Our first Thanksgiving without Emmanuel. Going well so far. He would have expected turkey and all the fixings, which he did enjoy yesterday at Church in Creighton. He's off to a steakhouse with a friend of his right now. We on the other hand, are making Hyderabadi Biryani and finishing up with store bought pumpkin pie- America!! The land of immigrants!
We went to church for mass today and our priest has a format to his Thanksgiving day homily every year- mentioning family,faith, food and football! But he mentioned another interesting thing as well. He visited the Kindergarten class at the school there last week and was asking kids what they were thankful for.The answers were very interesting to hear. One kid said he was thankful for his soccer ball, another for his warm bed, yet another, for her sister and another kiddo was thankful for his Dad taking him to McDonald's!! Wow! Looking at being grateful from a 5 year old's perspective gave me a whole new meaning to the concept of being grateful. At the end of the day, it is not the bigger things, but the smaller ones that matter.
As Maslow put it, it is the food and shelter and clothing that keeps you alive, it is the very base of the pyramid, self actualization as the Acme be damned! Young or old, we all, frankly need the very same things to make it in this world. Everything else is fluff.The big house, the fancy cars and all our gadgets can make us happy but if an earthquake hits tomorrow, we (and Bill Gates for that matter) will look for food, clothing and shelter, not the iPhone that got misplaced in our race to get away from disaster.
How many of us stop to think of that? We get caught in this rat race to make it to the top-whatever that might be and in the process, stop appreciating the things that we experience everyday.
And of course, what sees us through this mayhem that we call existence, is our social connections. Family and friends.
Vincent and I watched ( more like I made him watch, for which crime, I'm currently listening to Classical music piped into the kitchen from his old fashioned radio) a movie about this lady who is ensnared into an unsavory relationship by a guy she befriends on Facebook. Her reasoning? She lives for those 'likes'- seriously?!
Black Friday here feels different today. Every store has an online sale going on -way before Black Friday. Sit at home and order stuff and have it delivered to your door step. No more lining up outside stores in the wee hours of the morning, nursing a cup of hot Cocoa, waiting for the door to open and to rush in and grab those goodies. No more shooting the breeze with the person next in line about how their thanksgiving went.
With the proliferation of home delivery services, you need not get up from your couch, unless it is to open your door for a delivery. Living virtually using technology that is giving us the illusion that we are in touch and somehow that is socially fulfilling, is a chimera. I broke that cycle!!I went to Riteaid and spent a decent amount and hobnobbed with the cashier!The store is open until 5.00 p.m I think, so I am sure she will go home to a nice dinner.
And after twenty three years here, I notice that stores are open earlier and earlier, and now, open on Thanksgiving day itself which would have been heresy even twenty years ago, and coupled with online sales, it is almost like the consumer preference trend is like a chicken with its head cut off. Maximization of profit, but at what cost?
When you lose face to face interaction, you actually lose a lot. The sheer act of sharing breathing space with another person is good for us and helps us enormously in maintaining our balance in life.
So this Thanksgiving, I am grateful for the fact that God has given my family the wherewithal to have food on our plates, clothes on our back and a sweet place to call home. And for all the other things he has bestowed on us that we do not need or deserve but he has given us nonetheless.
And more importantly, I am eternally grateful for my family. My anchor in all the storms that life churns out at me. My support and sustenance.
And gratitude for all the friends and acquaintances- even the tall lady who reached high up on a shelf to get me the whipping cream yesterday, that my five foot nothing self couldn't quite reach. Life becomes more meaningful with every interaction we have, good or bad. Every experience helps us grow a little bit more and live a little bit better.
And a special thanks to Vaigai, who inspired me yesterday to start writing again and gave me a deadline! Ninth standard began hard because a friend I was close to, left school and the same had happened to her too. So we were rebound friends!!But the best thing that happened to me that year was, ironically my friend leaving school. Vaigai and I were in the same class all along but never were best friends per se.That changed in ninth standard and by God's grace,is still going strong.
Here's to you ma! Ever grateful we are on this journey together and I can already see you rolling your eyes at me! I'll stop. We are not the sappy sentimental ones, you and I.
And yes, the irony of me talking about this on social media is not lost on me!Too much of anything is good for nothing, no?
We went to church for mass today and our priest has a format to his Thanksgiving day homily every year- mentioning family,faith, food and football! But he mentioned another interesting thing as well. He visited the Kindergarten class at the school there last week and was asking kids what they were thankful for.The answers were very interesting to hear. One kid said he was thankful for his soccer ball, another for his warm bed, yet another, for her sister and another kiddo was thankful for his Dad taking him to McDonald's!! Wow! Looking at being grateful from a 5 year old's perspective gave me a whole new meaning to the concept of being grateful. At the end of the day, it is not the bigger things, but the smaller ones that matter.
As Maslow put it, it is the food and shelter and clothing that keeps you alive, it is the very base of the pyramid, self actualization as the Acme be damned! Young or old, we all, frankly need the very same things to make it in this world. Everything else is fluff.The big house, the fancy cars and all our gadgets can make us happy but if an earthquake hits tomorrow, we (and Bill Gates for that matter) will look for food, clothing and shelter, not the iPhone that got misplaced in our race to get away from disaster.
How many of us stop to think of that? We get caught in this rat race to make it to the top-whatever that might be and in the process, stop appreciating the things that we experience everyday.
And of course, what sees us through this mayhem that we call existence, is our social connections. Family and friends.
Vincent and I watched ( more like I made him watch, for which crime, I'm currently listening to Classical music piped into the kitchen from his old fashioned radio) a movie about this lady who is ensnared into an unsavory relationship by a guy she befriends on Facebook. Her reasoning? She lives for those 'likes'- seriously?!
Black Friday here feels different today. Every store has an online sale going on -way before Black Friday. Sit at home and order stuff and have it delivered to your door step. No more lining up outside stores in the wee hours of the morning, nursing a cup of hot Cocoa, waiting for the door to open and to rush in and grab those goodies. No more shooting the breeze with the person next in line about how their thanksgiving went.
With the proliferation of home delivery services, you need not get up from your couch, unless it is to open your door for a delivery. Living virtually using technology that is giving us the illusion that we are in touch and somehow that is socially fulfilling, is a chimera. I broke that cycle!!I went to Riteaid and spent a decent amount and hobnobbed with the cashier!The store is open until 5.00 p.m I think, so I am sure she will go home to a nice dinner.
And after twenty three years here, I notice that stores are open earlier and earlier, and now, open on Thanksgiving day itself which would have been heresy even twenty years ago, and coupled with online sales, it is almost like the consumer preference trend is like a chicken with its head cut off. Maximization of profit, but at what cost?
When you lose face to face interaction, you actually lose a lot. The sheer act of sharing breathing space with another person is good for us and helps us enormously in maintaining our balance in life.
So this Thanksgiving, I am grateful for the fact that God has given my family the wherewithal to have food on our plates, clothes on our back and a sweet place to call home. And for all the other things he has bestowed on us that we do not need or deserve but he has given us nonetheless.
And more importantly, I am eternally grateful for my family. My anchor in all the storms that life churns out at me. My support and sustenance.
And gratitude for all the friends and acquaintances- even the tall lady who reached high up on a shelf to get me the whipping cream yesterday, that my five foot nothing self couldn't quite reach. Life becomes more meaningful with every interaction we have, good or bad. Every experience helps us grow a little bit more and live a little bit better.
And a special thanks to Vaigai, who inspired me yesterday to start writing again and gave me a deadline! Ninth standard began hard because a friend I was close to, left school and the same had happened to her too. So we were rebound friends!!But the best thing that happened to me that year was, ironically my friend leaving school. Vaigai and I were in the same class all along but never were best friends per se.That changed in ninth standard and by God's grace,is still going strong.
Here's to you ma! Ever grateful we are on this journey together and I can already see you rolling your eyes at me! I'll stop. We are not the sappy sentimental ones, you and I.
And yes, the irony of me talking about this on social media is not lost on me!Too much of anything is good for nothing, no?
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