Happy Thanksgiving, BAP readers! Usually, at this point, I'm running around in frantic circles, trying to get ready for the holiday, but this year, I abdicated. I gave Rick a choice: we could either go out to eat, or he could cook dinner. By "cook," I also mean plan, shop for, and prepare without asking me any questions (as in, "Honey, how do you boil potatoes?"). After mulling this over, he gamely agreed to give it a try, and I plan to spend Thursday morning on the sofa in my pajamas, watching the Macy's Parade and "Miracle on 34th Street."
Don't get me wrong - I love the holidays. It's just that they are an awful lot of work. It was a helluva lot easier when my mother did everything. Now I'm the mom, and it's become my job, and frankly, the whole Norman-Rockwell-perfect-turkey-and-trimmings thing is exhausting. So I bailed. And to be honest, I don't feel one bit guilty.
For one thing, instead of panicking when I can't find the gravy boat, this year I can concentrate on actually being thankful. I've got a lot to be thankful for, and it will be nice to be able to take a few moments and reflect on the blessings I've received. Corny, perhaps -- but true. I am thankful (not the least because someone else is cooking).
One of the things I'll be thinking about is the opportunity I've had to join this community of writers, readers, and wonderful poetry lunatics. So, dear cyber-friends, here's a fun Thanksgiving poem about family and abundance. Have a wonderful holiday!
"Sunday Brunch at the Old Country Buffet"
Madison, Wisconsin, 1996
Here is a genial congregation,
well fed and rosy with appetite,
robust children in tow. They have come
and all the generations of them, to be fed,
their old ones too who are eligible now
for a small discount, having lived to a ripe age.
Over the heaped and steaming plates, one by one,
heads bow, eyes close; the blessings are said.
Here there is good will; here peace
on earth, among the leafy greens, among the fruit
of the gardens of America's heartland. Here is abundance,
here is the promised
land of milk and honey, out of which
a flank of the fatted calf, thick still
on its socket and bone, rises like a benediction
over the loaves of bread and the little fishes, belly-up in butter.
by Anne Caston. from Flying Out With the Wounded, NYU Press, 1997.
