I hate to be a kill joy. People seem happier this week, even at Market Basket, the day before Thanksgiving. Well, except for the man who was yelling at a much older woman in the parking lot because he didn’t realize she was taking a left turn. It would have helped if she had used her directional. But that didn’t warrant such rageful words and gestures. My impulse control is improving as I imagined (but didn’t actually) roll down my window and yell over, “Chill out! And smile. You’d look so much prettier if you smiled….” You never know who’s packing heat these days.
I ran into someone I know while in Market Basket and we chatted and said Happy Thanksgiving to each other.
And then I said: “Yeah, kinda weird to say that, right?”
Him: “Oh you mean because of everything going on right now?”
Me: “Ummm, no, because you know, we’re celebrating a holiday whose origin was a false narrative that led to the settler encroachment and genocide of Indigenous Peoples.”
Him: Blank deer in the headlights stare
Me: thinks to myself, “Whelp, just crushed his pie shopping holiday cheer…oops.”
He might avoid me in the future.
I know I’m not the only one thinking about this. Though apparently not everyone is thinking about it. How can everyone not be thinking about it?!?!
This land isn’t ours. It can never be ours even if our name is on the deed or lease. It was forcibly taken by our ancestors. Not mine, right? I’m only second generation American. And probably not yours either for one reason or another. Whoever is to blame, the only reason we are all American is because most of our Indigenous Peoples were killed and that is nothing to be grateful for. I think gratitude is one of our superpowers as humans (and maybe other species), but why celebrate it in conjunction with such tragedy? We could have a day of thanksgiving any day of the year and connect it to something glorious like a full moon or new growth in springtime or maybe a great discovery of something like penicillin. But not to this.
I think this is partly behind my week of grossness on FB. I started it some years back to protest everyone posting what they were grateful for….yawn…get a room. Grossness makes people laugh and reminds us of how similar we are. And how messiness and absurdity are parts of life. And how perfection is a damaging construct. People who I barely know or haven’t heard from in ages interact with the gross posts. The act of posting motivates me to actually clean more. Connection! Motivation! What could be better? Truth and never forgetting.
I don’t have the answers. I don’t want to be the mom who cancels Thanksgiving or makes her kids take turns reading aloud, This Indian Does Not Owe You by Elissa Washuta, around the kitchen table before digging into the turkey. But I really encourage anyone reading this to check it out. Maybe our family should light a candle and simply honor those who lived here before colonization. Maybe we should invest ourselves in ways to make sure it doesn’t happen again to any group of people, anywhere, for any reason. Is it ok to hold grief, anger, confusion, joy, and gratitude all at the same time on Thanksgiving? Probably. We do it on all the other days because parts of life are messy and sometimes gross. I’ll still light a candle today and remember. Maybe you will too.
I acknowledge that our home was built and we live upon the traditional territories of the Pentucket people who “were one of several families each with its own territory that made up the Pawtucket tribal area. The Pawtucket in turn were part of the Pennacook confederacy.” excerpted from “The Pentucket & America’s Stonehenge,” by Mary E. Gage. The above photo is property of the Haverhill Public Library. It is a copy of the land deed purchased from the Pentucket in 1642.
The books I’m reading:
I love or feel more settled when I have a mindset shift that makes a lot of sense to me. My new mindset around holidays - they are complicated. And that's okay. Relieves the pressure of trying to feel joyful and be in a great mood all the time. Allows me to feel grateful, joyful, anxious, stressed, sad, depressed, contemplative, guilty, loved, and so on..."all the things".
I love this, Lorryn. Thank you for writing, for Thinking about these things, for helping us all to be more aware.