hi.

this thanksgiving i will be making cocktails for lonely travellers and locals hiding from their families or maybe locals estranged from their families or maybe locals having just spent time (too much or too little) with their families.

i will bike home probably alone and sleep soundly and not feel lonely (then again, maybe i will; i am not very good at forecasting).

but as i sit here inside (and outside is very quiet, melancholy, you can hear the trees whisper or maybe they are screaming) i do not feel lonely just quiet and solitary. i feel loved and hugged by coffee tables and this small town with its drinking problem.

i feel very far away from the people that raised me but still very loved and hugged and that is lucky and good.

and i feel very close to the people that are still raising me and accordingly very loved and hugged and that is very lucky and very good and i feel strong and able and that too is good and lucky and all.

this thanksgiving i feel aware and alive. aware and sober. aware and talking and reading and listening and pausing and digesting and then sometimes speaking and more often writing.

sitting here with my legs and feet slowly warming up, i have an urge to let my fingers be mouths and let them drool appreciation onto keys and maybe up onto the screen. an urge to thank my family and friends and my lukewarm coffee and the twirling sunlight and my job and the people that make me think more and the people that make me do more and the people that make me think differently and do differently.

i’ve an urge to express my appreciation for my favorite black pen, for my bike, for red apples, for fernet branca and lavender spliffs, for cooked spinach and danish-designed coats, for chuck taylors and knit beanies, for books by ben lerner and paneled art by adrian tomine, for drake’s voice in my headphones and my fern plant that won’t die, for old fashioneds and slow-crawling dim-lit dinners, for public park pull-up bars and drag shows; those sort of things.

but i don’t want to dwell too much in sentimentality. there are things to be done and being actively thankful is good and lucky and all but there are things to be done, things to be said, conversations to be had, art to be made and words to be written. there are movements to support, to support, to support.

there are communities to build and systems to deconstruct; there are minds to engage and change and heartbeats to sync up with; there is sunshine to frolic in and there are clothes to take off and bodies to hold and there are beads of sweat in our foreheads that patiently wait to feel the cold air.

there are roles and genders and spectrums to be celebrated and there are privileges and hierarchies and cement buildings to be picked apart and replaced with sunflowers and fresh dirt and cucumbers and radishes and oversized meyer lemons.

there are hands to hold and signs to hold too and naked walls to be written on and empty public spaces to be filled with the feet of loving and upstanding peoples and there is so very much to be done and read and written and said and spoke.

cheers.