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Published: October 20th 2008
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In our lives there are things that we are surprised to find holds deep meaning for us. Thanksgiving has been one of those things for me. The realization hit me two years ago after I finally moved away from home - not Fredericton, but to Ottawa, where I could not easily get back to my Mom's kitchen. I spent my first Thanksgiving away from home at a boyfriends house, and while his sweet family talked and the lovely German heritage dinner cooked I found myself in an upstairs bedroom, teary on my cell phone, being passed from relative to relative on the other end. Beyond the sudden, cold realization that I was now one of those relatives who gets passed around at holidays; I also was shocked to realize how much it hurt me not to be in that bustling kitchen, doing a few early dishes and making sure that the tea was on to steep.
I don't even know the origins of Canadian Thanksgiving. After being washed my entire childhood in waves of American culture I can only pull from my memory a vague understanding that ours is not about pilgrims and football. I have always assumed Canadian Thanksgiving
was about family, but that comes more from a livetime of large family gatherings and trips to two grandparents' houses. But regardless of this inability to define the holiday, I have come to accept its importance in my life. Once a year I want to sit down to a turkey, cranberry sauce from a can, cesear salad made from lettuce from my parents garden, mashed potates, and sliced cucumbers floating in white vinegar. I want the wood fire and the crisp, chilly leaves, the kids playing on the swings built when I was a girl, an unapologetic (but also unaggeressive) prayer and the dinner full of load conversation and hearty laughter, with coffee, tea, white wine and two kinds of pie at the end.
The first two years I have lived away from home I have been able to recreate some measure of that. Last year I was able to meet up with cousins in Toronto who understand the need to have sliced cucumber floating in white vinegar and I started to really enjoy the challenge of creating "my New Brunsick Thanksgiving" where ever I happen to be. This year I began to think about Thanksgiving in August, envisioning
the warm atmosphere I would create in my apartment, treating my housemates and coworkers to the creamy garlic potatoes and apples formed into some kind of warm, squishy dessert (the lack of oven in my apartment leading to abstract ideas about what exactly that dessert would be). But then James was absucted. And on September 17th, rightly so, my world became too busy for Thanksgiving.
Watching my visions of a bounitful Baguio feast get left behind I tried to be strong, knowing the activities that would replace it were for a better cause. Standing with the Balao family, fighting a terrorist government, and working to have James surfaced alive were too important, and quickly also became too encompassing to think any more about turkey dinners. We planned an activity for October 14th, entitled Searching for the Missing, and we invited national and local speakers, the national press, and eveyone in Baguio we could think of. By the dawning light of October we were already rushing to organize such a large event in such a short amount of time. I was given the task of conceptualizing and helping creat the final artistic element of the program. This quickly snowballed into
folding 1000 paper cranes to be mounted artistically in our venue.
I blinked at this task, numerous times. And every time I opened my eyes it was still there. And so I began folding, and then began mobilizing other people to help fold. For days we folded and counted, counted and folded. And with the help of the entire staff of the office downstairs (incuding a surprisingly dedicated group of 20 year old boys) a coworker's, friend's eager children and every single person who walked through our office door, we finished the 1000 cranes with 3 days to spare. However, as the gimick surrounding the 1000 cranes grew in everyone's mind, so did the instillation art being designed to display the cranes.
By Monday, with 36 hours to go we had set up a small production line in our office to string cranes. Strings - 7 feet long, 20 cranes per string. We worked in silence, concentrating on speed. Around 3pm, members of the cultural group arrived at our office with plans to make a giant bamboo crane. I watched the construction begin with excited indifference, because, after staying up late the night before to call and be the passed around relative at Thanksgiving, I had made plans to go out for Thanksgiving dinner with a close friend. I has been buzzing all day with visions of Filipino turkey-like substances in my head. But, as the day faded slowly into night and our pile of cranes did not seem to be getting smaller my heart dropped.
I watch time go by with a growing knot in my stomach. The format of our giant crane became more and more complicated as the night got darker. And at 8pm, and I realized that I would not be able to leave for my Thanksgiving dinner. I reminded myself that this work was more important then Thanksgiving. And yet, my heart kept whispering, "it is that one holiday you were surprised to find holds deep meaning for you." I ate my supper in the office sullenly, although it was pinipikan (a popular, indigenous, Cordilleran chicken dish) which makes a very good Filipino turkey-like substance. But I was still overwhelmed at the idea of missing this imortant dinner. The stress of the past few weeks crashed into me heavily at our office's wooden kitchen table. I had a little cry, and then made a decision that was not entirely responsible, but was entirely necessary for my mental health. I took an hour off from my work, caught a jeep downtown and met my friend for a piece of apple pie and a glass of wine. Because, having finished my Filipino turkey-like substance I needed my coffee, tea, white wine and two kinds of pie at the end.
And the funny thing is, that having told me friend what I was thankful for over the world's biggest slice of apple pie (served with only slight mocking by the Spaniard at the Flying Geeko) I was ready to go back to work, my craving for familiar tradition fulfilled. And returning to my office, to the giant crane only half feathered in our driveway and the 65 more cranes to fold (because I had somehow miscalculated during all of the folding and counting and counting and folding), I decided that this wasn't a bad way to spend Thanksgiving after all. This campaign is hard, this campaign is overwhelmingly stressful and the cranes were a terrible pain in the ass. But I spent the rest of my night laughing, talking and working with people I care about for a campaign that is bigger then all of us individually. This may have been the most emotionally difficult lead up to Thanksgiving of my life, and it may have been the most unusually celebrated, but it has been one of my most thankful. I was thankful this year for the group I work with, lean on, love here and for all of the people at home who are more then willing to pass me around at family events. And I think that might be what Canadian Thanksgiving is about anyway.
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Mom
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Thanksgiving
Makes.me.cry.