Thanksgiving Toast 2017
I’d like to make a toast
Get up and put bread
in the toaster; sit down and say nothing
Seriously though, the tradition of
Thanksgiving is to reflect on all of the things for which we are thankful. I
would be remiss not to be thankful for the aspects of my life which are ordinarily
little-considered but that are perhaps the most influential: I am healthy; I
can afford an education; I can afford time to make this food; I have a family
who at least mostly love me, and I have dear friends—here at the table and
elsewhere around the world—who’ve gifted my life with support, laughs,
thoughtful discussion, and every other benefit of company.
And I—lucky as I am for that—have
not only those blessings but also, starting this year for the first time:
near-independence; I am not wholly free of the my family, the university, nor
at least two governments, but for the first time in my life I feel that I can say
fairly that I am my own man, or indeed that I am a man at all.
Really, for so much of my life,
perhaps all of the time since I was cognizant, I wished for autonomy over my
actions. When I was young, this took the form of frustration at forced naps and
bedtimes when others were up to things from which I was therefore excluded, and
then when I became older and took on more responsibilities this took the form
of frustration at mandatory work when others were sleeping. Always, speaking
sincerely now, I wished to be on an equal footing with everyone, and not be
disregarded as childish, dependent, ignorant, or anything else that could be
lumped into the category of things for which I was “too young”. Now, it has, in
due time, become my turn, not command other as a parent does a child, but to
make decisions and be able to follow through with them.
Indeed, today, I sit here demonstrating
what I believe is the beauty of an American identity—not only with its good
food, but the ability to bring people from all different backgrounds together
around one usually proverbial, though in this case literal, table, and the
ability to reinvent oneself around whatsoever one chooses—for here we are: a
quarter of a world away from my true homeland, and a quarter of a world away
from ancestral homeland, but where I am still able to create a new family. Moreover
this is not necessarily only American
too; I will likely always see myself as Jewish before American anyway, and
while that is something that will seep subtly into every aspect of my life
anyway, as with; this is really the first time in my life that I’ve been able
to keep kosher as I’ve wanted, despite people saying I would not last more than
2 weeks. After all, here is an American tradition cooked entirely without
dairy, and not just because dairy is disgusting, and milk does not much convey “adulthood”.
I sit here: a collection of those different
elements and surely more, yes, but in all ways a free-thinking, free-acting,
equal. For that—for my ability to
showcase this all for the first time, wholly independently—I am thankful.
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