Giving thanks

Down here, Thanksgiving isn't a holiday.

Of course it's not, silly; there was no massive campaign to share small-pox infested blankets with the Maori when those law-abiding Brits arrived to monitor from afar their more derelict brethren on the giant landmass to the west.  They didn't have to undertake that kind of deceptive inhumanity, having lugged enough virulent mayhem in their cultural and immunological baggage down to the islands after James Cook made his quick circle of the islands in 1769 to cause a massive reduction in the native population without it.

I'd like to think that the explorers and colonizers who trudged onto land in New Zealand and Australia may have finally come to grips with the karmic tragedy guaranteed by offering comfort in a snake's nest.  But, I'd be deceiving myself.  The colonizers offered a viral schmorgasbord to the inhabitants of these lands just as effectively as they did in the colonies that would become the U.S.  And the diseases were not always those of the body, but also those of the soul.  Or something like that.  Greed, prostitution, corruption probably took as great a toll as the physical exposure to previously unknown illnesses.

Okay, okay, I know.  Thanksgiving celebrates an earlier time; it's a memorial for the heady first days of colonization, when death loomed around the poorly constructed camps like an awkward colleague who isn't sure with which group he'll find his new best friend forever.  He likes the folks who've been around but these new folks are so weak and ill-prepared for the cold.  Surely, they'll hang with him.  Thank goodness for the Native Americans who let the white folks know that Death is kind of a giant nerd and the games he plays are really pretty lame.  Wasn't it nice of them to invite them to the cool kids' table all festively adorned by cornucopias just to make Death feel a little more insecure?  At least until someone tried to have a baby or something.  Poor Death, always left scuffing his heels when people get together in a friendly way.  Then again, ultimately, he always gets his way, doesn't he?

All this to wonder, isn't it amazing that I can hop from one violently claimed land to another, without suffering the violence or indeed even having to account for my forebears crap attitudes?  I'm thankful that time's passage helps heal deep sores, but more than that, I'm grateful for the occasional open smiles and frequent friendly questions about the path I took to join this tiny population on the bottom of the world.  I'm thankful that I'm not asked to leave quickly or ostracized to the point of anxiety to find my own escape route.  Most of all, I'm really, really happy that no one is offering a welcome basket filled with infested blankets.  That's really the best part of being able to live overseas.


Anyhoo, all this to say, isn't it amazing that I can continue to