Happy day of feasting
from my home to yours.
Allow me to wish you a very happy Thanksgiving. This is one of my favorite holidays of the year because when I was a girl it always meant that lots of family was coming back home. They would gather up at my grandmother Beulah’s farm or my grandmother Clyo’s shotgun in town, and I’d get to run around with my cousins, see my aunts and uncles, and listen for hours to stories the adults would tell. You know my evangelical father had very strict and odd beliefs about anything associated with religion, like Christmas (which we didn’t celebrate), but Thanksgiving was secular; and therefore we could, for one day, act like everybody else and celebrate without shame. We could belong.
Later when I was an adult I began to learn the people’s history and I came to understand the complicated story of Thanksgiving. In fact, I empathized with the native people and not the colonizers. For years my husband Raven would wear a black armband on Thanksgiving. I’ve done that too, in remembrance of the ways we Europeans oppressed the native people of America, as it came to be called.
This year I don’t have any points to prove. Mostly I have nostalgia and longing. Raven and I are “baching” it today. Our family has shrunk because of nest-leaving & divorce & death, and even our teenager, little Skyelark, has wrangled an invitation to her boyfriend’s house and isn’t at home. Lingering pandemic fears keep us separated from friends. Raven decided that we’re having a traditional meal despite there being only two of us, because he loves the meal and loves the leftovers, so we’re cooking. At table we’ll hold each other’s hands and say what we’re grateful for. And one thing we’re grateful for is each other, because I know so many people who have no family, no pod, no partner, no children—and they are eating alone today.
I send best wishes for a happy day of feasting and gratitude, however you are spending it.
The writer Silas House posted his Thanksgiving Spotify playlist, which I listened to this morning while cooking Seminole Pumpkin Pies. I was especially taken with the Kacey Musgraves song “Family Is Family.” You can find Silas’s playlist here.
If you need a quick Thanksgiving grace, here’s a good one that our cattle mentor Al Dowdy taught us.
May Thanksgiving constantly dwell within my heart,
the search for understanding always in my mind.
May courage serve as my eternal companion
and the love of truth forever my guide.
Thanks for the food. Thanks especially for the food.
Peace with the earth is the first peace. [Henry Beston, Herbs and the Earth]
Finally, I want to share with you a poem that was collected into All We Can Save, writing by women climate activists.
November
by Lynna Odel
If I can't save us
then let me feel you
happy and safe
under my chin.
If this will drown
or burn
then let us drink starlight
nap under trees
sing on beaches—
the morning rush to sit indoors
what, again?
If we are dying
then let me rip open
and bleed Love,
spill it, spend it
see how much
there is
the reward for misers is
what, again?
If this life is ending
then let me begin
a new one
Copyright © 2020 Lynna Odel. From All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis (One World, 2020).
To keep myself happy today I decided to organize my collection 3x5 recipe cards. I’ve been collecting recipes since I was in junior high, plus my mother gave me her card-stash recently. If I stacked the cards up, the pile would be at least 6 inches high. I’m dividing them into categories like “Pies” and “Cakes” and “Salads” and “Soups.” I’m finding recipe cards written in the handwriting of my mom (Pickle Lily), my grandmother Beulah (Fruit Cake), my daddy (Ratatouille, believe it or not), my sister (Pea Pickin’ Cake) and strangers. There are also plenty of cards I wrote out in my own girlish handwriting, which is very different from my handwriting now. Many are cut from periodicals. I’m surprised at the number of recipes that include Vidalia onions. I’m wondering why I keep a recipe for Fruit Cocktail Cake. And when would I ever need Lemonade for 100? Interestingly enough, there’s a recipe for Scuppernong Pie and another for Muscadine Cake.
Maybe I’m doing this because it brings me back to childhood. I found a recipe for Orange Congealed Salad, for example, and instantly remembered that jello-and-fruit concoction at every holiday meal. I can taste it now.
I’m wishing you a day of memories, either making them or reliving them. Peace and love to you.
It was a different Thanksgiving for us, too.
Sweet. Thank you.