No Thank You

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and I am still trying to make sense of this holiday. In the past few years, people used Facebook as a platform to show their gratitude for all the good things they appreciate. It was almost annoying, all those #blessed people humble-bragging, not because I was jealous, but more because they seemed so trite. This year, I kind of missed all the thanking. I am still wondering where all the thankfulness has gone, and why. I have come to a conclusion that makes me sad.

This year, we have replaced gratitude with fear.

The world has had its share of tragedy over the past month. Terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut. Boko Haram wreaking havoc in African nations. Distrust of the police on one side and protesters on the other. And shootings. All the shootings.

It’s difficult to know if it is as bad as it sounds or if the media is just putting a negative spin on the state of the world. We used to live with hope. We used to try to see the glass half-full. We used to believe we could make our world a better place. Honestly, I worry for my children and the future, not for their personal safety, but because this gloom and doom view that is so pervasive leaves everyone feeling depressed.

Frankly, we are afraid of the wrong things. What is the chance you are going to be the victim of a terror attack? Are you really concerned about being shot by the police? Do you think that Syrian refugees are on their way to destroy the American dream?

 

 When you live in fear, you become the victim you were afraid of being. The level of fear we live under is killing more than joy. It clouds our judgment. It jaundices our world view. It ramps up everyone’s anxiety, but also their anger.

When we get over being scared, we switch to anger. We don’t want to feel this way. We want someone to blame. The cops. The terrorists. The refugees. The politicians. The media. And each other.

I have to work at optimism. It doesn't happen organically. I realize my life is pretty damn good, and I sweat the small stuff regularly. I am fighting the blues that all this bad news brings. I try to make do with cat videos and weird news stories, to find something to make me smile on a grey and hopeless day.

Here’s a thought I’ve been stuck with: I kind of wish everyone was a reform Jew. Working on being the best person you can be. Treating others with kindness and tolerance. Taking care of the world around us. There’s a whole lot of good going on there, and not so much of the condemnation that’s prevalent in other beliefs and religions.

I look at my husband, who thinks organized religion is the cause of most of the world’s problems, and I think he’s onto something. The terrorists kill because they want the destruction of Israel and western Judeo-Christian values. People don’t want refugees because they are Muslims and therefore potential terrorists. Americans forget what American values are, and Christians lose sight of Jesus’ message of love. That doesn’t even take into consideration the eastern religions, but even the Buddhists are attacking Hindus.

How do you stay positive?  I try to focus on my daughters with their lives ahead of them. My children, all children, are the future. We are giving them a world where active shooter drills go along with fire drills and tornado drills. We are giving them a world where they are scared of the police, not because they don’t want to get in trouble, but because they don’t want to die. We are giving them a world where a peach doesn’t taste like summer anymore and delicate flaky flounder is rarely on the menu. We are giving them a world where they need to decide their careers before they even hit puberty and must compete against each other for a college degree they can’t afford.

I don’t have any answers, just observations. I’d like to see our politicians care about more than elections. I’d like to see food, medicine, and insurance be less about profit and more about people. It’d be great if we can stop expanding and consuming and exploiting. We could all do with a little less voicing our opinions and a little more self-reflecting. How about we do a little less hating and a little more loving. It’s worth a try, because what we are doing now sure isn’t working for us.

How About a Thank You?

As I woke up this Thanksgiving morning, I thought about all the things I have to be thankful for. Like ending a sentence with a preposition. I’m thankful I can do that without it affecting my grade. And sentence fragments. I’m thankful for those too.  Obviously, I am thankful for all the things I should be thankful for: my beautiful family and loving husband, my rich and meaningful life, the love and support of friends and family, a roof over my head, a sustaining meal, blah blah blah. Everybody is thankful for all of that on Thanksgiving. But what about the little things we always take for granted?

While you are sticking your hand inside your bird to extract that little sack of innards, how about a big thanks to the grocery store industry? If I had to go out in the yard to select a bird to kill, then grab it and twist its neck with my bare hands, followed by eviscerating its lifeless carcass, well, let’s just say there wouldn’t be a whole lot of variety in my family’s diet. “Aww Mom, oatmeal again?” “Shut up and eat your groats.” The only reason my family gets to eat any flesh at all is because someone else already selected the plumpest, juiciest bird titties and shrink wrapped them for me. I will even bypass a package of chicken if it looks like there is too much juice in it. Juice? Try life fluids leaking out of that flesh.  No, I would have stuck to potatoes and cabbage, like so many European immigrants.  Anyone want more bubble and squeak?

Speaking of bubble and squeak, I am thankful that we fart. Did you ever get a gas bubble, that pocket of gas trapped somewhere deep inside your miles of intestines? Painful stuff, gas bubbles. What if it had nowhere to go? Those bacteria would keep producing gas, and the pressure of that gas would grow, and you would bloat until your distended torso would finally explode like an overfilled balloon. Farts are a good thing. Remember that today about an hour after you eat enough food for a small village in Africa. If your family complains about your gaseous emissions, explain to them how a body decomposes. Don’t leave out the part about the gases building up inside a rotting corpse. They will encourage you to fart some more, and then they will leave the room. Ahh, peace on earth.

Since I’m being thankful for bodily functions, how about a quick shout out to tampons? Remember that expression, on the rag? Yeah, well, before tampons were widely used, women were literally ON THE RAG. Rags were stuffed in their pantaloons to absorb their monthly flow. Rags that later would have to be washed and dried and pressed and stored for the next time of the month. You think an overnight pad feels like a diaper? Try an actual diaper. Rags didn’t come in slender regular or super plus; they came in rag. If it was the first or second day of your period, you just used more rags, which you would later have to wash, lucky you. No wonder women spent so much time being pregnant.

How about a shout out to washing machines? Your great great grandmother was beating her rags against a river rock, hoping it would attract some fish so her family had something different to eat other than potatoes and cabbage. Or she was boiling water and making her own lye soap to wash her monthly rags along with the one outfit for every family member, because who had time to make more clothes when they were washing their bloody rags stored up for a week every month? And I’m not just thankful for washing machines. I am thankful I own my own. While the Laundromat makes for some excellent people watching, it isn’t exactly a place I care to frequent again in my life time. I did my time in rusty public machines, thank you very much. I know the joy of moving someone else’s soggy unmentionables to steal a machine because I was tired of waiting for their owner to return and stop hogging all the fucking machines. I don’t have to lug a giant body bag of dirty socks and underwear, only to wash them and fold them and put them back in the same bag all clean so I can lug them back to my apartment. Thank you, Whirlpool! Your front loading machine might make my t shirts stink but at least you are in my house.

Don’t forget to be thankful for closets. Have you been inside an old home? In addition to all detailed wainscoting and other old world craftsmanship, they have maybe one coat closet for the whole family to share. That’s why so many families had only one pot to piss in. They didn’t have storage for more than one pot. Where did our grandmothers keep their massive collection of rags?

Here’s another reason to be thankful for your house. Did you eat too much today? Just take off your pants. Isn’t that better? If you were homeless, you would be on the verge of an indecent exposure charge right now. You can overeat and then take off your pants all you want in the privacy of your home. Show some motherfucking appreciation.

Isn’t it about time we offered up some gratitude to time? My family has had massive conversations already about what time thanksgiving dinner will be served.  How about when I am done heating it up, bitches? Time is relative, but it gives us a frame of reference, does it not? Plus, for those of us with anxiety, where would we be without time? If I know I have to get that turkey in the oven before the parades end, I can obsess on how long I get to watch Al Roker make slightly off color comments to  a soap opera star with too much foundation before I have to get up and go to the kitchen. How did the pilgrims and the Native Americans know what time to sit down with their wild turkey and maize pudding? I’m pretty sure they were not a lot of pocket watches under deer skins back in the day.

I could go on and on about the little things we should appreciate, which aren’t so little when you think about them. Air conditioning. Western toilets. Automobile brakes. Spellcheck. Antihistamines. Cranberry sauce. The list goes on and on. Why not take the time today to think of a different thing to be thankful for? Spice up that toast tonight before you gorge yourself on mashed potatoes and just one more roll to sop up that gravy. We all know to be thankful for the big stuff. But really, it’s the little things that make the difference. And if you don’t believe me, take off that cotton cashmere sweater and undershirt and go put on a real wool sweater.  See, I’m right. Thanks for being big enough to admit it.