AT THANKSGIVING, GRATITUDE IS NEVER LOCKED DOWN
The squirrel, probably the thuggish grey one, managed to squeeze into the garage, leap onto the workbench, ninja his way onto an upper shelf and knock the jars and bicycle helmets out of the way to reach the bag of bird seed.
The shelf now clear, the seed was pawed out into a big pile, like cocaine in a rodent remake of Scarface, a bunch of it raining all over the bench, the floor, the flower pots, the lawn mower.
This is probably the same fella who moved into the garage last winter, bunking in the rafters, now figuring he has the run of the place — because he so does.
Walking with a cane and working with a little broom, it took me ages to clean up, the garage being an aspiring junkyard.
And that was the biggest problem I had to solve one day this week. For this I am grateful.
Not a day goes by in this pandemic that I'm not thankful I still have a paycheque, a roof over my head, food on the table, people who care about me, no weighty worries about the future.
The blessings are many. A public health care system that gave me a new hip in the middle of a pandemic, a neighbour named John who brought me a walker, and crutches and a cane.
A friend named Chris who lent me his special ice pack. A friend at work who sent a massive package of goodies, some of them intoxicating. Buddies who brought books to the door. Golf hacks who brought bottles of wine. A brother who will be alone this Thanksgiving, but finds time to regularly check in. A big sister who does what big sisters do.
People who think about you when you're not even there. Is this not the greatest gift of all?
At the cottage — speaking of found riches — a neighbour named Dave will disconnect the water and winterize the plumbing, the owner of the place being both lame and a little useless. Another neighbour has already surprised the gimp with beer and wine. Mysteriously, when we're away from Constance Bay, leaves are raked and wood is piled by unseen elves.
A few days ago, I was limping along Bayview Drive and witnessed four or five houses hoisted into the sky, raised on cribs so that new foundations could be built to protect against the devastating floods along the Ottawa River in 2017 and 2019.
“There's a lot of good things happening in people's lives,” said a smiling Jan, who is temporarily living over a garage while her waterfront home is being uplifted. “We just don't read about them.”
Rarely. News is the house flooding. Life is the house being fixed.
We've largely forgotten the roots of Thanksgiving. It wasn't just saying thanks. It was saying thanks for being alive, for the fall harvest of food, which is not guaranteed. Doubters, look under I for Irish or F for famine.
Meat did not always come plastic-wrapped or in sterile containers. It had to be raised, slaughtered, in ways that took on ritual. Of course you said grace at meals: Food was sacred, to be eaten respectfully together, with the humility of the undeserving.
May we pause to think of this over the weekend. May we be mindful as we prepare whatever passes for feast.
This may be made more difficult as Friday brought more bad news in the pandemic. It feels as though we're back to the slog, does it not?
At a time when the days are getting shorter and November will bring the usual bag of misery, one has to worry about those who are alone, at wit's end, at poverty's door, those who may have forgotten how to hope.
It is a glib observation, but, whatever anyone's state of mind today, we are one day closer to having this whole thing end. We will win. “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,” wrote the American essayist Annie Dillard, who has a spellbinding way of observing the world. “What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”
So, for an hour or more this weekend, may there be gratitude expressed, which is to think of others fondly and with some deliberation, be it mother, father, sister, son. Or even turkey and potato or the comical rampaging of an invading squirrel.
Happy Thanksgiving.