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November 23, 2006
Thanksgiving
I've been struggling to feel thankful.
For the past two years, my emotional reserves have slowly worn away. We moved, and life in Woodland was hard. Jason died. Friends moved away. For a long time, I never seemed to have enough money. Wedding planning taxed my logistical abilities. Then there was the car accident. The job change. The move. Jazzy's sudden death. A decaying house. Landlord problems. Another move.
I haven't quite fallen into depression, but without Ben to help me through it all I don't know how I would have coped.
I felt pretty pathetic yesterday when I sat down to write a list of things that make me thankful, and it was empty for a long, long time. The things I could think of were full of spite -- "I'm thankful I don't have to deal with that asshole landlord anymore." That's not gratitude, that's passive aggressiveness with a hint of relief.
I decided to do a little research on Thanksgiving. Maybe an understanding of what the Pilgrims were thankful for nearly 400 years ago would help me with my list. pilgrimhall.org and plimoth.org have lots of great information.
I learned that the idea of the first American Thanksgiving as an annual national tradition wasn't born until the early 1800s. It was inspired by a feast to celebrate the harvest that we know about through the diaries of early Pilgrims.
At that harvest feast, 50 Christian colonists and 90 Wampanoag men gathered "enough fowl to eat for a week" -- more likely sea birds and duck than turkey. They shot five deer, gathered cod, bass and other fish, and prepared dishes of corn and meal.
That's all we know about what they ate. Other records of eating habits of the era suggest the menu may also have included a Wampanoag stew of squash, grits, dry beans, green beans and seeds; maybe they had stewed pumpkin, and maybe peas with salted meat.
Though this feast was merely a celebration of the harvest, both the Christian colonists and their Wampanoag hosts had long lasting traditions of thanksgiving. Giving thanks was the primary purpose of regular feasts for the Indians, who thanked the animals for the meat they provided, the plants for their fruits, the great spirits of the world for guidance and opportunity. The Pilgrims held religious services for giving thanks to the creator, who they believed gave them everything they had and guided their every act.
Neither of those traditions really survives today. The religious separatist Pilgrims were offended by the consumerism and exploitation of Christmas they had left behind, and came to America to found a more devout community where they would be free from religious persecution. That element of their culture has vanished in an America of consumerism. Most of the millions of different native people in their dozens of North American civilizations were killed, by disease, by warfare and by deliberate genocide of future European settlers.
When Thanksgiving celebrations grew in popularity in the 1840s, wars between whites and Indians were raging. Early celebrations did not acknowledge the contributions that the Wampanoag made to the health and survival of the New World's new settlers.
It's a very strange history to celebrate.
Reading about it helped me understand what Americans may have been thankful for 400 years ago, however. They were thankful for food, for each other, for life, for opportunity. They gave their thanks to God or to the spirit or to the animals and plants. But they gave thanks; they acknowledged their blessings even during times of great hardship.
The Washington Post has started a discussion called "On Faith, where secular and religious panelists are asked to share their views on many questions. This week, the panel is discussing Thanksgiving.
A lot of panelists had deep thoughts, but it was this comment from a random reader -- he says he's a 74-year-old Jewish man -- that really moved me:
"But for me the greatest glory is in the imperfect but continued struggle of humanity to get it right even though there are many of us who would rather be greedy, evil, powergrubbing, or just generally miserable specimens."
--Robert Tichell
Despite all our struggles, the big evils, the small obstacles, there is good in this world. I'm thankful that Robert Tichell was there to remind me, and to help me get back in touch that.
I guess I do have a little gratitude in me after all.
I am thankful for Ben, for the love we share, the support and insight and silliness he brings into my life.
I am thankful for my health, my body, the food that nourishes me and the exercise that keeps me strong.
I am thankful for the privilege that surround me, my family and everyone I know. We are safe, we are warm, we are fed. We don't deserve it any more than anybody else, but we are blessed.
I am so thankful that my struggles -- though they sometimes feel overwhelming -- are the struggles of the privileged, of attitude, psychology and comfort, and not struggles of survival.
I am thankful for Mister and Mouse, and for having known Jazzy. I am thankful for their simplicity, their furriness, their cuteness, their purrs and headbutts, even their silly, stupid misbehavior.
I am thankful for friends, for our shared lives. I am thankful for the shared support that we provide one another, for fun and love and history as we mature and change and grow together.
I am thankful for my family. I love my parents and my brothers and the values and memories and experiences we share. I also love the new families of kind, welcoming and thoughtful Lincolns, Rileses and Bugases that I joined.
I am thankful for the world we live in, the cities, the mountains, the cornfields, the deserts, the oceans, the universe, the solar system, and the stars. To experience and witness and live through a moment in the history of time is blessing enough.
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at November 23, 2006 09:36 AM
Comments
I'm thankful for you.
Posted by: Mom at November 24, 2006 05:57 AM