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AD Diversion
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Welcome to Morning Open Thread, a daily post with a MOTley crew of hosts who choose the topic for the day's posting. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.
This diarist, who is on Pacific Coast Time, may sometimes show up later than when the post is published. That is a feature, not a bug. Other than that, site rulz rule.
PLEASE NOTE: This is
Better Conversation Week –
Just in time for the Thanksgiving table!
So grab your cuppa, and join in!
We humans talk a lot about “forever” and “always” when we speak about love, yet the traditional wedding vows are “until death do us part.”
The truth is, nothing human lasts forever. We are ephemeral.
So over the years, the people from the Thanksgivings of our childhood disappear, one by one, and new people come to sit in their chairs. But that doesn’t mean the departed aren’t still at the table. When we tell yarns from previous Thanksgivings, or prepare some recipe that they handed down to us, or use our grandmother’s china, they’re still at the table.
My three Great Aunts, who were born at the end of the 19th century and all lived into their 90s, are still with us at Thanksgiving, likely flirting with my husband, who feels as if he knows them because my generation loves to tell and retell all the stories about them. They were wonderful cooks – their kitchen philosophy was that everything would be improved by adding butter or sugar. Especially butter.
Butter
by Elizabeth Alexander
My mother loves butter more than I do,
more than anyone. She pulls chunks off
the stick and eats it plain, explaining
cream spun around into butter! Growing up
we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon
and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles,
butter melting in small pools in the hearts
of Yorkshire puddings, butter better
than gravy staining white rice yellow,
butter glazing corn in slipping squares,
butter the lava in white volcanoes
of hominy grits, butter softening
in a white bowl to be creamed with white
sugar, butter disappearing into
whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple,
butter melted and curdy to pour
over pancakes, butter licked off the plate
with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture
the good old days I am grinning greasy
with my brother, having watched the tiger
chase his tail and turn to butter. We are
Mumbo and Jumbo’s children despite
historical revision, despite
our parent’s efforts, glowing from the inside
out, one hundred megawatts of butter.
My parents are seated on opposite sides of the table, and not across from each other. We all avoid bringing up politics, but my parents tell stories about the “good old days”– mostly from WWII, which was probably not as enjoyable as their selective memories of it. I know their accounts of my childhood years don’t often coincide with my memories of those times.
My husband’s parents who died long before he and I even met are here too, and I know he got his sneaky sense of humor from his dad, and his kind heart from his mom. The big old farm table from their kitchen is now our dining table. It has aged scars and dings that tell tales from their marriage, and some newer ones that are part of our history together.
PERHAPS THE WORLD ENDS HERE
by Joy Harjo
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror.
A place to celebrate the terrible victory.We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse.
We give thanks.Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying,
eating of the last sweet bite.
Wishing everyone a Thanksgiving day with too many blessings to count.
SOURCES:
Painting: “Hip Hip Hooray” by Peter S. Krøjer, 1888
“Butter” from Body of Life, ©1996 by Elizabeth Alexander, Tia Chucha Press
www.poetryfoundation.org/...
"Perhaps the World Ends Here" from The Woman Who Fell From the Sky © 1994 by Joy Harjo,
W. W. Norton & Company
www.poetryfoundation.org/...