There was thanksgiving

“Why do we have to be so nice to each other?” my brother demands as he comes in the door on Thanksgiving. “Why don’t we pick fights like those families on TV? I’d like to see a real fight, and you know what? It should end up with a food fight!"

He is joking, of course. Or is he? Five minutes later he collars me in the dining room and vents about something that is going on in the living room. He is genuinely angry. Fortunately, the episode is confined to my brother and his wife and me; the living room is just out of earshot.

Ruffled feathers are smoothed by mealtime and we all proceed to be nice to each other through the bounteous meal and desserts. I breathe a sigh of relief, of thanksgiving.

Later I find the butternut squash with brown-butter sage and almonds languishing in the microwave—the only casualty of that confined, pre-dinner conflict. But it’s not the first time I’ve forgotten a dish.

Is family pleasantness a veneer? I choose not to think so. I choose to think of conflict as the exception, not the rule. Rather, I try to make it the exception. I grew up in a family that argued. We loved each other, for sure, but we didn’t say so. Instead, what came out of our mouths was good-natured teasing, liberal criticism, and a lot of argument. Over the years I have discovered, sometimes painfully, that the family culture created a default mode in my own manner that is not very helpful in building good relations, either within the family or outside of it. I’ve tried to become nicer, warmer, not so quick to argue. I don’t believe in covering up genuine differences. But I am trying to be more openly affirming than critical, to cultivate love rather than grow the seeds of conflict that are always there. And it's not just me. My brothers have become sweeter, too.

What I believe is that there is as much truth in love as in conflict and one can choose where to put one’s efforts.

In the days before Thanksgiving, the listserves produced tips on how to talk about conflict-laden topics like global warming around the extended family dinner table. Only one instruction made sense to me—to listen, listen, listen. Nobody is persuaded by fact and argument. Everybody already knows what everybody else thinks and one dinner discussion isn’t going to make a difference. Instead, it’s a time to pull out whatever genuine love and affection may be lurking beneath the surface.

Still, the kerfuffles can come out of left field, as this one did. Everything else I’d been worried about before the feast turned out to be a non-issue. The fleas seem to have disappeared; the babies were well, adorable, and adored; and the forgotten squash went into the freezer. Vic will take it to his men’s group Thanksgiving dinner this week. Saved him some cooking time, anyhow.