THANKSGIVING, 2002

Wine red cranberries the size of marbles - shooters - mingling with slippery golden slices of mandarin orange.  Royalty. Mashed sweet potatoes with maple syrup, the color of a Catskill mountain sunset. North Carolina string bean and mushroom casserole mixed with teensy bits and pieces of crispy, french fried onion rings with the color and texture of a foggy beach flecked by the sea. Martha’s Vineyard at dawn. A legendary corn pudding passed on from one generation to the next, all mouths full. A turkey flayed down to its carcass, ready for its metamorphosis into soup the following morning. Wine and ginger beer and apple cider. Three fresh pies: pumpkin crumble, sweet-tart strawberry rhubarb, juicy apple. Forty-three Thanksgivings. Thirty five with children. Thirty five with children and aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces. And dogs. Hank. Mike. Roady. Bliss. Joe. There were grandparents, too, and are again as well. Even a prayer and a welcome to dinner. This year my daughter has a new house in the family, so our children decided to have our dinner there. Our children decided! Not the contents, of course. The menu is sacrosanct. For now. But where to have it, and where to sit, and when to come? Jamie and I are welcome and honored, but we are not in our home but our daughter’s, with our son and daughter having made the decision to eat there. And when? What time? I didn’t need to stoke the fireplace. I didn’t need to make sure the house was warm, that there were napkins instead of paper towels, that the soap dishes had clean bars of soap, that there was salt on the stoop to melt the snow. Dinner was no less delicious given that the venue was so new. Delicious was a four year old at this table for the first time. Delicious were the faces of dear guests chowing down. One should not be alive but is. Delicious were the faces of my children glowing with satisfaction. Aren’t we always in transition? I know next year there will be turkey and corn pudding, but the rest? Up for grabs. Yep. Up for grabs.