{"id":827,"date":"2020-11-27T05:23:55","date_gmt":"2020-11-27T13:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=827"},"modified":"2020-11-26T20:36:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-27T04:36:30","slug":"finding-thanksgiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2020\/11\/27\/finding-thanksgiving\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Thanksgiving"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Friday, November 27th<\/sup><\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span>Traditionally known in America as Black Friday. The Day After Thanksgiving. Food Coma Recovery Day.\u00a0 Raise your hand if you shouldn’t have eaten that last [fill in the blank].<\/p>\n

*raises hand*<\/p>\n

The past few weeks here in the States, most of the conversation not dominated by Things Political\u00a0 <\/span>has been focused on the War on Thanksgiving, aka\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cLife with Covid-19.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Medical authorities and science-aware politicians have asked – begged<\/em> – people to stay home, telling us that it\u2019s better to miss this one Thanksgiving than to miss all the ones to come, and other words of caution.<\/p>\n

Too many people, feeling either that they know more than medical professionals or simply not caring, ignored the warnings.\u00a0 <\/span>We\u2019ll see, in a few weeks, if they\u2019ve cost us lives, and the winter holidays, too.<\/p>\n

Those of us who heeded the warnings may have gone into the holiday feeling like we did, in fact, \u201cmiss\u201d Thanksgiving.\u00a0 <\/span>I certainly felt that way – not only was I not able to fly back east to see my family for the first time since my mother\u2019s funeral in January, I couldn\u2019t even gather with local friends.\u00a0 <\/span>And hey, those feelings were valid.\u00a0 <\/span>2020 has been, you should pardon my language, a shittastic fuckery of a year.\u00a0 <\/span>Even if you didn\u2019t start the past twelve months with major surgery and the hanging sword of cancer like I did, it\u2019s not like 2019 was anything to write home about either, and WHAM hello Covid-19, like the shitty kicker to the Trump regime.\u00a0 <\/span>Losing Thanksgiving was pouring salt into the wound of insult added to injury, and it was entirely reasonable to be grumpy, if not downright angry.<\/p>\n

But something funny happened, at least here.\u00a0 <\/span>As we cooked, and baked, and plotted zoom sessions, and arranged for drop-offs and pick-ups of food; as we teased each other about not getting out of our pajamas all day, or having to clean the house for company, we also had time to look around, and see, in the shadows of what we\u2019re missing, the light of what we have.<\/p>\n

Caring.\u00a0 <\/span>Connections.\u00a0 <\/span>Community.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t miss Thanksgiving.\u00a0 <\/span>It was right here, waiting for us to notice it again. Not the whitewashed historical story we were fed as children, but something better.\u00a0 <\/span>Thanks. Giving.\u00a0 <\/span>Taking a breath to be thoughtful, thankful, and mindful not just of what we have, but what we\u2019re able to give.<\/p>\n

And maybe next year, when we gather with our loved ones without fear of pandemic, we\u2019ll be able to remember some of that, and build on it.<\/p>\n

Maybe.\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s up to us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Friday, November 27th.\u00a0 Traditionally known in America as Black Friday. The Day After Thanksgiving. Food Coma Recovery Day.\u00a0 Raise your hand if you shouldn’t have eaten that last [fill in the blank]. *raises hand* The past few weeks here in the States, most of the conversation not dominated by Things Political\u00a0 has been focused […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,56],"tags":[175,57],"class_list":["post-827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-life","category-life-experiences","tag-holidays","tag-laura-anne-gilman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":828,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions\/828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}