Hi there,
How are you doing after Thanksgiving? I hope the holiday was restful and restorative, that you got some time to yourself and some time with the people you love.
It’s that time of year when we take stock of what we’re grateful for, when we wax nostalgic about the good times, even when perhaps they weren’t so good. Sepia tones have a way of making things look better, don’t they?
We remember the loved ones we’ve lost, celebrate and give thanks for the ones who remain. It’s also the time of year where drama and hi-jinks ensue, where expectations are high and not all of us got the memo to be on our best behavior.
The holidays are a fraught time for most of us, whether that be due to financial strain, bad memories, the stress of hosting, meeting new family members, missing family members, or all of the above.
This time of year is all about family, and, unfortunately, it’s all about money and pressure. Black Friday deals. Keeping up with the Joneses. Burying hatchets or unearthing sharper blades. It’s all the things.
It’s no wonder that so many of our holidays, our time-honored traditions that we’re taught not to question, have deep roots in painful truths, truths we have been conditioned to look away from, like the real genesis of Thanksgiving and how indigenous people were really treated by the white people who came and did whatever the hell they wanted to. These painful truths don’t end, they continue. Perhaps they shift and look different, but the past remains when we do nothing to acknowledge it, let alone repair it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that word, repair. To repair is to:
restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken : fix
restore to a sound or healthy state : renew
make good : compensate for : remedy (Merriam Webster).
This might be one of my favorite words. It’s a lovely one, isn’t it? To repair. To fix, to renew, to remedy. To restore. When we repair something, we “put together what is torn or broken.” We “restore to a healthy state.” We compensate for past wrongs by remedying them, not sweeping them under the rug. The act of repairing leads us to wholeness. Can the holidays repair us? Perhaps if we repair what the holidays mean to us, what we expect them to be like, what we want them to do, what they should look like. What do they feel like?
To Remedy
I wanted to try something different for Thanksgiving this year. We booked a reservation for dinner—no cooking, no cleaning, no hosting!—at a place amongst the redwoods, an intimate gathering of just immediate family, and for weeks I thought about shifting some other old narratives for new ones. Rather than going around and saying what we were grateful for, what if we contemplated a new question?
What’s the best thing that happened to you this year? What was the nicest thing you did for someone else, and the nicest thing someone did for you? What are you happy to close the book on? I wasn’t sure what I was going to ask until we were all seated around the table, already enjoying our food. What emerged was: What are you most looking forward to?
The routines of traditions can give us the warm and fuzzies, or they can keep us stuck in a cycle that we yearn to break. What if we could keep what works, and leave the rest?
. . .
After my grandparents died, my sister, mom and I would drive up to Mendocino to meet my uncles, who would drive up from San Francisco, for Thanksgiving. In a rare treat for a cash-strapped single mom and her girls, we would stay at a seaside hotel and go to a fancy restaurant for dinner. The next day, we would all get up early to browse the wares at the annual craft fair and walk through charming downtown Mendocino.
Over the years, as my sister and I grew older and got boyfriends, the family scattered and came back together again intermittently, trading off holiday dinners at our significant others’ families homes or potlucking to the clubhouse at my mom’s 50+ community mobile home park. When we were together, we reinstated some family traditions, like my grandma’s ginger ale salad (she made hers sans grapes and mayonnaise garnish [and yes, this dish is an acquired taste]) and opted out of others, like our annual trip to Mendocino.
It makes sense that as our family has grown, we haven’t gone to Mendocino for well over a decade, but this is a tradition that I miss most, after of course the Thanksgivings I spent at my grandparents house. My grandpa would drape strips of bacon over the turkey before roasting it (did anyone else’s family ever do this?) and, after it was cooked, let me and my sister have as much of it as we wanted.
After my grandparents died and we stopped driving down to LA every year for Thanksgiving, Mendocino was our little getaway, our way of making new traditions. I’ve always missed it, going out of town and no one having to cook or do dishes, exploring a place I don’t live in and looking at crafts in a barn with light filtering down through the rafters. But I think we felt responsibility for keeping the Kallok family traditions alive, and the next closest thing was the clubhouse.
Last year, my mom waited a bit too long to book the clubhouse (old folks are notorious for being early!) and it was already taken; when we found out the news, we were at odds over who would host. So, I was thrilled when my wife had the brilliant idea of going out for dinner instead. It would be like a little slice of Mendocino! Though the locale we ended up going to left much to be desired, what mattered was that we were all together. And, that no one had to cook, of course.
This year we kept the new going-out tradition alive but found somewhere else to dine. The food was much better than the last place and the surroundings were cozy and pleasing to the eye, plus there were unexpected moments, like the pumpkin soup being served out of an actual pumpkin, which my niece wrinkled her nose at and said, “It looks like it’s rotten.” (She wasn’t wrong.)
My sister said grace, a beautiful acknowledgment of the land and the hands that prepared our food, the warmth of being with family, gratitude for our good health. There is so much to be grateful for.
Our table was near the door, which was wide open as servers hurried in and out to serve the outdoor tables, chilling my wife and I to the bone, but it was worth it. The night felt like a remedy for the ache of missing grandparents, for the expectations and obligations that so often come attached to the holidays. We can repair our traditions.
We went around the table and shared what we were most looking forward to, and I realized a theme in what each of us said. In different words and aspirations, what we are all looking forward to is some freedom.
I am about to close the book on grad school (December 8!) and am looking forward to a trip to Jamaica soon after. I am looking forward to reading for fun again, having time to travel without homework looming over me, and spending time with the family and friends I’ve had to neglect over the past two years. I am looking forward to a sense of restoration and renewal. I wish the same for you.
The Friday Finds
Action. Download Michelle C. Johnson’s free “Finding Refuge During the Holidays Guide.” Johnson, an author and yoga instructor, is a generous teacher and insightful writer; I look forward to receiving her newsletter, which always provides respite and wisdom. Designed to offer relief during an often stressful time of year, this guide is a restorative practice and an opportunity for self-inquiry. May it bring you ease during the holiday season.
Listen. It’s Been a Minute with Brittany Luse on NPR. I’ve been loving Luse’s podcast, an entertaining and informative blend of pop culture and current affairs. Luse is a wonderful interviewer, thoughtful and warm, direct and candid. Listen for interesting episodes that cover everything from Palestinian poets’ voices to celebrity memoirs.
Watch. If you, like me, missed the Othering & Belonging Institute’s (OBI) conference in Berlin last month, fear not! OBI has made recordings of the conference sessions available free of charge. All you have to do is sign up for a free OBI University account to access the videos.
Read. Michelle Alexander on Palestine in the latest issue of Hammer & Hope magazine. Invoking the prescient words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Alexander, a civil rights lawyer and the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, calls on us to use our voices: “Countless lives and the liberation of all of us depend upon us breaking our silences.”
Thank you for being here.
In solidarity,
Emma
Love you guhls. And tuggy was right- rotten 🎃