Turkey. Family. Snow. I’m in a much better mood now.
We’re back! Exhausted but happy.
We traveled about 1100 miles total, all but 250 of those with me driving. We saw a bluezillion family members, with stops in Pittsburgh, Corry PA, and northwest Ohio. The weather was brutal but beautiful — maybe a foot of snow, total, in boonietown [and you know they don’t got time to plow]. We got stuck behind a horse and buggy in the snow — it was like an Amish traffic jam.
Owen soiled two grocery bags full of bibs, got his first taste of Diet Caffeine Free Pepsi and slept like an absolute angel. He warmed the cockles of everybody’s heart with his toothy grin and big blue eyes and cheerful demeanor. He was passed around like a parcel and showered with love and attention. I think we can all agree that he is the best baby in the world, and that I’m awful darn spoiled with such a wonderful child.
He went off of table food this week, which I kept trying to tell him was a really stupid time to drink four or five bottles a day instead. Didn’t he know there was delicious turkey to be tasted? Four kinds of pie, three kinds of bread, five kinds of vegetables, plus green bean casserole? He wanted none of it. Guess what he did deign to eat? Cheese. And. Crackers. Is he his momma’s son or what?
I didn’t want to leave. I had SUCH a good time. The older I get, especially now that Iain and I have a child, the more I realize how important it is to me to be close to our families.
I want to write a new chapter in America’s social history. Remember suburbanization and then, after that, re-urbanization? Gentrification? I want my generation — the young 20-somethings, 30-somethings — to move back to the dying small towns and revitalize them. No more “brain drain,” when the best and brightest move far away to the big city. We’ll move back, get involved in local politics, turn the dead and crumbling Main Streets into workable economic districts again, reestablish the family bonds that snap and break from all this moving and condo-buying and job-hopping. America is living in a very disconnected way right now, and we spurn those “losers” who never leave the towns they grew up in, as if that were a flaw in its own right. We live our little disjointed lives, never really knowing our neighbors, feeling stressed out and empty.
Maybe it does take a village to raise a child, you know? And it’s up to us to make an effort to rebuild that village.
I don’t know. I think there are some values our parents and grandparents held that, instead of seeming terribly narrow-minded and outdated, could actually be seen in a progressive, anti-consumerist, grassroots kind of way. Reject the McDonaldsization of America and reclaim life lived on a local level.
I’m feeling very philosophical. The above three paragraphs could probably be an entry in their own right, because I think there’s a lot more to be said and discussed, and they don’t have a whole lot to do with my Thanksgiving Report. However, I have to get ready for work and Owen is going to wake up from his nap soon, so more on all that later.
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15 Responses to “Turkey. Family. Snow. I’m in a much better mood now.”
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Amen, sister!
I write this from a decrepit computer lab in a decrepit school building in decrepit Ostrander, OH. Population: 500ish. Say the words “Neutral Milk Hotel” and someone will ask “is that like a milking parlor?” No shit, I tried it. Just for you.
M
I hear ya. I personally would love to live in a really small town and contribute to it in some meaninful way. I absoutely adore my hometown, except that it’s in Florida, and I hate Florida. So I have to find another town up here to adopt. Not too different from going home though, really; my mom’s family is from Massachusetts, where I am now, so it’s kinda like going home, once removed.
I really love your blog!
I am all for living back in the day of Little House in the Prarie. Being barefoot and pregnant, going to the one room school and milking the cows. I am completely comfortable with saying goodbye to the technology that is taking over our world.
Oh I LOVE that masthead.
Firstly I adore this new layout - mmmm, gingerbread folks. Secondly, I’m going to need to use the word “cockles” in a sentence, as soon as I learn what the hell it is.
Like your new look a lot, heh “let the gains begin.” Good one.
Sounds like your holiday couldn’t have been better. Owen sounds wonderful although we may have to have a best baby showdown. Nah, who am I kidding, couldn’t compete w/his big eyes and those cheeks!
I’d love the old school living. My MIL is very much still like that and she has that whole belief that it does take a village to raise a child and she’s so helpful that way but since it’s so foreign to me I tend to put up my guard. I hate when I do that!
Glad you are back, now right some more deep shit.
Love the new supa. It’s supa.
Ack, i’m such a nerd. Anyway, you’ve had me thinking all day about the small town ideology. I’m liking it.
Matt: HA! Milking parlor. Cracks me up.
Butterstar: I think the phrase “contribute in a meaningful way” exactly captures what I’m yammering on about. And thank you.
Nympho: I would DIE without my technology. I’m not saying we should give that up at all, or go back to Olden Days. Just go back GEOGRAPHICALLY. Not, like, chronologically.
Paige: Thankya, darlin’. You’re my inspiration.
C: COCKLES!! HAHAHAHAH! It almost sounds dirty.
Mama C-ta: I dunno! My owen is cute, but your little J is SUCH a charmer too! Maybe we declare no contest! Anyway. Pardon me, but I have to get back to writing some deep shit.
jess: You’re my hero, first of all, because you’re doing the whole Chickens on a Farm thing. So I think you kind of get where I’m coming from? And um, there is no second of all. My hero. There.
Love the new look. It’s a lovely red.
And I understand the desire to be around extended family now that you yourself have one. Every now and again I get urges to move out west but then I think of the time (sooner rather than later I hope) when I have a child, and I’d like my child to know his/her aunt and uncle. I’ve already lost so much of my extended family by moving to the US, it would be a shame to lose the rest. I’m okay with moving to a small town, as long as I don’t have to milk the cow and tend to the fields. I’m no good with animals and am lazy as hell.
Welcome back!
I’m right there with ya MB, living back in the small home town does give a person a sense of belonging and a chance to get back in touch with a part of yourself that is often lost in trying to ‘be’ what the world wants you to.
Pete and I have been talking about moving to upstate New York ever since we visited my bestest friend in September (he’s from upstate, so he knows what we’re in for). Once the kids go off to college, we’re outta here! We’ll find an old farmhouse, some land, and we certainly won’t eschew our technology, but it will be so nice to be AWAY from things.
You totally read my mind. Welcome to my new life.
I just moved to a small town from the big city, and although there are things I miss about my urban past, the quality of life is simply better out here, particularly for the wee one. I love that my little boy will grow up with trees, sky, mountains, dirt and frogs to play with. There’s room to breathe. To park your car. There’s room for you to exist.
I think a lot of people agree with you, when we were talking about moving up here, practically everyone we spoke to got a wistful look in their eye. But it’s hard to find your way out. Living in the city is cool when you’re young and independent, but it’s just not built for families. You end up stretched too thinly and not very evenly.
But it’s sort of the chicken or the egg, isn’t it? Small towns can’t support increased populations due to lack of healthy economies. And the economies won’t get better ‘til new blood comes and revitalizes things.
Ah, small town living. It’s so appealing to me. I’d kill for a journalist position at a small town paper in the middle of snowy nowhere.
Brilliant! That’s pretty much what we’re doing, although our towns have all been Wal-Marted into submission. Good thoughts, good writing.
OH, and are those gingerbread men, or funky voodoo dolls? Heh, heh….
voodoo dolls! yes!
But no. Unless they were special Baby Jesus’ Birthday voodoo dolls. In which case, yes.