Judy Smith - November 18, 2005
Giving Thanks
Thanksgiving ’05 Commentary - Judy Smith
I like Thanksgiving-both the theory and the practice. Not the overeating behavior although I have certainly participated in that part of the tradition. I can remember as a younger person trying to gauge just how much of the turkey, dressing and cranberries I could eat and still fit in the pumpkin pie after I went for a walk.
Part of that of course was that we never ate this food except at holidays and I liked it- the taste, the colors, the texture. But now that I have prepared Thanksgiving dinner myself a few times I understand why we didn’t eat it more – my mom, a single parent with 3 charming daughters, didn’t have time or interest in the major time investment prior to my feasting satisfaction.
Now I more like the time taken to consider being thankful. Counting my blessings as some say- having a positive mindset I would say- and sharing the holiday with folks I like spending time with. Almost like creating an alternative reality for a period of time; doing things I enjoy, with people I like, focusing on what is pleasant, if not joyful, in our lives.
Sure I know the irony of the first thanksgiving- similar story to the true tale of Lewis and Clark’s Voyage of Discovery. The great white explorers and settlers in both cases were starving and would have never survived without the native peoples’ offer of hospitality. And for that generosity, they paid a great price, as happens in conquest situations.
Part of my celebration and enjoyment of this holiday though has always been that sharing, that compassion that was a hallmark of the native peoples tradition, whether in Plymouth Massachusetts or here in the Bitterroot Mountains. I am glad that part of the Massachusetts story was told to me very young- it helped to foster the great respect I’ve always had for many aspects of the traditional culture of native peoples.
Yesterday I was traveling with some colleagues to and fro from Bozeman. We were off to a meeting with folks who’ve been watching the growth in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho and trying to promote the best ways to manage it. The process is named Building from the Best of the Northern Rockies and we are documenting the best practice examples of planning and development to learn from and promote the policies that help those developments happen. I was asked because of my work with affordable housing; the others in the car were an open space specialist and a builder of energy efficient houses.
The day was classic late fall Montana-light snow on the golden grasses, swathes of white beginning to cover the dramatic mountains ranges-the Pintlers, the Rockies, the Gallatin Valley ranges I can’t name- with a few eagles and hawks overhead. Hard not to just stare out the window and absorb the view, which we did from time to time remarking on how the sun fell across a set of ridges or the row after row of snow covered peaks.
But most of the time we visited on what was on our minds and in the news and we had to stop and consciously look for something positive to talk about. Given what we all knew was happening in Iraq, what the people who control the government are doing in DC and the impacts we saw on the Montana environment and people, we were struggling.
This last round of congressional decisions was sending me over the edge. The majority party was absolutely set on budget cuts that kicked poor people off food stamps and Medicaid and denied students the loans they needed to go to college. My colleagues were talking about administrative decisions that were impacting the Rocky Mountain Northern Front and wilderness designations. We were all talking about the latest Congressional pork projects like “the Bridge to No Where” that Alaska Senator Ted Stevens tucked into the appropriations bill that spent millions of dollars to build a bridge to an island with 50 people.
So with that negative stuff happening all around, how to have a positive conversation? We talked about living here, what we like to do, how we feel glad to be home when the plane lands in Missoula. We talked some about our work- conserving open space, exploring the idea of building cooperative housing, working on growth policies like inclusionary zoning that requires new housing developments to include units for low and moderate income households and county wide zoning that the recent growth policy survey shows large majorities in Missoula County support.
And we enjoyed each other’s company; in a way sitting around the dinner table conversing, although we were actually riding in a jeep for 6 hours.
Yesterday was a preview of Thanksgiving- although the food was not part of the celebration. We stopped twice to stretch and take a break and I couldn’t find anything in the convenience store area I wanted to consume.
I am now working on my list of items I am thankful for and deciding what I would like to bring to the Thanksgiving gathering I’m attending with friends and family. I am partial to pumpkin pie with crystallized ginger-also sweet potatoes with butter and brown sugar although I abandoned the marshmallows of my childhood quite a while ago.
This practice of consciously focusing on giving thanks, or creating a positive mindset by reviewing what is going well rather than dwelling on what is not, is part of many traditions. I try to do it regularly but this coming up holiday is set up for it-especially as I am eating that pumpkin pie.
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