So it is Thanksgiving.
Taking most of last week off meant that there was no time for the cooking of feasts this week, so Molly and I supped alone on peas and fish. The squirrels had rather a better day of it once the lid flew off the bucket of peanuts, and they curled up inside: a full supply of food, sheltered from wind and rain.
Once upon a time, I would not have wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving. After all, I left the States and made my home in Scotland, and there are holidays a-plenty at this time of year.
But a strange thing has happened. Each year that passes, I am more and more aware of the ways in which I am and always will be American. I find myself saying it more now, ‘well, I’m American and…’ instead of ‘well, I’m from the States, but…’ And it’s true, I still prefer to bring it up myself rather than have others raise it, but it’s OK now.
Over on Kelvin’s blog, there has been a somewhat prickly conversation about a rather wild liturgical video.
The video offers the perfect cross-cultural platform. For the non-Americans among you, I suspect it represent the most ludicrous face of American culture. Enthusiasm without taste; risk taking without sufficient sense, education or decorum.
You can imagine how far and how fast I would have run from such a scene in those early years when I tried so hard to blend in.
But now it is different. The video represents for me some of what I miss from my home country.
Yes, it is over the top. Yes, parts of it (most of it, even) lack decorum and are rather embarrassing. But the people are trying hard to do something that does not come easily to them.
And I have come to value that in a way I never would have imagined.
Part of what I loved about Britain when I first came was that it was all so seemly. There were no excesses of emotion, no pressure to emote. It was much more relaxed, much more natural and free.
The truth is, I was never brave enough to be a good American. Continue reading “heritage”
wonderful exchange 