Hi, what’s up! What are you doing today? Are you okay?
I’m going to be honest, I can’t believe we didn’t collectively cancel Thanksgiving 2020. I can’t believe we continue to not cancel… everything during This Pandemic Year? I am not the biggest fan of Thanksgiving as a holiday (who can possibly be a fan of a “holiday” based on genocide, lies, and the continued oppression of Native people?) but I have always spent the time off work and school with family or friends. Sometimes that was nice, sometimes it was decidedly not nice, but at least I was attempting something that felt like community building, like community care.
In 2020, community care means staying away from everyone you love. The simplest solution to me seems like canceling Thanksgiving. And yet I know that for many of us, it’s more complicated. You have family members who begged you to come home. You co-parent kids and their other parent(s) wanted to do something. You work at a grocery store and you’ve had to hand out turkey after turkey this week. You actually don’t usually celebrate this day and always spend it luxuriously alone, but somehow that feels different during a year of epic loneliness. This year has been soaked in grief and honestly it does not look to be letting up anytime soon. I feel like almost everyone I know is experiencing some deep personal grief these days, and we are, collectively, experiencing so much loss it is hard to actually fathom. Whatever you are or are not doing today, I think it promises to be kind of a challenge. And the year will probably continue to be challenging, and honestly next year will be too.
I don’t know, I have been trying to write this post for a few hours and I just really don’t know what else to say! But I want to make this space exist, where we can all feel our feelings together.
So. How are you? How’s your heart? How’s your brain? How’s your spirit? Are you by yourself today? With a pod? Grateful to avoid family? Missing home? Did you make anything delicious? Did you drop anything off at your local free fridge resource? (Do other cities have these or is it just Portland?) Are you angry? Sad? Miraculously somewhat happy? Let’s be here together, apart — the safest way to show community care this year.
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