I got outvoted. Again.
Thanksgiving loomed. Two of the 15 adults expected at dinner had voted for Trump. They were worried it could get ugly. Should they even come?
Of course they should come, the rest of us agreed. The only questions were, should we talk about the elephant in the room? And could we, without spoiling the feast?
I thought we should and we could.
Before the break, a student in my column-writing class attended a campus forum billed as “a safe space for dialogue on the 2016 presidential election.” How, an attendee asked, should one deal with people who have different opinions from one’s own? One of the elders in the room counseled avoidance: “Surround yourself with like-minded people and find your place in a group.”
Her advice drew applause, but my student was appalled. Now, more than ever, he thundered, we need to talk to those we disagree with.
I concur, though I thought he might have misread the mood. The shock of this election is still new. Yes, we need to understand what just happened, and for that we need the help of those Trump voters who say they are not racists, misogynists or xenophobes. But those who have the most to fear from a Trump administration are understandably fearful. Give them – give all of us — more time.
A Thanksgiving dinner with one’s nearest and dearest, though, is nothing if not a safe space. I saw it as a fine opportunity to let the dialogue begin. Everyone else thought it too risky.
My daughter Sylvie wrote a private aside to me: “The last thing I want is to let the Orange Bozo come between [us] and make our Thanksgiving less sweet.”
My jocular reply: “OK, so we’ll walk in and say, ‘We promise not to talk about the Orange Bozo.’”
We agreed that Orange Bozo Swirl would make an excellent flavor at the Penn State Creamery.
There was no mention of the Orange Bozo on Thanksgiving Day. The topics were as standard as the turkey-and-sides on our plates: health crises weathered; the joys and challenges of raising children; work and travel; plans for the holidays.
Mostly we basked in each other’s company. We were three generations — parents, kids and grandkids. The oldest among us was 70; the youngest, 4. We keenly felt the absence of the fourth generation – my parents, who died since the last time this crew had gathered for Thanksgiving – and of my daughter Rosa, spending the year abroad.
While looking up and down the long table, from my brother-in-law Andy at the head, to my son Ethan at the foot, presiding over the kids’ table, I had an Ebenezer Scrooge moment.
I looked back 50 years and saw myself at the kids’ table.
I looked back 25 years and saw Sylvie, now on the cusp of 30, gnawing on the giant turkey leg she held in her tiny hand.
I looked forward 25 years and saw myself old, my kids, middle-aged, and the little ones, young adults.
This sense of connection across generations, of continuity across decades, is what makes Thanksgiving sweet. And maybe among the things to be thankful for that day were the two Trump voters, whose presence kept us from obsessing about the election.
On Friday we worked off our day of feasting with a day of hiking through the red rocks on Denver’s western edge. Ethan kept “the smalls,” as we called the two youngest hikers, from getting tired or bored by throwing and catching footballs with them, just as I kept him entertained on hikes 15 years earlier. When we got back we feasted all over again.
I didn’t realize we’d all been a little tense on Thanksgiving until the night after, when I noticed that the tension was gone, released in a game of Scattergories that turned uproarious whenever one of us tried to use the same word for multiple categories, like Iris for Parts of the Body, A Girl’s Name and Flowers. You had to be there.
We also sang that night. I hadn’t listened to Leonard Cohen much, was one of a dozen or so people in America who didn’t know his “Hallelujah” until I heard Kate McKinnon, playing Hillary Clinton, singing and accompanying herself on piano to open “Saturday Night Live” a few days after the election. The song moved me then and it moved me even more to hear Andy, Sylvie and her husband Nick sweetly sing it.
I came in on the chorus. It felt like we were mourning and celebrating at the same time. I wanted to cry but didn’t let myself.
Back in State College yesterday, dressed like November in brown and gray, I crossed paths with a low-flying quarrel of sparrows. One brushed me with its wings. It wasn’t quite Bernie Sanders’ bird-on-the-podium moment, but I’ll take it.
