Thanksgiving

Last November, I was sitting in a makeshift guesthouse behind a gas station in a little town halfway to nowhere called Akhaltsikhe. The woman who ran the place, half-Russian, half-Georgian, would come hang out in my room because they gave me the one with heat and it broke up her long evenings. She's smoke cigarettes and we'd watch TV and try to chat best we could, in my broken Russian.

She asked me what Thanksgiving was all about, and I tried to say that when America was young, people came and winter was cold. And the, uh, people that already lived in America gave them food so they lived in the winter. So we say thank you every November.

She politely smiled through her utter confusion and went back to the cigarettes. I told her the story but I missed the whole point. She wouldn't understand about Indians and maize, but she'd have understood something about being grateful for what we have. About recognizing that we can't make it alone in this world.

I'm so very thankful, this year, to have people in my life who help me when I need them, and I am thankful to have people who need me to help them in turn. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!