Lack of Thanksgiving

I’m sitting at the ferry pier, looking over at the big cruise ships, drinking a pint of Stella and thinking about not having Thanksgiving. I don’t mean deciding not to have Thanksgiving, but what has already happened – I didn’t get Thanksgiving this year. I didn’t have Thanksgiving because at Canadian Thanksgiving no one like Elizabeth said, let’s have all the Canadians over to your house, it’s the biggest. And no one invited us over. And there are too many people to do all-acad invitations. And it was too hot to think of baking. So there was no Thanksgiving. Now American Thanksgiving has come and gone as well.

All weekend I thought of those I know in North America. I thought of the first Thanksgiving dinner I ever made. My dad, Doug, Tymi and Gary were there. I religiously consulted the “How to Make a Thanksgiving” scribbler my mom had filled for me with shopping lists, recipes and time lines. Before that was the first Thanksgiving abroad in France; one I ate with Bradley and Shelby and all hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Gutekunst so we wouldn’t feel homesick. It was perfect down to the accordion-folded tissue paper turkey from Hallmark. There was the Thanksgiving I made in Korea. Shelby was at that one, too and I made him eat pumpkin pie. We made everything one thing at a time in a toaster oven we got at our wedding. And then of course were the Thanksgiving dinners in Turkey. They were the best dinners ever for friendship, abundance of food drink and laughter, both the Canadian ones at our house and the American at Michelle’s.

Over the years I’ve learned the rhythm of the dinner, the chilling of the cranberry sauce, when to make the pie and peel the potatoes how to cope when there are no mixes and how to cope when there are. Seventeen years of practice, usually twice or three times a year, two Thanksgivings and a Christmas, to get the turkey dinner figured out. It is the only domestic task I feel that I’ve perfected. I don’t mean it’s always perfect (because there are always lumps in the gravy,) but I do prefer my candied yams, stuffing and pumpkin pies to anyone else’s. Ingrid’s brussel sprouts are the best, though.

It’s a school night; we don’t have enough plates; I was sure they have other plans, I hadn’t gotten paid yet. Truth is, I didn’t know how missing it would be like. There we were on Thursday evening having smoked turkey and cheese sandwiches for supper. Sure, we could have gone out for a turkey dinner at a bunch of places in town, but what it comes down to is that we didn’t. I wish I could describe for you the dislocation in time and place that comes from missing Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s just a symptom of not knowing where I am, but over the weekend I thought repeatedly of all of you sitting down to dinner either just now or last month. It makes me wonder how much I’ve given up and what I think I’ll gain from the sacrifice. What essential and lonely questions come from an absence of cranberry sauce.