I spent thanksgiving with people I don't know. Some ukranians that are extended to the extended family and do I know any of any of us really?
Okay I do know them, they've been coming for a few years. There's a mom of someone and a boyfriend with a big hat that the dog always barks at cause he doesn't like hats or black people. Thanksgiving is good if it's family of family because there's no pressure to be perfect. They don't know you, they aren't slogging through muck of years together to drop their homemade pie on your table, they just skate right through with fresh eyes, still in the infancy of you, and they're glad they didn't have to cook.
I like hearing Russian at the table and seeing the kids barely eat anything because they'd rather play ping pong and I like the noise and the sharing of noise where nothing gets solved but there's cheer and old family cornbread recipes.
The lugging makes your body hurt, the before and after lugging of making the house nice. But after we ate and sort of cleared up some dishes but not all because some people were still sitting to talk and we wandered out because kids wanted to see and hold the one bunny we have left and then they wanted horse and pony rides because my little niece (who is 45 and delivers babies but to me still 15) wanted to ride bareback and work on her leg because she's a rider too. And wasting time with horses is my favorite way to waste time.
We don't have a nice arena or any arena just a basketball court driveway so that became our arena and people who wanted to get on the tall horse or short pony got on, and the horses were polite and careful, even the youngster Meriwether who can be a devil took care of the little bundles on his back. Everyone was learning, riders, young horses, and attention was being paid and I liked that. Everyone outside. Then the basketballers grew restless and kicked us off their court, even though the ukranian in the long skirt who brought the lavender dried into a bunch and looked like she had harvested it herself with her long hair and long brown skirt, she wasn't quite done riding in her drapey skirt on my old Dewey. But she slid off so the boys could play and the horses went back to eating hay and watching over the fence and the voices slithered off to find the pie and brownies and ice cream rumored.
Then everyone was gone, and the table was almost empty, just some decorations left, and you fall on the couch with the dog and the few kids left, the memory of the people gathered noisily and the sound stays in your mind and in the hard wood floor keeping us all company until next time.
