Thanksgiving past
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Wild Write from 2017 by Cynthia Cummins
It used to be my favorite holiday, but it’s lost most of its allure for me. Done to death like every other holiday in Murka. Linked to getting a jump on Christmas, deep discounts and black (or green) Fridays. Heralded by the soothsayers who remind everyone to cultivate gratitude. Accompanied by the usual New Yorker cartoons about Indians and turkeys and pilgrims.
There was a brief moment as a college student and as a young person in my 20s and early 30s where Thanksgiving was great. It meant coming home to Mom and Dad’s old Victorian farmhouse in Virginia, with the heart pine floors, the broad multipaned windows with the original wavery glass, a real fire in a real hearth, and the pungency of rosemary, the sweetness of chocolate and the smoke of country ham blending to smell like “home.”
I wanted to cook then, having just discovered that I, too, could wrangle a gigantic cold lump of poultry. I followed the Silver Palate cookbook recipe, which meant covering the bird in cheesecloth and basting it every 15 minutes with butter and orange juice. My mother was displaced, unable to find a comfortable perch. With me guarding the kitchen and everybody else slumped in front of the TV watching football, there was not much for them to do except dishes. Oh, and I allowed her to make the gravy – because it was a thankless, hot task and the result at best unglamorous and inevitably unappreciated despite its literal and metaphorical value as the gravy on top of everything.
Then came the Thanksgivings as a mother. The first was a rather soulless and stressful affair. My parents came to San Francisco and I insisted we dine out at a fancy restaurant. I spent most of the meal either breastfeeding or walking around the table and into the lobby with my 3-month-old son. My mother and husband also took turns walking the unhappy kid, allowing me time to stuff my face with expensive yet sadly unremarkable turkey and fixins’ – even with the truffles that surely were featured somewhere.
The following year the husband’s relatives came to our house, and I found myself mostly alone in the kitchen, while they decamped in front of the television. They were willing to share the work, but – again – I was guarding the oven. I was still playing the part of perfect mother. Naturally, I was breastfeeding. I also made the entire meal from scratch, allowing others to participate only with the contribution of a pie or a bottle of wine. They’d ask if they could help and I’d cheerfully say, “Oh, no, I have it handled!” But all the while I was resenting them. For what? you ask. For not insisting – nay requiring, or tricking – me into resting and enjoying the day. For shrugging their shoulders and going back in to veg on the sofa. For not praising my perfect motherliness.
I couldn’t have articulated this at the time. I can barely grok it now. But let’s just say I forgive my former in-laws because how the hell could they know how to act if I didn’t know how I wanted them to act. They liked me well enough, but I’m sure they often thought I was a bitch on wheels. Being a mom can turn you into one.
We’ll fast forward past umpteen other miserable and unsatisfying Thanksgiving (and Christmas) dinners. Dinners where I staked my self worth and feelings about family on the outcome. Dinners that underwhelmed. That were fabulous but unappreciated. Where fights broke out over the gravy. Where I left in the middle of carving the turkey to sneak a cigarette in Golden Gate Park. Where I drank too much. Or hated too much. Where one kid got sick.Where gratitude decided not to make an appearance and, instead, flew down to Ft. Lauderdale for the weekend while I sweated in the beautiful retro apron my mother had sewn for me.
