18: November 16, 2023

Halfway through November, more than halfway, already on the descent towards December: Thanksgiving is in a single week. It is nothing, no time at all, almost here, and on that day I will make a pie because I always make a pie on that day, and I will think about the Thanksgivings I’ve celebrated, here and there and way over there. I have been in this country every Thanksgiving, though throughout it, in California or in Texas or in Maryland or in Oklahoma, running Turkey Trots, eating pies. Making pies. It is important, to peel those apples, to roll out that dough, to fear every time that the pie will not be good, will somehow fail and then remember: no, again this recipe is a good one. I have not lived a life of stillness, of traditions repeated one year after another; I have had whole holidays with people I no longer know. Cold, crisp Thanksgivings; warmer ones, too. I remember some of them, some bits of most of them: the guest rooms where I have stayed, the years it rained, the board games, the parades of people coming through the door bearing food as gifts, as offerings. Sometimes I wish for something different, for traditions I have spent a lifetime building: this is the tablecloth we always use, this is the salad so-and-so always brings, this is what and when and where we do this, say this, laugh about this, become this. But: no. This is a holiday about gratitude, about mindfulness, and so instead I kneel to the ways I’ve dipped in and out of various lives, trying them on for size. Instead, I stand in awe at the way we can each wrap ourselves in the patchwork quilt of our lives, the stories no one else can ever fully know, the joy and ache that brings. Thursday will come. I will peel the apples, I will roll out the dough. I will make that pie, again. And it will be good, as it always is. It will be good, and we will gather together, and share it.