Growing up, Thanksgiving in my house was a big affair. I remember my mother ז״ל waking up at 5:30 to continue the preparations she started the night before, shoving a supernaturally large turkey in the oven, and cooking all the way through till 3:00 pm when the 20 plus family and friends arrived.
Thanksgiving would start with drinks—whiskey sours with more sour than whiskey, and whatever the current fad hors d’oeuvres. One year it was cheeses, another shrimp, (which one year our family wound up eating 3/4s of them before my aunts and uncles arrived), one year some strange version of onion dip. Then we would get down to the serious eating. Turkey, kugel, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce (canned—this was before home-made was de rigeur- and of course, stuffing, and cakes, cakes, and more cakes. The meal itself, up to dessert, lasted no more than a half hour. With a break to clean up and make coffee, it was, from start to finish, no more than an hour. Close to twenty hours cooking, maybe five hours shopping, and it was all over in an hour. My mother would look around tired, astonished, and probably a bit resentful, thinking, it’s all over—in a flash.
I thought about those Thanksgiving meals yesterday, but I walked away with a different feeling.
I think most things in life take a long time—and then the pinnacle moment, the crescendo, the apparent culmination of all that work or preparation lasts, perhaps five minutes, maybe an hour—but no more than that. Whether it’s the five years it took getting your Ph.D. and then the graduation ceremony where they actually announce “Dr. Gonsher,” or the ten years looking for a partner, and then the year planning the perfect wedding—the ceremony itself, the moment when you say “I do,” is no more than an hour. Even if you add the whole wedding celebration in, no matter how many elements you have in your wedding, it’s not going to last more than five hours. Five hours in comparison to the years you’ve been looking for Mr./Ms. Right and the year of preparations??? The juiciest point, the moment you are the happiest, seems to be such a small part of the whole.
But it wouldn’t seem that way it we stopped thinking in terms of goals and endpoints and instead thought of these events on one continuous line. So the wedding may be over, but the honeymoon, marriage, kids, the whole adventure lies ahead. And wasn’t the tasting all those cakes, looking at the flowers when you felt so incredibly happy? The degree is conferred, but now the adventure of putting it into action, actually using what you have learned is just beginning. And wasn’t the moment when you looked at your completed and approved tome just mind-blowing? And the moment when someone first referred to you as “Dr. Gonsher” enough to make you swoon with joy? The meal may be snarfed down, but the talk and the relationships continue long into the night and years after.
I am grateful that I am very fortunate to have David, a husband that is my partner in work and in the kitchen (the best sous chef EVER), the resources to plan out and cook a great meal, lovely, interesting, funny compassionate friends like Elissa, Kevin, Theresa, Zenona, Halley, Jo-Ann (who was there in flowers if not in body) Mona (who was there in text from Chicago) and Kirssy (who has a very special place in my heart), and of course, the kids, with whom to share it all. Relationships that are not just of the moment but will be fortified this and every other Thanksgiving; this meal and so many in the future.
