No Bird, But Many Thanks (and Potatoes)

Since the Chinese don’t believe in ovens, this was my first Thanksgiving without turkey. Instead, I cooked couscous with veggies (and mashed taters on the side). Yes, I'm full, but it isn't that Thanksgiving I-can't-eat-another-bite-nor-will-I-ever-eat-again kind of full. That's a good full. And, no pie. I did find Nutella at Carrefour, though. I had a Nutella-dipped banana for desert and I sneaked a bottle of chardonnay into the apartment. A couple of hours ago the girls went to bed and I retired to my room to watch Home for the Holidays and toast myself silly. What I’ll really miss is the leftovers and those amazing, creative, and protuberant sandwiches that only come from Thanksgiving scraps.

My mother called me this morning to wish me happy Thanksgiving. She started a tradition in my family years ago. It's a tradition many families observe on this holiday. As we sat down to dine on the last Thursday of each November, before we picked up our forks and shoveled cranberry sauce and green bean casserole into our faces, before we drowned out the noise of company with a few glasses of wine and the glazed (mythological?) sleepiness that turkey’s tryptophan can induce, we went around the table, each of us proclaiming, like some solemn or reverent whatever, what we were grateful for that year.

Every year, when it comes my turn around the table, my mouth cannot keep up with my brain. It isn’t fast enough to list all the things I am grateful for. Afterward, when the torch is passed to the person sitting next to me and we continue with our thanks-giving, I remember long lists of items forgotten, events and people I’d missed out on mentioning.

This year only one thing came to mind. It was the most relevant and in-the-moment tribute apropos to my current situation. It may be that, being so far from home, living in a foreign country on the other side of the world, and having no reminders of the traditions to which I have been accustomed over the years, I was feeling homesick and (dare I say it?) perhaps even a little patriotic. Yes, it may be a piece of cheesecake. Yes, I may have to answer to jeers and jokes after I say this; but I’m going to say it anyway. I am grateful for my country. I’m grateful for the United States of America.