There was a time when Thanksgiving might have been the most beloved holiday in this country, and not the mere speedbump it is now on the calendar between Halloween and Christmas.
I’m no old-timer, but it seems to be worth mentioning, given that we tend not to remember what happened last week. I can’t say in favorable conscience that I’m troubled by the downfall of Thanksgiving, for I was always a Thanksgiving misfit, which, ironically, means I get more out of the spirit of the day now.
Thanksgiving, at any time, has a certain amount of pressure. It is paramount that you’re grateful. People expect it from you. But what if you’re not? Further, what if you don’t have reason to be? What if your life, just then, is hard and unremitting, and it’s a struggle to keep going, for good reason?
I always felt during those times that I needed to make something up, or I’d done wrong because I had no easy answers. Saying, “Well, I’m alive, I’m grateful for that,” doesn’t seem to cut it, especially if there are times when you almost wish you weren’t.
This isn’t meant to be some miserable exercise, so let me freshen this up some with a bit of levity. People like to eat, and they like to stuff themselves, especially when it’s all but officially sanctioned, so there was always a certain amount of grandstanding on the gratitude front with Thanksgiving. “I’m so grateful for A and B…say, what time will the bird be done?”
I may be the lone person who detests all Thanksgiving-based foodstuffs, save the pies. I would have arrived early for the feast back in the 1700s and crushed a sizable quantity of venison, fish, and quail, but that’s not quite the bill of fare anymore.
When I was a kid, my grandmother, having accepted that the sight of that tubular cranberry dish nearly made me heave, would make me an Ellio’s frozen pizza.
Nothing tasted better on those days to me, perhaps because of the contrast, and I was grateful for that and for her. Looking out for another person takes all forms — including sometimes not standing on ceremony, and I was thankful to receive a lesson in simple grace.
She made it kind of our thing, and in all of these Thanksgivings since — many of which I’ve spent alone — I’ve carried on that tradition and I feel close to her again.
I think there’s great value in not being automatically grateful, or admitting that there isn’t a lot on your gratitude plate at the moment, because then you’re open to other forms of gratitude.
I’m not a looking back kind of person. Nostalgia isn’t for me. What’s next is. Always what is next. As a result, what I’d say that I’m grateful for is untraditional. It might not pass muster at the dinner table, but it does so at the banquet of life.
For instance, I’m grateful that I had the strength to stop abusing alcohol — cold turkey, if you’d like a leftover-inspire pun — after 20 years of doing so. Had I not done so, I’d be dead, and maybe I’d never become Capt. Gratitude for myriad things, which I’m open to being, and which I strive towards.
I’m always grateful for tomorrow, because tomorrow is another chance to fight, to carry on, to create, to do better than at any time prior. And if that’s your attitude, and what you seek, I think it adds up, in time, to getting you where you wish to be.
So how will I spend this Thanksgiving? It’s a day of purpose for me. Of wellness. Doing the best I can so that I can do better tomorrow.
I’ll arise before dawn, run 10,000 stairs, do 500 push-ups. Take care of my body.
Then I’ll work on a book I’m writing. I acquired a bag of the Thanksgiving blend at Starbucks, so that’ll be the coffee I drink. I have a new volume of Henry James’ criticism, and I’ll read that because art means everything to me. It is everything to me. It contains everything. It holds the answers.
I’ll call my mom. Perhaps I’ll FaceTime with my Tasmanian devil of a 3-year-old niece, who now calls me Colinbuddy — one word. I’ll listen to Duke Ellington.
And unlike Jay Gatsby, brooding on the old, unknown, world, I’ll accept where things stand right now and I need not be thankful for that, but rather that I am someone who can get where they wish to be.
I may be a Thanksgiving misfit, but you can’t convince me that I don’t have this holiday down pretty good, too.
Fleming is a writer.
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