Thanksgiving

Having started and abandoned several thoughtful posts because of interruptions, I am going for the newsy.

It was a lovely Thanksgiving. I took not one photo of turkey, wild rice salad, pumpkin pie, or any of the rest of it, but if a turkey doesn't get blogged, it's still a turkey. We had another family over for dessert, which was a nice compromise between preserving some tradition for just the three of us, and sharing hospitality. When she wasn't involved in preparing the dinner, CZ was strolling through the house with her violin, alternating between 19th century violin concertos and "Old French" or the hoedown. I thought the fiddle pieces fit the feel of the day nicely.

In between dinner and dessert, I called my sister, who entertained me with a story about how she and my parents had agreed not to cook a Thanksgiving dinner this year and only have dessert, yet each had privately started cooking, and they wound up with more than enough dinner for two families after all.

My heart was at least partially in Georgia already, since between cooking tasks, I sat down and read most of the journal I kept for CZ between the time she was born and our move to NYC when she was three. I thought to do this because of a conversation I'd had with a friend about CZ's funny habit of memorizing states when she was two. So I went back to make sure I had the timing right, and then read the rest of the journal as well. The two-year-old CZ was, of course, endearing, and I even came to the conclusion that I was a better parent then than I am now. (Maybe the job was simpler.) I also came to the conclusion that CZ's personality was well established before her third birthday. Simply by writing what I observed, I had made an uncannily prescient sketch of who she is today.

But what struck me most was the simplicity of our lives. When we lived in Georgia, our lives had a definite and given structure due to our status as a student family, our roles as the parents of a toddler, and the small size of the town where we lived (Athens). I had never heard of the MacLaren stroller that is the staple of Manhattanites, much less the Bugaboo. I was happy to have something decent to wear and didn't worry about being hip. CZ wore hand-me-downs. About the only extra-curricular offering for toddlers was a gymnastics class, and our other outings included watching the UGA marching band practice and going to the library. I spent CZ's naps painting portraits, for grocery money. (CZ carried on conversations with these two-dimensional children, as though they were dolls, and tried to share her sippy cup with them.) I cleaned a lot, left the windows open and turned the heat down, and cooked really inexpensive food. And when exam time came, I went to Grandma's for a few days.

I was reminded of all this yesterday, not only because I read the journal, but because I spilled some water from the drip pan into the oven and smoked up the whole apartment. We opened all the windows as wide as they would go, and somehow with the cool breeze and the smoky smell, I felt was in Georgia in fall. Smells can evoke very specific memories, and these were just what I needed to get some perspective on our busy fall.