Thanksgiving Thoughts and the Roundness of Memory

Some blue-headed turkey talk, memory, and a reminder to write, draw, and be thankful

Nov 23, 2023

“I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.” ― Flannery O'Connor

Hello! I don't normally post mid-week, but given that this is a special week, I wanted to make a short post and also say thank you.

I know this can be a complicated week for so many reasons. It's easy to get caught up in a Norman Rockwell kind of image about what "Thanksgiving" (or a similar holiday) should be. It's easy to use those images as a measuring stick against which you gauge your holiday.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday, but I hope that even if it is wonderful only in the ways you make it so.

Make it so.

Thanksgiving doesn’t have to come looking for you. It doesn’t have to show up, pumpkin pie in hand. It doesn’t have to mean a full house, a fancy meal, a vintage red, or special napkins.

We aren’t owed Thanksgiving.

We make it.

Find a way to do something that matters to you, whether that means going for a walk or making a pie or drawing a portrait or going out and sitting in your car with a coffee you made in the kitchen. Your day doesn't have to be like anyone else's for it to be good, for it to be meaningful, and for it to be a day on which you think about and express gratitude.

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. What comes to mind? What one thing is good in your day, in your week, in your life? Make a note.

If you are all set for a beautiful Thanksgiving with family and friends, I hope it is peaceful. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you have help. I hope things are smooth and easy and that there is laughter and love and maybe shared memory.

Shared memory holds us together.

Things have taken an unexpected turn here. It won't be the Thanksgiving we expected.

I was writing earlier in the week about Thanksgiving, about how we think and feel about it, and about how it has changed through the years.

I am going to excerpt just a few thoughts here.

Writing is, sometimes, a way of coping.

From the outside, I can imagine someone looking at me tonight would see it that way, see that I'm leaning in because that is exactly the case. I'm coping. I’m still sitting at the table where I worked all day. I’m reminding myself that this isn’t the first time. I’m trying to breathe through everything that is rising up, once again, to swallow me.

I missed the light tonight. Late in the afternoon I told myself I should try, that I needed to go out, breathe in some fresh air, get some perspective standing at the top of the hill. At 5:10, I glanced out the window and realized it was almost dark. I went, pushed aside the curtains, and looked, only to find there wasn't even a hint of light remaining in the sky. I don't know if it had been there, and I missed it, or maybe there simply was no transition today.

The Roundness of Memory

Thanksgiving is one of those reminders that none of us remember well, and none of us remember exactly the same. It is a reminder that we all come at story from a different perspective. It may be that only in the combined and collective memory of a group of people can we get at the roundness, the fullness of a story.

It may be that only in the layering of individual fragments do we come close, and yet all memory is reconstruction. All memory is passed through a number of lenses, including a lens of time.

(Related: my review of Elizabeth Trembley’s book, Look Again comes to mind. This graphic novel is very much about the layering of details to reconstruct memory.)

Thanksgiving Then and Now

At some point last week, it looked like we should make plans for Thanksgiving. We’d waited until the last minute, but it finally seemed safe to figure out what we would eat.

We talked about whether Thanksgiving is or is not a big deal to us, and why we don’t always eat turkey, and how somewhere along the way it ended up feeling mostly like a meal that took a long time to make, was eaten quickly, and then everyone disappeared from the table, most to separate rooms with closed doors. Some of that is mostly my impression.

We didn’t start out that way. Surely our early Thanksgivings were different.

I thought a lot about the different places, the different years, the points in time when I thought life would be different. There are a few memories that stand out as markers of this and that, stuffed grape leaves, a sweet potato casserole with a candied topping, little gratitudes written on slips of paper.

When we talked about Thanksgiving last week from our straight-back chairs with their pinky, terracotta-colored seats, the octagonal shape of the room like part of a honeycomb, I was reminded how none of us remember. Our versions don’t match.

Thanksgiving in our house and in recent years is one thing in my head. I have a narrative line that seems to summarize the years. But our stories don’t match.

It is often disorienting to be reminded that we can go through exactly the same moment and come out on the other side with a different perspective. Add a few years, or a bunch of years, as an overlay, and the stories change even more.

I am finding that my sources of information are starting to not remember. That leaves me with even more blankness, even more things I can’t piece together.

Everything gets hazy.

If things were absolute, it might seem that everyone would have the same story. We would each know, in concrete terms, what happened. We might at least remember what was served. But we each interpret everything through our own lens. We add to that the passage of time. For some of us, this becomes a bad game of post office, the story getting more and more skewed along the way. For others of us, the p ast is just a chalkboard over which someone has taken a big eraser.

Maybe I wish we had a big family or family close by. Maybe I wish we had friends. Any friends. Maybe I wish we had Norman Rockwell-like gatherings or all came together like they might have in Little House on the Prairie.

But, really, I don’t.

I really don’t have much interest in a “gathering.” I’m happy with just my little household having Thanksgiving dinner, even if that means something non-traditional, even if that means something family size, frozen, and in an aluminum tray.

Thanksgiving is what we make of it. We each have a different perspective on what counts.

I’m happy with a walk at the lake. Somewhere along the way, I decided that was the tradition I wanted. I didn’t care what the food was. But a walk at the lake could be a tradition. It didn't always happen, but it stuck with me.

A few days ago I wrote that I thought I had a 50/50 chance this year. Today, I don't think that will happen.

I don’t expect Thanksgiving to fall into my lap. I don’t expect my day to look like anyone else’s. I am constantly thinking about what counts. Part of that is acknowledging gratitude, seeing the silver linings, and embracing the good.

I hope you, too, are grateful. I hope you have a peaceful day.

Be flexible. Be patient. Be present. Be kind.

Draw something. Write something. Read something.

(Don’t know what to draw or record? Check out the Week 47 prompts for Illustrate Your Week.)

A Playlist

Through the years, I've made and shared many monthly playlists. Some of the songs on this November’s list have wound their way onto the list as things have continued to change.

Blue Heads

The turkey “pardoning” was this week. I was disappointed at the “Liberty” and “Bell” names. But I was fascinated to realize that turkeys have blue on their heads. I did not know this! I was looking at photos from one of the several writeups I read, and I was struck by the bright blue on the head. I thought at first maybe it was the light in the photo, that the beautiful white of the turkey, in the light of the hotel room, had an ironic blue cast. But, in checking, I discovered that the head of a turkey has colors of red, white, and blue, and that the color is a mood ring of sorts. Fascinating.

I've got a turkey to draw. And some lettering. I made a few funny notes while on the phone today trying to sort out what is going on here. There are always little details that are singular to the moment. These are the things that give our illustrated journals texture and nuance. Our journals and sketchbooks are personal, they are of and about our lives.

Thank you for reading. I am grateful for this space and for you as a reader. Thank you for allowing me to write, to think out loud, and to share things that are often unfinished, personal, and searching.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Amy