every year, there is
this special day in America where we celebrate good food, all the good things
we have, the bad things we don't, and the long-held family traditions.
we call it
Thanksgiving.
a perfect, massive
turkey with all the dressings, served from the left by a petite brunette
weighing no more than 125 pounds to a manly man, head of the household as he
proudly surveys his brood of perfectly behaved children, all eager to share
their loving reflections of this past year and hopes for the year coming. their hair is perfectly arranged and the
china is gleaming.
HA!
sorry- that was the
Norman Rockwell poster that was probably true for one family once. it was not our family. ever. but tell you the
truth, i'm mostly okay with that. if a
picture is worth a thousand words, he captured 1,000 excellent, lovely, true
words of what it means to belong to an American family. this nation is truly blessed and i love the
idea of celebrating and setting time aside solely to remember these blessings
and praise the source of them all.
i also love all the
other stuff that can't fit into a painting.
what makes each family unique, what makes the best stories. that family NR painted ain't got nothing on
ours!
here's what Norman
Rockwell forgot:
the full story of
Turkey Day starts several hundred miles earlier, where every good American
joins all the bad Americans in the craziest dance ever, all the players
surrounding themselves with literal tons of metal and fly in all directions,
all over the nation, going many, many miles per hour.
now, i love
people. what i DON'T love is people in
cars. they are 5,000 of the 5,010 reasons I adore driving overnight. the crazies aren't there. they steer with one hand and with the other,
they are eating, or drinking (a variety of liquids), changing radio stations,
taking medications, changing clothes, shopping, video-chatting, texting,
singing, screaming cuss words at the GPS, cutting nails, or slapping children
in the backseat.
funny: the
telepathic mind games we play so we can edge our way in front of that
Handicapped-license-plated lady in the old Ford car so we can set our
cruise control and just GO.
funnier: the
horrible knowledge that it does not matter what speed you set your cruise
control to. Eventually, the Handicapped
lady, and the jerk in the jacked-up pickup truck are going to realize that you
are "first" and that this is not "fair" and they ABSOLUTELY
MUST BE IN FRONT OF YOU. one of them
will get in front of you, and then set THEIR cruise control for 2 mph less than
you and refuse to go in the slower lane.
funniest: knowing
that it also does not matter what state you are in, or what the sign says, be
it 70, 65, 60, or 70 again. the traffic
pace does not change one whit. you find that
Handicapped lady's back bumper and stick to it.
set your cruise control to hers, and don't fight it.
laws mean nothing
when a good family vacation is at stake.
speed limits, state borders, and let's not forget our favorite: that
moment when you are soaring down the middle lane of a 5-lane highway that is
splitting into 2 highways, and suddenly a big ole' minivan realizes that they
are one lane to your left, but they NEED TO BE IN THE FAR, FAR, RIGHT-EST LANE
RIGHT NOW. they need to stay on
Interstate 40, not Interstate 81, and they ignored all the miles of signs,
warning lights, GPS and Mapquest directions, backseat drivers and all the other
cars who spent their time productively by safely and calmly getting into the
proper lane. NOPE. let's just play with people's lives in our
new, fun version of the Russian Roulette.
eventually,
hopefully, you will arrive at the predetermined relatives' home, feeling,
looking, and smelling just like you think you would, after being trapped in a
metal, mobile cubicle for countless hours. good thing relatives are never
stressful. if you're in my family, you
don't need to wait until The Feast before diving right on in to the arguments-
we had the Pre-Feast Dinner. Picture
half a dozen people. some with Law
degrees, some with art or English degrees, some with NO degrees, all with
opinions, debating huge controversial issues.
nobody in our family has an "indoor" voice. we have 2 settings- Loud, and Louder. we all
have opinions, and the presence or lack of food in our mouths doesn't change
the opinion or the need to immediately share it with everyone, who is doing the
same thing. we sound like animals- we're
not, i promise.
i think just about
every family that sets time aside during the year to get together has SOME sort
of family tradition. some families have
the tradition of having NO tradition, but for some reason it's those traditions
that draw them together even if they seem to do the opposite.
for example: we used
to have no other tradition besides just getting together every
Thanksgiving. one year, my
athletically inclined uncle said "hey- this is a fabulous time on a
fabulous day with some fabulous weather-let's go on a fabulous walk
together." so we did, and at least 2 of us had a truly fabulous
experience.
the next year, he
said "hey- this is a fabulous day with some fabulous weather, so let's
continue our fabulous tradition of a Thanksgiving Walk." yeah- they pulled out the Tradition word. the siblings and i looked at each other,
saying "what is this 'tradition' that you speak of?" but we all went
anyway.
you see what just
happened there? yeah- see, now it WAS A TRADITION.
and because breaking
traditions in our family is like sacrilege, it is now decreed that every
Thanksgiving, our family goes on our annual Walk.
i just need to share
this moment from our Walk this year, which was about as miserable as
possible. one sister that i drove 800
miles to see busted her knee, so she, sadly, couldn't come. poor thing. the other sister had a baby to feed, and the
grandparents weren't up to it, and neither was the aunt. family politics were suddenly a huge deal,
and i convinced my brother to come (either because he loves me, or is a
complete sucker for my Sad Puppy Dog Face) so i'd have someone to talk to. then strategy came into play and we changed
the speed of our walking to position ourselves with the "right"
relatives, as all those relatives were doing the exact same thing. don't deny it- EVERY family does this, in some form or fashion.
well, sometimes the
Weather Pixies don't really care about your family traditions, which is why
smart people check the weather forecast to see whether it is compatible with
these traditions so dear to our hearts.
we didn't. nobody checked the forecast. but daggum, we were going on that Walk!!
which started with a
steep uphill climb.
then it started
raining.
then my hands went
numb.
then the family
members caught on to our pace and tried to catch up.
then we were all
miserable and turned around early. Joel and I power-walked/jogged back as fast
as we could, which wasn't too fast because i'd donated blood a day before and
was bent over double- but still way faster than anyone else because this was
the worst Thanksgiving Walk ever, and i was on the verge of a breakdown by the
time we sloshed, soaking wet, back indoors after almost 4 miles of rain, cold,
and avoiding each other in the sneakiest manner possible.
this of course,
leads up to the actual holiday part. we
all borrow clothes, throw the wet ones in the dryer, and scatter all over the
house into the groups of people that will cause the least amount of stress, to
talk politics, watch movies, play blocks with the baby and toddler, take
pictures, take naps, or help prepare The Feast. i am so good at dumping and
smashing ingredients together. i should
get a medal. Aunt Kathy gets The Bird
ready to go and I lay claim to that left drumstick. 4 hours later the feast is spread. 4 minutes after that- carnage. i was somehow
the second to last person to go through line, but i did get the drumstick. because we got all the fighting out of our
systems, between last night and the Walk, we get down to the serious business
of eating. that's what Thanksgiving is
for, right? well, we take this quite
seriously, and happen to be excellent at eating. we are stuffed before the food
is quite gone, but somehow manage to take care of those desserts, too.
a while ago, Jackson
was blessed to host a couple of our Brazilian
translators as they were visiting the US for a while and decide to bop
on up for a few days. a favorite moment
while discussing the cultural differences was their facial expressions as we
tried to explain a good ole' American Thanksgiving weekend, which isn't over
until
BLACK FRIDAY.
America at its
finest, folks. word of advice: DON'T
STAND NEAR THOSE KITCHEN APPLIANCES, or you WILL get mowed down by that
overzealous grandmother tearing through the store to get her greedy hands on
the last crockpot on sale. i mean, it's
not like Thanksgiving is all about celebrating all the good things we have or
anything… oh wait. take that family
picture before bed Thursday, because come Friday 3 am, we as a general public,
devolve into stark-raving mad lunatics.
the idea that people have actually DIED by being trampled by the masses
still astounds me.
but there are a few
things that Rockwell managed to capture.
the aprons, bobby pins and ancient clothing fashion trends are gone, but
the feelings he painted are timeless.
like, that family
that is so easy to take for granted- they're there. sometimes that's good, and sometimes you just
have to laugh, knowing that one day you'll look back and be thankful that
memory is so far past. the Walk is one
of those. i love how it was during that
exact timeframe, when my fingernails were legit blue and my shirt soaked, that
3 of my favorite extra-familial people called or texted to check in on me. one real-time selfie answered all their
questions. but they were there for me,
too, just like family of a different sort, and part of what we celebrate even
if the celebrating appears to be lost in all the chaos. and i got a lot to
celebrate.
i got sister time-
long, late hours of it. i got brother
time- short and brief, but still there.
i will get, soon, my own personal copy of The Webb Family Picture, which
is another tradition, and another moment to laugh about- later. much, much later. i got moments with some pretty great people
that i haven't seen in ages, and even a few more pictures for proof that we
were in the same place at the same time! i got 20+ hours of driving time, time
spent singing loudly for nobody to hear, time spend to pray, time spent just to
be quiet, still, breathe. i got Pilot
coffee. i got to relive memories of some
of my favorite people ever who now live all up and down I-40, as i passed their
towns and cities.
we're all pretty
good at complaining, but i gotta say we do know how to celebrate the good
things, and maybe once i've recovered from the Walk in about a year, i'll once
more join those crazies barreling down I-40 to do this all over again.
to remember- the
good, the bad/weird/confusing/embarrassing.
to celebrate- freedom, family (all kinds of family, not just
biological), food (stay away from my drumstick).
i'll be the one
hugging that old handicapped, speed-demon lady's bumper.
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