BOUNTIFUL BEGINNINGS

I was the child of parents who grew to adulthood on a pioneer homestead in Manitoba. Throughout my life, I took it pretty much for granted that the major holidays would signal a large family gathering, accompanied by some significant feasting, with food that my parents had more or less produced themselves from the land.

Although we reaped the rewards at these special times, our everyday lives benefited from the work my parents did every other day of the year, too. It may have seemed to me as a child that they simply waved their arm and all that bounty magically appeared on the table, whereas now I understand how much it was the product of their bent backs and a not insignificant amount of wisdom passed down through the generations.

A NEW TRADITION OF GRATITUDE

I had to leave home, to go to university here and there (actually the further I went the more I discovered), before I came to appreciate what we had at home.

In particular, I remember two Thanksgivings.

The first was during my undergraduate years. One year when I clearly had decided I couldn’t afford the time or money to go home for the holiday, I was invited, along with my roommates, to join a large group of likewise “homeless” singles for a Thanksgiving feast. This was my first encounter with someone else’s traditions. Looking back, I can clearly see how insular I was, how little exposure I had to cultural groups outside my own. I still find it difficult to understand why someone would want cornbread, mushrooms, apples or oysters inside their roast turkey, or curry spices on the outside. 8^* But never mind.

On this particular occasion I was astonished, enlightened and delighted with the sheer variety of dishes that were brought to the pot-luck Thanksgiving feast I attended. All the familiar items were there (well maybe not pyrogies, I can’t recall now.) But certainly there was roast turkey and stuffing and myriad root vegetables and squashes. There were also things I had never had, that others deemed de rigeur: brussels sprouts, for example. (imagine that!).

And as many kinds of pie as one could dream of: not only pumpkin but apple and pecan as well.

But despite the disorientation and titillation of learning new things, there was one thing that was familiar, and perhaps even more accentuated in that strange setting: gratitude.

Somehow, I suppose because we were all displaced, the sense of appreciation, not only for the bountiful feast, but for the warm and generous companionship, was uppermost in my mind. Perhaps it was simply that none of us took it for granted. In my memory, it was one of the warmest, richest, most emotionally fulfilling holidays of  my life.

RECONNECTING WITH THE BOUNTIFUL EARTH

A few years later, when I was further from home in the middle of grad school, I was taken in hand by a new friend and co-worker, along with my own room-mate at the time, and swept away to a rural area outside of Montreal for the Thanksgiving weekend. This was a part of the country with which I had no familiarity.

Not only the customs, but the very geography, were new and strange.

Our hosts ran a small pig farm. They were gracious and welcoming, immigrants themselves to Canada. Highlights I can remember include accompanying our hosts in borrowed galoshes as they fed their livestock and harvested from their fall garden most of what we would be eating that evening, including late tomatoes, squashes, greens and brussels sprouts. We were sent on a long country stroll down a grassy allee of trees under the rainbow canopy of colourful Eastern leaves, armed with a bag of wrinkled apples to feed the horses who met us at the bounding fence, anticipating the sweet treats we brought.

GRATITUDE TRULY FELT

Later, we warmed ourselves by a wood fire inside the cozy farmhouse and sipped wine while our hostess prepared the meal. My senses were alive. It was as if I had never experienced hospitality before, never seen food pulled from the dark soil and lovingly transformed into beautiful and delicious dishes, never tasted such a sumptuous meal, never felt such warm companionship, never felt such gratitude.

How odd, when in fact that is exactly what I had grown up with.

But perhaps without experiencing it out of my familiar context I would never have come fully awake to the wonders of a country harvest, and food lovingly harvested, prepared and shared with loved ones. Nor of the delights of opening ones home and ones arms to strangers.

It is a Thanksgiving weekend that I will always remember, and consequently why I prefer to be in the country at this time of year. Also perhaps why I feel a special urge to open the door and  include those outside my immediate family at the table. I certainly never again took for granted the skills, traditions and loving generosity of my own family.

So this weekend I’d like to say thank you. Thanks to my parents and family for all that they gave me and all that they taught me. Thank you to all those friends and strangers who opened their homes, tables and hearts to me over the years. And thank you to the earth that provides us all we need and more. If only we are able to pause and remember to appreciate it.

How about you? Do you have a special memory that you cherish – a moment in your past when you woke up and really felt gratitude for everything you were given?