Thanksgiving

I am a recovering vegetarian. Nine years of pretending that Boca tastes like real beef and Silk Soy is better than cow juice. Nine years of pretend and now here I am trying to eat chicken and failing miserably. Why the change of diet? I'm living in Ireland. The veg. here is rotten and free-range, organic meat products are abundant. 

I flail at lunch counters, in restaurants, in the shops. I practice ordering chicken caesar salad over and over in my mind and when the waiter shows I order hummus and falafel. Or I cart around deli meats and when I get to the checkout toss the pieces of poultry onto a candy stand in this strange moralistic panic and then feel guilty for not returning the item to the proper isle. 

The day I believed to be Thanksgiving, Sunday November 23rd, I succeeded in purchasing sliced turkey from the deli. I have celebrated the same holiday for two decades and still somehow mistook this colonialist national holiday for a random Sunday. 

I texted people across the Atlantic with a standard Happy Turkey Day get fat and happy message. No one responded. I strolled around the local shop, bought two bottles of red wine, a cake, real sliced turkey, crisps, and three Smithwick's; walked home under lit street lamps at 3:00 pm, prepared the cheap meal, got locked and tried to figure out what I was thankful for. 

I celebrated three days early and am posting my 'tribute to thanksgiving' five weeks late. Unfortunately Thanksgiving stories aren’t Evergreen. Fortunately I'm not commissioned or on a deadline. 

CONFESSIONS OF A WINO ON AN ORANGE VELVET COUCH 

I’m thankful that the brown bread I bought last week hasn’t gone green; my roommate John will be thankful too since I won’t have to rob his white bread. I’m making turkey sandwiches, drinking wine in an empty house and embracing the melancholy of three p.m. twilight streets. Dine with me mirror, let us shamelessly reflect.

I’m thankful that I can fix my body when it breaks. Sometimes, like now, when I’m not broken, I mend myself anyways—bottle of wine and a good write. Other times, when I’ve cracked a limb or lost a friend, I prove less of an experienced doctor. Let’s play Operation, don’t worry, it’s a mild shock. I’m thankful for the theoretical future.

I’d like to thank my dad. You’ve got the Lewis grip—squeeze, don’t be a punk. It is nearly impossible for me to be socially embarrassed. Short shorts, sun tan, talk-to-the-giant’s-hand, 80s dance moves that should be forgiven before forgotten, nudey calendar (Mr. December) or that thirty-minute infomercial with the sledgehammer versus the un-breakable safe. It is nearly impossible for me to lose a game without secretly wanting to decapitate the winner. It is nearly impossible for me to cry in front of people. It is nearly impossible for me to admit when I’m hurt. I’m thankful for restraint. I’m thankful because when I need a laugh, money, advice, dad is my confidant.

I’m thankful (some would say not thankful enough) for existing and for not having to work tomorrow morning. I’m thankful that I’m queen of this couch and chef of this half-eaten, half-full, half-warm meal. Drink with me, don’t be afraid. Dance with me, don’t forget your name. I’m thankful that here, in Dublin, I’m living a dream and don’t seem to know it yet.

I’m thankful for home—where I keep my clothes and my heart—a pin on the chest of every sweater. I keep pricking myself with the backside of the heart pin because it keeps slipping from loose threads and I can’t sew. I make knots in each sweater and hold myself until my fingers stop bleeding. Even though I’m not domestic enough to stitch things properly, I’m thankful that my fingers aren’t so afraid of pain that they never unfurl—that they’re willing to bleed again and again. I’m thankful that I wear the idea of home—a knotty, stained garment—with vanity in my eyes in pride in my step.

I’m thankful I made it to the pharmacy just before close. Thankful that twelve euros proves I’m not pregnant. Thankful for choice and discovery. I’m thankful I’ll never be too old to jump around the kitchen like a maniac—celebrate with a hip thrust, booty quake, stomp and wiggle.

I’m thankful for my sister and mum—they’re strong and silly and without my mom I’d be lumpy grey matter at the bottom of a stagnant pond and without my sister I’d be a solo crazy in a world of dodo birds hell-bent on normalcy—we hop in circles of laughter. There’s power in our number: three.

None of us have money but we all have empathy. None of us have birthmarks but we all have scars. What we have is love, call-me-when-you-stub-your-toe, miss-you-when-you-take-a-pee / can-I-come-with? love.

The Atlantic divides our bodies as we wish it did our phone bills; even now, in $10, five-minute conversations, we hastily synopsize our lives because we can’t afford not to, because we care. I am also thankful I can out burp, out drink, and out wit the two—all claims that will be challenged, I imagine, at a feastival this Christmas.

Catch the moments that are smoking away, chase them across the Indian sunset. I’m thankful that Elton John is a necessary evil; the shop is only a five minute walk away so I can break my “no smoking” vow; that my live and love on a short time-line mentality is easy to capture, here, on this page. Catch the moments that are smoking away, chase them across the Indian sunset.

I’m thankful for one-night-stands-with-Paddy’s-from-Cork. Thankful for the nights when you remember where you were by the stamps on your wrist and thankful for the horrendous hangovers that accompany them—enlightening and informing my philosophical notions of sobriety. Watch me strip down to my skeleton, play my bones like a piano. I’m thankful for waking up in a previously unexplored part of Dublin—Kimmage. Thankful for the ability to laugh at my sick, naked self. Thankful to Paddy for leaving a piece of paper beside the bed with: directions to town, the code to get out of the estate, and his number; thankful for the bottle of water I stole from his kitchen, without which, I would have died of dry brain. He’s the only h-fund “Buy, buy, sell, sell” guy I know with manky Converse and no drawers or wall decorations—a guy that likes the lights on. I’m thankful for the lights.

I’m thankful that when I’m tired and dirty I can crawl into bed and recover from: the day, grass stains, pictures of people running away, polishing pool balls, longing for people across oceans, burn marks made every time I make a friend, fantasies that are liberating and depressing. I’m thankful that my eyes never shut for too long—that every morning my eyes open, and even when a gust of Irish wind blows them watery I’m not afraid to open them again. Blink with me, hold my hand, and run against the wind.