* For Thanksgiving dinner eaten in the old Bluebird Grain Farms packing room

1) A dark morning with a house full of sleeping children, last night’s giggles given way to soft murmurs of slumber and all the promise of the day ahead: hands in pie crust, paintings emerging from paper, Taylor Swift in the speakers, the kitchen warm and loud and one big fat glorious mess.
2) A tight knot of friends and families, the lines between those two groups so blurred that they are no longer relevant. Everyone worried about their words for the gratitude circle, all of us thinking the same thing: “Here we are, together. Lucky us.”

3) Bursts of laughter, enough quiet to reflect on distant loved ones, an appreciation of the circumstances that brought us all here. In a room formerly filled with things to feed us, we are fed, and filled, once again. Dinner may bring disagreement, but it’s the kind that builds us up, knits us closer. Fistfight anyone? No, I didn’t think so.
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