Thanks

Only the calendar and Facebook remind me that Thanksgiving has passed in the US. Late November is just another lovely week deep in spring here in Melbourne. The trees are fully green again. The native Australian tree outside my bedroom window is in full flower -- feathery golden orange blossoms layered over green leaves all the way to the sky. (I can check the tree map of Melbourne to find that the colonists named it "silky oak" (grevillea robusta). Why?)

It rains in spring. It has been a rainy spring in Melbourne. I've been awakened by the sound of heavy rain pounding on the roof and sidewalks and roads. It is a soothing sound, late at night, to be warm and dry and to hear the rain. It is not yet too warm to snuggle deeper under the blankets, and dream of Novembers past in the far north, when the sound of the snowplow would awaken me early in the morning. 

We ask every year we're outside the US. Should we cook a Thanksgiving meal? Probably. What to cook? The son is still vegan. There are vegan versions of nearly everything on a traditional Thanksgiving plate, except we refuse to touch tofurkey. But when to cook it? Thursday, Friday are work days. This year, Saturday was a state election. Jonathan got a job staffing a neighbourhood voting centre from 7am until 11pm. 

Sunday? 

Thinking about cooking a last minute meal makes me a little melancholy. Thanksgiving is about planning and preparations and family. Special place mats and turkeys made of coloured paper and glue. Taking that horse and sleigh over the river to Grandmother's house. Isn't it? I propose that almost zero Americans alive today have ever really taken a sleigh ride in the US through the woods to Grandmother's Thanksgiving table. It isn't cold enough for that. There are very few places high in the mountains where there might be sufficient snow in November, but surely there aren't enough horses or sleighs or Grandmothers living in the woods. But we all have an idea of what an ideal Thanksgiving should be. And I guess I miss that. 

I guess it's time to go cook.