Tuesday, November 24, 2020

Not Driving on Thanksgiving Tuesday

I had not planned to be at my desk, writing a blog post.  I had planned to be on the road already.  I had planned to get my spouse up at an ungodly hour to make our way to the family gathering in the North Carolina mountains.  We had planned to have a normal Thanksgiving, in a ramshackle house, multiple generations from across the southeast, gathering at Lutheridge, the church camp that has meant so much to so many members of my family.

For most of the past 2 decades, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving has been a travel day.  A few years, we flew, but most years, we drove.  We drove the kind of twelve hour long drive that I won't really miss, but Saturday will be the grueling travel day that I'll really not miss.  Tuesday's travel was leavened with the knowledge of a wonderful Thanksgiving ahead. 

I'll miss the opportunity for heart to heart conversations with my spouse--long car trips have often been a reconnecting point for us.  I'll miss the change in scenery as it whizzes by the window. I'll miss the inspirations I've often gotten for new writing projects.

I won't miss the feeling of exhaustion that comes from hours and hours on the highway when one is starting from a point of tiredness.  I won't miss the getting behind that happens when one leaves for a chunk of time so close to the end of the academic term.

I made this Facebook post at the Create in Me page:  "Many of us won't be travelling to see family or friends. Many of us will be creating a scaled down Thanksgiving. Maybe we can use the time we won't be travelling, the time we won't be cooking and cleaning, to claim some creative time that we wouldn't have had in a normal year. Let's make lemonade out of lemons that 2020 has given us."

It's good advice for us all.

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