Not to State the Obvious, but....

Ever been to that Meal where food is passed around, the tableware clinks and thuds punctuating the random comments about taste and who's been doing what lately, but the obvious is obviously not mentioned? It could be that the Thanksgivings I've eaten at are the exception and that elsewhere millions of people fall over each other professing gratitude for friends, family, and abundance. But, you're right. I share the same hunch. By the way, only 0.00273785... part of our year is spent officially considering thankfulness. If I calculate for Christmas and a birthday, the number increases (whoa!) to 0.00821355. But you're right. I thought the same thing. This year we went to my sister's place, as we have been doing for the past few years, and I went with a specific goal in mind: to state the obvious.

As you know, goals are tough, and that leading a disciplined life requires we yield to the initially seductive allure of controlling the order, purpose, efficacy of our lives. Problem is--yes, you're right, absolutely right. After arriving at my sister's place, it was obvious this would be a different kind of Thanksgiving. Her husband was in charge this time and the menu was, well, bacheloresque. Store-cooked turkey, garlic toasted wonder bread, iceberg salad, instant mashed potatoes with brownish gravy, and diet beer for the willing graced a table set with plastic cups and styro plates. Dessert was equally humble, a handful of peel-your-own hershey kisses. You might wonder what kind of people I hail from, so I will offer that among the 5 adults present almost 50 years of college education from uptown universities was represented, and that we were not dining at just any trailer park but in a neighborhood whose property values still have huge bunches of zeros supporting undisputed numbers. Dinner conversation was lively and rich, compliments went to the cook for saving us all from unnecessary calories, and one of the kids insisted on saying a blessing, stopping us midway through our second helpings, because "you guys forgot!"

Seems that the perspicuity of youth rendered moot one of my goals, which was to insist that we start with a blessing, and I forgot. I wanted to express my thanks to the Fates for small blessings. In this case, that my sister didn't get kicked in the head, as first thought, but in the leg when her horse, with nomme par erruer of Magic, spooked on a trail ride two days prior. Suffice to say that my sister is as stubborn as her horse is spooky, but nothing like a broken leg and attendant surgery to screw the mess back together to disconnect her from the exaltation of her daily schedule for some timely self-reflection. She's got three months ahead of her full of challenges, the best of which will be to reconnect with her son and husband. And it seemed that through the thick fog of pain meds, she agreed to let her husband use the kitchen.

A final thought. I observe that expressions of thankfulness are quite separate a thing than simply saying thank you. Thankfulness is not really a part of our social memory, thanks in part to our cultural mantra to spend, consume, and get. (See Andrie Codrescu's Deadly Stampede) We do say thank you often, or so it seems to me, but more as a punctuative comment during conversation than as any expression of sincere feeling. In the Arabic language, incidentally, there is the word for "thank you" but no words for "thank you very much." Their social understanding of thank you is according to the honor of your word, and it is accepted as a form of currency and valued as the only true measure of your personal integrity. If you need to add "very much" then your word has little value, not much honor, and you're a pond-scum, degenerative sycophant of the lowest order. It's tough to get your Thanksgiving tablemates to swith their focus, from the abundant table to the spiritual plate on which servings of gratitude and thankfulness are an obvious social, familial nutritional need that, if served up, can help us thrive in the coming year