Lace on Race

Deep Thanks–And We’ll Keep On Giving

Here in San Diego, it has been a grey quiet day.

These days, with a Thanksgiving infused with truth that lays question to our national myths, and along with that truthtelling a certain sense of melancholy and ambivalence, it is hard to write, or even think, in the colorful ways of how we learned about the holiday.

I won’t try. There is, and there should be, a sepia stain to the holiday.

This day has been, for Tikka Rose and me, a day of reflection. Of the land on which this house sits. Of the people who are facing hard truths, if they allow themselves, about the founding of this country.

And of others, the rest of us, who never had to undertake this crash course, becasuse every day, for them, for me, is a reminder of the hundreds of years.

Still.

Wherever we find ourselves in this updated and unvarnished narrative, whether we are only now opening our eyes or have had weary and red rimmed, unblinking eyes for decades now, there is, for all of us, hopefully a place we will be able to find today that acknowledges our location, our role, and our responsibility in forging a place together that is based on what we have now, who we are now, and not beholden or driven by myth, denial, and marginalization.

So then.

On this Day of Remembrance, we can choose to love, and to break bread, and to laugh, and to clink glasses. We can drink in the blessings this life has afforded us, however modest or substantial.

But I hope we can do more. We can make our lives a legacy to truth.

I was thinking on the couch, Tikka snoring nearby. I was thinking of what remembrance might look like for those of us who celebrate the day. Gestures, can be just that, empty performative moves meant to assuage, but they can also be something more.

I found myself thinking of a place, or places, set with empty chairs. With the good china and wine glasses filled, but not touched; of bounty shared with the ghost of a host long dead, whether by slaughter, disease, or however else. Remembering without truly remembering fully is no more than delusion.

There is a trend among us progressive folk that we name the land where we sit; where we carve turkey, and argue about cranberry sauce. What more can we do the other 364 days to remember and acknowledge the holistic story?

This is a part of what we do here, I hope. In striving for internal transformation, that transformation must be based on truth, and truth is best served stripped of the husk of lies.

So, who are we now?

I think about that question, and yes, I give thanks.

For the durable change I have seen in so many of you. For your daring to ask better questions. For your acknowledgement of your place in this land we find ourselves in, this Land of Lumpy Crossings. The lumps, like the gravy which is never quite smoothed, must be allowed to sit on the table. Awareness of the imperfection and of the incompleteness of stated promises and ideals must be spoken around the table.

And I have seen many of you do this very thing.

So yes, Gratitude. For each of you. And for what is to come. We will show our thanks and our remembrance, by our very lives.

We will keep on Giving

We will keep on Walking.

Happy Remembrance Day, everyone.

Lace Watkins

5 responses to “Deep Thanks–And We’ll Keep On Giving”

  1. Laura Berwick Avatar
    Laura Berwick

    I visited the Olympic Peninsula for Thanksgiving, and I read a book about the histories up to present of the original inhabitants. There are many opportunities here to learn about their culture and support their continuing recovery of their languages and lands. So that’s a good way to spend Thanksgiving, for folks like me who don’t visit family.

    I want to start volunteering with groups that help with prison visitations, because I think that will be a good way to spend my next Thanksgiving.

    I do see the value in gathering with family and being grateful. But I live far away, so it’s easy for me to skip it until Christmas. But more and more I find I’m not satisfied with ignoring the day. I really feel like I need to actively improve, not just not do harm. Those are my roots I feel growing.

  2. Danielle Joy Holcombe Avatar
    Danielle Joy Holcombe

    Thank you Lace – this was truly beautiful and sobering. “What more can we do the other 364 days to remember and acknowledge the holistic story?

    This is a part of what we do here, I hope. In striving for internal transformation, that transformation must be based on truth, and truth is best served stripped of the husk of lies.”

    I think about this as I walk here with you and this community. I think about the ways I am now beginning to call every celebration, every privilege, every joy into question. Not that life should be void of joys but that I need to be eyes wide open about how those joys became mine to experience. As Deb wrote above, so many of the things on my gratitude list are there because of my whiteness and the privilege afforded to me and those white men and women that walked here before me. It falls to me to make the shift, first internal and then outwardly in my actions.

    On that note, I am going on a long planned vacation next week and will not have wifi from Monday-Friday so I will not be on here during those days. I have set a reminder to send my weekly payment in before I go. I will miss you all – and I will be back (and here this week too). I will be mindful in different ways this vacation about all of the lasting effects of colonization – the destruction and loss (and theft) that my people have perpetrated all over the globe. I aim to honor and experience differently and not simply consume more of what was never mine to begin with.

  3. Christin Spoolstra Avatar
    Christin Spoolstra

    Thank you for this connection to Padraig and the lumpy crossings (and our lumpy gravy). There is power in the *full* truth. This year I’m thankful for you, DiDi, Ally, and others for bearing light to that truth.

  4. Deb Chymiak-Isanhart Avatar
    Deb Chymiak-Isanhart

    This is a weird day for me, too. I no longer celebrate the lie. But, I make the meal because I am married to a man that loves freshly roasted turkey — and I do enjoy the gravy smothered sides.

    As I reflected on what I am grateful for, I thought of you, Lace, and the others on the team. I thought of this space and this community and the ways that walking here has taken me further than I would have gotten on my own.

    I also acknowledge there are things on my gratitude list that are there because of my wht privilege and the wht privilege of my ancestors. And so I commit to continue walking here because the work I do here really does impact the work I do IRL.

  5. Varda L Avatar
    Varda L

    Columbus Day to thanksgiving is a genocidal cluster f*** of events. I’ve been posting about and donating to contemporary Native movements since October. There is so much active harm done every year.

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