So then, there’s November.
A curious month steeped in
the roiling juices of history;
churning and bubbling up to
remind us of what we’re to
be Thankful for and tug at
the veil of memory.
November is both cruel and
comforting, like a nice hot
bowl of soup you accidentally
spill on your crotch.
It was so good, now it’s a
scalding mess.
And your good pants are ruined.
And you badly wanted that soup too.
There’s mix of nostalgia for, “the old days”,
and being thankful for the days we have now.
There are remembrances of things long past that
still touch us, and a willful ignorance of
the things we wish to forget.
Clashing together in the crock pot of
life, with stuffing and cranberry sauce on the side.
My November, Novembers, are tinged with
a moment in time I wasn’t even alive for;
The assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963.
I’ve even made a pilgrimage to Dallas in 2013
to honor a President I never lived under, yet,
whose future (had he lived) might have deeply
affected me, us all.
The optimism JFK is portrayed to have, has
always nagged at me and I have often wondered,
“what if…?” How would life in the United States be
different, would we be where we are now,
embroiled in a scandal of such profound lunacy?
I don’t know and the not knowing is so very annoying.
More hot soup on my lap and good slacks.
Then there’s the Pilgrims themselves,
those hearty souls who stepped foot off the Mayflower
at Plymouth Rock, fleeing religious persecution from England,
to build a new life in the New World for themselves and
posterity. Which is the fantasy we’d instructed to believe
as we’re coloring in the hand traced turkeys at our
grammar school desks.
The breaking of bread with Native Americans,
to signify how much the Native Americans
helped the Pilgrims survive their first
few years of colonization,
while secretly plotting to take what land they
could. A weird disingenuous holiday
celebration. (Founded during the Civil War, FYI)
The myths of history told to children
as facts, has also nagged at me for
a very long time. Why the untruths?
“Who made so much hot soup and why do they
keep spilling it on my good pants?!”
Hot, hot, hot, hot, aww, cold.
My childish sensibilities thankfully protected.
November. A month known widely for
Guy Fawkes attempt to blow up the British
Parliament. You know, the 5th of November.
You know it.
If not from history, then from that movie.
Yes, you know.
Sigh.
What’s with you November?
Why are you so weird?
What’s with your complexities and
strange historical interference?
Where did you get that hat with a buckle on it?
And for real, who made all this
damn hot soup?
No comments:
Post a Comment