Giving Thanks

I did not go home this year for Thanksgiving because plane tickets cost somewhere between 400 and 600 dollars. Grad school, for me, has been a return to impoverished life, and so that kind of expense is just not in the budget if I want to be able to eat; ever. This is the second time that I have not gone home for this particular holiday, but I think a lot has changed since the last time and the circumstances of my day where much different. I really enjoyed Thanksgiving this year, despite the fact that I miss my family and would have loved to see them. I'll be going home for Christmas in a few weeks (something I am looking forward to so earnestly I can almost feel their arms pressed around me in excited hugs, smell the warm cinnamon and sage of my parents house and feel the spastic furry licks of my dogs) and it seems unnecessary to head home for one day. I've never even really liked Thanksgiving that much, if I'm honest. Normally it is a holiday I am forced to spend making small talk with people I hardly know or don't particularly like or some combination of both. Last year I was dragged across the state to sit awkwardly in the kitchen of a family my parents had hardly been in touch with since we moved out of Grand Rapids nearly ten years ago. The only pleasant part of the trip was being able to sneak away to an old friend's house and share a few totally indulgent hours with her and another friend; getting sloshed on red wine and soaking in the hot tub. When I returned that evening to the house of the once removed family friends, I was put to sleep on an air mattress set up on a large cot. In short order the air mattress deflated, leaving me in a painful jumble of plastic and poking metal bars. As soon as I untangled my groggy, irritable self, I relocated to the small wicker couch in the corner and slept crouched, cramped and cold for a tumultuous five hours. Needless to say, I was stationed nearest to the coffee pot the following morning, anxious for my family to leave, and for the uncomfortable holiday to be over.

In years previous, since my parents relocated to the eastern side of Michigan, Thanksgiving is mostly spent at either my parent's our my paternal Grandmother's house. In either case, the same set of brash characters can be expected to attend. These include: my aunt, who practices the art of pleasant banter at the expense of anyone she can victimize, always certain to bring up the least welcome possible topic or most sensitive gaff, followed with pejorative criticism and her nervous cackle; My brain cancer survivor cousin and her husband, she, still able to issue sarcastic commentary from the shell of her enfeebled body and he, unclear on why the Gays, contemporary art, and vegetables continue to exist when he has made it clear how much he disapproves of them; these two are sure to bring their dog, a substitute for the children they will never have, an ugly, disruptive and spoiled pug, that spends the day flailing itself around the house like a rubber chicken flung out of a sling-shot; my Grandmother, a woman who makes a lack of depth an ornament of pride, and is adamantly incapable of conversations that do not include the olden days, her permanently ailing health, Jesus, and television commercials; And finally, my twice divorced cousin, considered the black sheep by the rest of her family for her sensitive heart, searching mind, and bumpy quest to find meaning and peace for herself in this world.

I do feel a little bad about abandoning my sisters to this fate, but they are mostly grown now, and I am certainly not more capable then they of deflecting the friction of these family gatherings. They are generally smart enough to disappear at some point, whereas I, as the oldest, am left at the mercy of the "adult" company; forced to represent my siblings as an ambassador of polite replies and best behavior. My absence is always commented on and interrupted. Thank God we aren't teetotalers.

This year, I got all the best of my family with none of the difficulties. I had a fantastic, hour long conversation via video-phone with my brother in California and a pleasant chat with my parents with snippets of my extended family (my Grandmother sitting in her usual aura of silent, self pity in the background, and my aunt barking some comment about my roommate's age) and a moment or two of my sisters. True, I did not have any turkey or stuffing and I did not get sloshed, but in place of that: I slept late, I made myself eggs and toast, I watched old movies that I love and read for school. In the evening I had a long, enjoyable conversation with my roommate over a warm mug of black tea with cream and sugar, and I watched the sun set over the rooftops of Brooklyn through my bedroom window. It was a totally enjoyable day, a rarity in my history of Thanksgivings; and for that I am very thankful.