Thanksgiving

It’s complicated…

I, personally, love this holiday. I love all the high holidays at the end of the year, if we are being honest. I love the call to reflect on our lives and give thanks. I love the meal prep, and the feasting itself. I love getting to enjoy it all with people I love, and in other years, I love shoving off to go do my own thing.

I am also a student of both history, and the indigenous people of the land I live upon. I know very well that the warm-hearted story we learned in elementary school is not near the real story of this holiday.

Can we hold both?

Is it possible for us humans to revel in the trappings of tradition, and also to show respect and support for the Native communities who surround us?

I think it is possible, but I know it’s complicated. I also know that it might be easier for me, a woman of a certain background, to share about embracing the both/and, than it would be for others.

If you feel called to it, and maybe even if you don’t, I would encourage all of us to find ways to learn about our indigenous forebearers. Learn their ways and practices and beliefs. Learn the more nuanced, and often painful, history of this holiday. Then move with your heart. Share with your family, not to shame or demonize, but to bring the awareness that might one day engender the actual experience of those Norman Rockwell images. This deeper understaning is what—to my mind, at least—might have the potential to bring our various cultures together sitting at the proverbial feast table to share hearts, minds, and resources, one day.

But, maybe first things are first. Many, many of us are so in the trenches dealing with the familial dynamics that all the other stuff is just one more headache. In which case, you do you boo. I believe it is possible to transform those dynamics, and transmute our own personal histories of pain and dysfunction, but that also takes work.

So, for now, one day at a time…

This article was originally published on Substack. You can read the original here.