Giving Thanx

I’d meant to write something tonight, in honor of Thanksgiving. Instead I sat on my couch mindlessly surfing Instagram for at least an hour. Maybe two. I saw pictures of beautiful models, friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends, some talented tattoo artists, and untold quantities of memes. I really need to delete Instagram. It takes up entirely too much time. The ease at which it’s possible to get sucked into a scroll hole is mindbending. Have you ever noticed how when people are scrolling through social media it looks like they’re trying to get their phones off, sexually? It’s a fucking stroke fest. Literally sitting there stroking the glass in small, precise movements. There’s something deeply uncomfortable about it. 

But my phone is not what I wanted to write about. It’s Thanksgiving! Well, not here in Berlin, but in my mind, and in America. It was strange to be at the office today because my body just didn’t want to work. It’s been conditioned for the past 32 years to expect a day of food and leisure, conversation and wine, friends and family. But there were no such things. I guess that’s not completely true. I ate. Multiple times; breakfast, and then lunch with a coworker who I really do consider a friend. The evening was spent cooking ricotta and spinach tortellini in garlic and oil sauce, sans garlic. To pair, there was a mixed salad, of arugula, lettuce, kale, more spinach, and some broccoli. Lots of broccoli. So much broccoli that I struggled to eat it all. You know how to say broccoli in German? Brokkoli. It sounds more dangerous. Like breakoli. Break your fucking teeth on a nice frozen piece of broccoli. 

Why doesn’t broccoli flavored ice cream exist? Why am I writing about broccoli flavored ice cream? It’s Thanksgiving for god sakes. Cranberry sauce ice cream is where it’s at. 

Ok, clearly I lack the focus to write about the things I wanted to. I guess that’s okay. The artistic impulse isn’t a thing that can always be controlled. Perhaps it never should be. It tells the artist, the artist does not tell it. We’d do well to get out of its way. 

I wanted to write about the odd psychological aspect of being far away from home on a national holiday. So far from home that my residing country doesn’t partake in the familiar festivities. The body retains a memory of these things though, and begins to wonder where the turkey is. It starts to ask, “where is everyone?” The mind, sensing the body’s distress, arrives on the scene and tries to employ reason: it’s not Thanksgiving here. But the body doesn’t fully understand, and so it holds on to some level of expectation, believing that this random Thursday night might have something more to offer, that it can’t just be FaceTiming your family as they sit down to dinner and you stare at your father and his one remaining tooth as he yells happily into the phone about drinking your uncle under the table. But it is. And that’s enough. The day is meant for giving thanks. 

And I did. 

But I miss stuffing. Butt stuffing. Where all my Truthähne at?