(no subject)

'Tis the annual day of ritual Turkeyness here in the US of A, a day one is supposed to spend surrounded by family and loved ones consuming large quantities of the flesh-of-bird, gravy, potatoes, and pie while contemplating the joy of feasting and merriment before the long dark winter sets in, and how thankful we are that we have heat and indoor plumbing (usually) and grocery stores in this beautiful land that we totally stole from other people using guns, biological warfare, and genocide (Pilgrim Power!) but which we feel very confidently is All Ours Now and has been long enough that we don't really have to think about that last unpleasant bit at all.

With all I have to be thankful for (particularly this year), I suppose it is ungrateful of me to suggest that in many ways Thanksgiving makes me profoundly sad. I can't help but think of all the Thanksgivings when I was a kid, all of us wedged around the table on whatever motley assortment of spare chairs we could scrounge from elsewhere in the house: my parents, my brothers, my grandparents, and me. My brothers and my grandparents are gone, my parents moved far away and disinclined to spend this particular holiday with what little family they have left. Maybe that's because it makes them sad too and they find it easier to cope with loss by avoiding having to look at it straight on. I don't think I can really fault them for that.

What I do know is that family is important to me -- more important than almost anything else -- and it's on this day that I feel simultaneously abandoned by my emotionally-dysfunctional parents, determined never to let my own children down in that same way, and also incredibly grateful that I have a few good friends who are, really, more family than the one I was born with. I guess it seems like family is one of those things we should always have and which, though it shifts and changes, should be there sheltering us and nurturing us and annoying us for our whole lives, and when it's not there (or is hopelessly broken, or goes away) we feel like those thanksgiving leftovers that no-one's quite sure what to do with.

So that choice is there: resign oneself to being a sad little foil packet of giblets languishing in the back of the fridge, or go out and find and make family where you can, and make one better than life may have chanced to give you. Love and friendship and respect are not in any way an exclusive thing. Be family to others, and let them be family to you. And not just today, okay?

Oh yeah, and eat until you can hardly move and you are filled with that warm, sleepy turkey glow. That's the very best part of all (-:

(no subject)

A most excellent turkey feast was had in the company of matociquala and friends. There was food! There was music! There was laughter! There was good-hearted comparison of scars and stories swapped of personal stupidities! It was a very good day. Now I am home and I must nap the Sleepy Turkey Nap of Divine-like Contentedness.