I didn't think it would be so hard. I thought I could do a quiet Thanksgiving. I did all right for a while. And, then, without warning, the melancholy set in. All it took was the placing of two (and only two) plates on the table for me to become sad. Very sad.
I think I have tolerated the pandemic pretty well. I am good at entertaining myself. I like to spend time alone. Sure, there have been bad days, but it wasn't until Thursday that the loss of human connection due to the pandemic really hit home.
I don't usually like big gatherings - I prefer to take people one-by-one or, at most, a handful at a time. But Thanksgiving - Thanksgiving is different. It is my favorite holiday. No presents - just lots of food and a jigsaw puzzles and beloved people.
This year we had the food and the puzzle, but there was no need to set up a card table for the puzzle--it fit just fine on the dining room table.
Sitting there, just the two of, it felt like my husband and I were surrounded by ghosts. Yes, we said our gratitudes, and there was and is plenty to be thankful for. But, then we found ourselves naming those who have sat around the dining room table over the years - always some combination of our kids and their families, extended family, friends, even ex-spouses. (They are always family when you have kids together.)
And then there was the fact that we had to do all of the cooking. In recent years, Mara, my youngest, has taken over the kitchen while I have followed her around doing dishes. And those who have joined us have always made contributions to the groaning table.
Even in years when we have not hosted at Thanksgiving, we have always spent it with others. Never alone.
And, yes, I know, that many have suffered much greater losses. There are those who have lost loved ones or jobs or homes to the pandemic. There are those who live alone and are unable for a variety of reasons to get together outside with others for a walk or a visit. There are those who can't visit loved ones in hospitals or nursing homes. There are also exhausted health care workers who are putting their lives on the line for us every day, even as people refuse to wear masks and insist on gathering.
So, on this day, two days after Thanksgiving, with Christmas just a few weeks away, I offer thanks for health and friends and family and a warm and comfortable home. And I pray that we will find a way to come together as a nation to take care of those who are suffering the most during this challenging time.
Funny, I could have sworn I saw you and Bill at our table.
ReplyDeleteWith Carolyn and Rob, and Kirsten and Holly.
It was your Thanksgivings where there were all those I interesting people, like the woman with the goats.
It is only in retrospect that I realize I knew Bonnie and Noelle (and maybe John and maybe Melba) at your table before dream group.
Your table is so much more than wood and a table cloth. It is so much more than yours (though you created it). Your table is all over Portland, and Vancouver and the world.
Your table is the novel that is written and becomes everyone's story, even as the writer may eat alone in her kitchen.
It was hard for you, as the creator, to sit in the quiet and still pronounce it "good". You missed the connections you spun into place, the hearts you helped heal, the visceralness of the love you extended.
But I promise you (because I felt it Thursday), it was there, just in another dimension of dispersion and diaspora and diffusion.
And it exists because you called it into being with your love. And it always will until the last of us are regathered in another time and place where only our collective unconscious recalls the piece of wood and table cloth in your home, even as we are recreating it together again.
Thank you!
Thank you, Dor. This is so moving and wise.
DeleteI feel like America is a caterpillar or larva in a chrysalis. We might feel so alone in our isolation, but really, we will come out together and resume our moth or butterfly ways.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jennifer. A lovely image.
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