Grateful for my Southern Neighbours

As our American neighbours prepare for their memorable Thanksgiving holiday, I want to acknowledge and toast my lifetime of delight in sharing our border. Like many Canadians, if not most, we share friendship, family ties, collegiality and neighbourliness.

My paternal grandmother was American, and I have many American relatives on both sides of my family. I spent part of every summer in Maine, and my family stretches across the continent from east to west. When I think of Americans, I think of all the people I know and the many I don’t know but admire. I don’t think of politics.

Well, that’s not factually true. Of course, it is hard to think of anything but politics in our highly politicized and adversarial world.

What I mean is I vow not to let political fractures blur my image of all the extraordinary Americans I know—we all know. Obviously, we can’t be grateful for everything. The world is a mess, but we can celebrate people on this treasured holiday.  I vote for all of us to do our best to mend fences, give second chances, and do anything we can to love each other.

All of us share this beautiful continent on this amazing planet Earth. What keeps me grounded is asking myself, “What is your direct experience of ordinary everyday living?”

When I pay attention to what I experience daily, there is much to be grateful for. Most people are thoughtful, kind, and generous. There is genuinely a laundry list of appreciation when I focus on people, the great outdoors and of course, the poets.:-))

For longtime readers of my blog, you will recall the fantastic treatment I received when I was injured in New York City in 2018. I recently republished it, but if you missed it, the link is below.

“Thanksgiving Day is our great chance to wake up and give more importance to those bonds that unite us than to ideologies dividing us.” Brother David Steindl Rast

PS The group photo shows the motley crew of my family from all over the continent, with different likes and dislikes, ages 8 to 98. Still, “love is the answer to most of the questions in my life,” as Jack Johnson puts it.Listen here to Better Together       Note- this isn’t the best recording, but I chose it for the good spirit of the event.

Thank you for taking the time to read my musings. and may all my American readers and all of you take the time to enjoy each other.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Warmly, Trudy

Link to the article I mentioned: Good Luck, Bad Luck and the Kindness of Strangers

I have a homey poem about gravy to share with you, written by an award-winning poet, Barbara Crooker. My friend in the Hudson Valley sent this to me earlier today. Thank you, Blaze.

Gravy by Barbara Crooker:

(Click on the title to take you to Vox Populi)

To make good gravy, you must be patient,
let the juice settle to the bottom, let the fat
float to the top in all its golden light. Skim
it with a thin spoon, take its measure. Equal
it with flour, sprinkle with salt, speckle
with pepper. Stir constantly in the roasting pan,
making figure eights with a wooden spoon.
Scrape off strips of skin, bits of meat; incorporate
them in the mixture, like a difficult uncle
or the lonely neighbor invited out of duty.
Keep stirring. Hand the wooden baton
to one of your daughters; it’s time for her
to start learning this music, the bubble and
seethe as it plays the score. One minute
at the boil, then almost like magic, it’s gravy,
a rich velvet brown. Thin it with broth,
stir in chopped giblets, then pour into
its little boat, waiting with mouth open.
Take up your forks, slide potatoes, stuffing,
gravy, into your mouth, hum under your breath.
Oh, the holy family of gravy, all those
little odd bits and pieces, the parts that could
be discarded, but aren’t; instead, transformed
into a warm brown blanket that makes
delicious every thing it covers.