Susan Lenfestey is a regular contributor. She lives in Lowry Hill.
It’s fall, and other than the leaf blowers droning from dawn to dusk, you’d hardly know it. October has been weirdly balmy, allowing for late blooms in the garden and deep plunges in the lake — guilty pleasures if we don’t allow ourselves to think about why this is happening.
It’s also election season, heating up the city like hot coals in the barbie. Who’s getting roasted changes from day to day, depending on which PAC is adding fuel to the fire.
I miss the good old days when two candidates raised their own money and slugged it out in newspapers and forums — not on social media. The fervid few who inhabit this hyperpolitical sphere — and I am one of them — struggle to make sense of endorsements and strategize how to make ranked choice voting work for their candidates.
But many other voters, regular folks busy with jobs, family and life, will head to the polls barely aware that there are 15 mayoral candidates on the ballot — five with DFL after their names — plus a slew of City Council and Park Board candidates, not to mention those running for the Board of Estimate and Taxation. And they can “rank” their choices, even though they have little idea who is promising what.
Once the ashes from the election settle and we come to terms with who will be running our city for the next four years — as we must — we’ll have to face Thanksgiving.
This is going to be a tough year for gratitude. Sure, there are the perennial favorites — good health, friends, family and fortune — but they seem trite and selfish when so many are suffering so deeply. It’s a perverse sort of gratitude to be thankful for all the bad things that aren’t happening to us.
As we slice into factory-raised turkeys and homemade pies, it’s impossible not to think about the people who produced and packed our food, now living in terror under the boot of this undemocratic and heartless regime. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, maybe the president could pardon the workers instead of a turkey. Even better, maybe he could legalize them, not criminalize them.
Well, magical thinking.
Back in 2003, when I thought the invasion of Iraq was as senseless and amoral as anything our government could possibly do, I wrote a piece about Thanksgiving for the Star Tribune and ended it wishing for snow.
“We all need the forgiving stillness that snow brings — the wonder, the rounding of the sharp edges, the time to think. Maybe a layer of snow would smother a fanatic’s fire. Maybe a blanket of white would comfort the grief of the wounded. Maybe the snow’s sparkle would bring hope to a child.”
But this time, no amount of snow can soften the edges of what is happening in the streets of Chicago and Portland and beyond. We need more than a blanket of white to comfort terrorized families, and more than the sparkle of snow to give hope to a handcuffed child.
This Thanksgiving I’ll skip the turkey and the platitudes about gratitude. I’ll find a glimmer of hope to pass around and sweeten it with a dollop of humor. Hey guys — maybe the warming planet will melt ICE!
I’ll turn off the news and listen to music. And I’ll still wish for snow.
“ Turn off the news and build a garden
Just my neighborhood and me
We might feel a bit less hardened
We might feel a bit more free
Turn off the news and raise your kids
Give them something
to believe in
Teach them how to be good people
Give them hope that they can see …”
— Lukas Nelson,
“Turn Off the News (Build a Garden)”
