Thanksgiving Thoughts

I used to adore Thanksgiving. But not for the expected reasons - great food, big crowd, football games. I adored it because the power of these stimulants - gluttony, big crowd, football - enfolded my family in a cozy blanket of numbness. The numbness was dense enough to defeat the usual squabbles and snipings. And it allowed us to believe, for half a day, that we were indeed normal, even happy.

As a child, at some point during the endless feeding, I would slip off my chair and drop into the world under the table. Under the veil of the starched white table cloth, I could only see legs and shoes. The upside world of manufactured cheer was muted; and down below I had some quiet authenticity and some control.

Every year, in my down below, I untied my relatives shoelaces. I then retied one person's shoelaces to those of the person sitting in the adjacent seat. I did this with care and concentration. And every year, my relatives laughed as if this were a joke.

I knew it wasn't a joke, but it took me years of adulthood to figure out why I did this untying and retying. It's simple really, I was creating a unified family. One that had genuine bonds of untainted love.

This year, I do have genuine bonds of untainted love. With my life and love partner, Richard. With my brother and his family. With my friends. With my recently deceased father and with my self-involved mother. In some part I have illness and pain to thank. They pushed me to the edge and left me with no hope. In the place of no hope, in the down-below, I found something that tied me to life.

Am I grateful for illness and pain. Hell no! But I am grateful for the new meanings I discovered and for the love knots I learned to re-tie.