Price

And so the doors
of prestige and celebrity, 
of power and money
are being flung open one by one.

As each door opens, a person falls out,
someone who we assumed was

upstanding
trustworthy
truth telling
or
at the very least
in possession of
a moral compass.

Each person falls at our feet
and looks up at us.

This is the bittersweet price that is paid
when a country finds itself in thrall
to a monster.

The monster is in our house.
We put him there
and somehow he is still there.
Perhaps the gnarled hands
of political power
and insulated fame
are stronger than we thought,
or perhaps we have been weakened
by our impotent fury.

So we turned the monster's tale in on itself
and are opening the doors behind which
other monsters are hiding.

We are starting at the bottom
and working our way up.

Just as we cannot reach the top of a mountain
or climb to the top of a tree
by  jumping at the middle,
so we have discovered we cannot
unseat the monster
without first dismantling his throne.

Prepare yourself monster.

We are on our way
up.

Truth and Gratitude: A Thanksgiving Rant

"Thanksgiving" is a loaded word in the United States.

If one says "Thanksgiving", most people's minds will  unspool a film reel of family gatherings hearkening back to bucke-hatted European pilgrims and selfless indigenous Americans coming together within a gentle pastel cloud of inter-cultural bliss. 

Young children are led into murky historical re-enactments  of a supposed "real" "original" Thanksgiving,  or, for the sake of playing it safe, guided towards turkey-focused art projects. 
Hand turkeys?  Anyone?  Of course hand turkeys. 

And then there's the food.  "Thanksgiving" brings us visions of turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes, a table figuratively and literally groaning under the weight of rewarding our good fortune with a food-frenzy.

I get it.  My family has always celebrated Thanksgiving.  We too look forward to swelling up with the pressure of eating a combination of foods I'd never regularly cook nor serve  in such alarmingly vast quantities and carb-laden varieties.

And of course with our fascination in having an excuse to  spend one day gorging and sipping and then burping and napping, comes the marketing. 

Thanksgiving isn't just a holiday, it's a money-maker. 
Because aren't all celebrations potential money-makers in our American society?
Of course they are.

But...

"Thanksgiving" doesn't have the blissful roots in harmony or shared feasting that people in the United States have been led to believe. 

The truth about the "original" Thanksgiving is muddled.  Our national storyline about the European pilgrims and indigenous Americans is twisted into half-truths, non-truths, and fairy tale.

If you were to write an outline upon which the traditionally taught American Thanksgiving story was written, you'd find the truth hiding--scattered about, names of people and places shifted away from their real stories, embellished, disguised.

So where is the truth?
What is the truth?

These are the questions we must ask ourselves.  These are the questions you must ask yourself.
(These are questions for which I have included a few links below--and I encourage you to look further in order to dig deeper into the facts in order to reflect upon your own assumptions and beliefs.)

It is now approximately 400 years after the original pilgrims landed in Massachusetts Bay. 
I would suggest we have not gotten any better at promoting or discerning fact from fiction.  In our heady, tech-savvy Internet-fueled society we are still battling pouty cries of "fake news", still needing to wade through muck of promotional fictions in order  to find the truth of the world. 

400 years later and we are still trying to figure out who we are, and how much we are willing to use, abuse and sacrifice others to achieve our personal ends.


Tomorrow I'll be once again  preparing foods that were probably not available 400 years ago to pay homage to a holiday that is based on myth more than fact about a group of people--the first of many--who got in a boat, sailed across the world for their own subjectively good reasons only to land on someone else's doorstep. 

I'll probably wonder, as I often have over the years, what would've happened if  the story were twisted on it self, and it were the Native Americans who had set sail from their shores, landed somewhere in Europe and then simply began building their settlement on someone else's land. 

And when we sit down tomorrow at our own table laden with food,  I'll reflect on the good things that this last year has brought, and I'll send my gratitude out into the chilly November ether.

But we don't need it to be November 23rd in order to celebrate our gratitude, or to come together with friends and family.  Love and good food can be shared anytime.

Likewise, we shouldn't need it to be November 23rd to reflect on the lessons--and lies--of history.
Truth and wisdom and being willing to admit wrongs and embrace acceptance can and should happen every minute of every day.

If and when this finally happens, I promise you, I'll be so very grateful.







Sources


http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/Teach-the-Real-Story-of-the-First-Thanksgiving.shtml

https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/culture/social-issues/6-thanksgiving-myths-share-them-with-someone-you-know/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-shocking-savagery-of-americas-early-history-22739301/?page=5

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/us/thanksgiving-myths-fact-check.html

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/11/25/rethinking-the-way-we-teach-thanksgiving/lets-all-tell-the-true-story-about-thanksgiving

https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/search?q=thanksgiving