, my health, friends and family who love me, and though I may not have everything I want, I have everything I need. I’m lucky.

Having said that, many others are not so lucky. I also struggle some days to find the light in the darkness, especially this season of the year, during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic and the threats to our democracy.

From Thanksgiving in 2017, in Another Dispatch from the Hideout, I wrote the following:

“I’ve been struggling to find hope and a light to guide me to move forward with optimism in these dark times as we witness the degradation of our democracy under the current president and regime. An essential element of my early sobriety was to learn to embrace the belief that the world was in fact a safe place. Today, it’s a challenge again. Grief.”

As I write, an 11-pound turkey is defrosting in the refrigerator. Last week, to avoid crowds in the grocery store, I went shopping early in the morning and purchased all the ingredients for my holiday dinner including my favorite Thanksgiving sides, and for the blueberry pie that I’ll bake.

Since I’m a cinephile, and in years past when I celebrated Thanksgiving with The Orphans, we’d often go en masse to see a holiday movie and sometimes create a ruckus. This year, after I serve my dinner, I’ll watch a holiday-themed film (at home), one of my favorite traditions. This year, Friendsgiving. Though it’s received mixed reviews, I’ll experience secondhand some of the drama from my family or Orphan Holidays that I’ll miss this year.

I’ll also call Dad, read and respond to social media posts from friends and family, join a virtual Zoom dessert course with friends and again, share secondhand in the ways we choose to celebrate the holiday this year. I’ll draft an entry in my current journal so years from now I can reread and remember how the world celebrated Thanksgiving this year.

This year, as in other years, I’ll carry on my tradition of remembering loved ones no longer here in life, yet remain in my heart and memory. I’ll make a gratitude list. Yes, you guessed it, grief and gratitude.

Thanksgiving Future

“Yes, things change and remain the same.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

I wrote the preceding in a blog reminiscence which launched this series of Thanksgiving-themed essays, Thanksgiving: Things Change. As an optimistic, hopeful person, I envision a Thanksgiving Holiday dinner next year with my family in Racine at our childhood home where our 90-year-old father still resides and thrives and will turn 91. We won’t be missing anyone due to death, yet distance may still divide us. Someone, maybe a representative of the second or third generation, will say grace and recognize our loved ones who are absent and acknowledge our gratitude that we’re able to share another meal together as a family.

We will share new stories and retell those that are our family legacy. My sisters, niece, grandnephews and grandniece will prepare and serve the Thanksgiving dinner. My grandnephew, M’Kye who aspires to be a chef, will shadow me and be my sous chef again and take responsibility for preparing his own dishes, creating new traditions. Our chosen family member, Leanne, will ask what kind of pie should she bake for the family this year, and did we want two, since she didn’t bake one for us in 2020 (that’s how she is, her generosity knows no bounds), maybe a cherry AND a banana cream pie.

Yes, though I’ll strive to be more patient in the small kitchen, I’ll most likely still bark at people who without intending to will get in the way. I’ll have to make amends. We’ll continue to eat in different rooms, go back for seconds, and repeat the same refrains, “I ate too much.” “I need to leave room for pie.” “I want to take a nap.” “When do we get to eat pie?”

We’ll comment on how the youngest kids have grown up. They’ll respond with grimaces and shake their heads or recoil from unwanted hugs and kisses. We’ll ask how college sophomore Quinn is doing, and ask what he wants to do when he finishes school. He’ll shrug his shoulders and continue to read a book, or play a game on his phone. We’ll gossip about all the family members who are absent, that too is a family tradition. The phone will ring with holiday greetings from family in other states.

After the meal four generations of the family will sit in a circle in the living room, fill every chair, lay on the couch, collapse in each other’s laps, and spread and stretch out on the floor, loosening belts. We’ll talk at once, almost competitively, while the volume increases just to be heard.

Dad will have a hard time keeping up with the conversations, though he will be smiling, grateful that that his family is together and comment more than once throughout the day, “I wish your mother was here.” When the dishes are done and the leftovers packed away, out will come the pies and the whipped cream and we’ll eat again.

From 2013’s Thanksgiving: Things Change:

“Thanksgiving still remains my favorite holiday. It features sensual pleasures that delight, from the inviting aroma of pies baking and turkey roasting, the abundance of the harvest displayed for feasting, seasonal flavors that invoke body memories, the confluence of loved ones, and in my family, the cacophony of competing conversations.” 

For all my friends and family, both bio and chosen, I wish you the best and healthiest Thanksgiving Holiday, however you celebrate it.

Stay positive, test negative!

Related Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!

Thanksgiving: Things Change

The Orphan Holidays

Home for the Holidays

Another Dispatch from the Hideout

Hibernation & the Holidays: Retreat to the Hideout 

Comfort Food: Winter Blues, Holidays, & Weight Gain  

Additional Reading on the Thanksgiving Holiday

How Friendsgiving Took Over Millennial Culture

‘Friendsgiving’ Review: Dysfunction with All the Trimmings

Everything Thanksgiving

12 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Attending an In-Person Thanksgiving