Next week, many of us will gather to celebrate Thanksgiving. We’ll decorate our tables with orange and red and brown candles, with leaves and turkeys and cornucopias, and perhaps men and women in grim black costumes. For Thanksgiving is a celebration of gratitude, the harvest, and Pilgrims.
Thanksgiving commemorates the Pilgrim’s first harvest in Plymouth Colony in 1621. It has been celebrated as an official American holiday since President Lincoln proclaimed “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise” in 1863 to restore “peace, harmony, tranquility and Union” to a nation torn apart by civil war.
Today, we celebrate Thanksgiving in gratitude for the abundance in our lives and as a time to share our blessings with family and friends. It’s a day that prompts reflection on the past, on cooking, on football, on holiday shopping, or, perhaps, Pilgrims.
Pilgrims have left their homeland; they are foreigners and wanderers. They are newcomers. Their wandering may be an act of devotion, a sacred journey to a holy destination. A pilgrimage.
I was originally going to write this post as a profound meditation on pilgrimage, on religious and spiritual journeys, on our changing relationships with mystery or the Absolute as we go through the various stages of our lives.
But I haven’t had a lot of time for profound thought lately. What I really want to ponder today is why so many mornings I drop my children off at school, then return to my car, slide down in my seat as I turn the key in the ignition, glance over at the clock to realize that it’s not even 7am yet, and emit a long, sighing, “FF@#$%^CCKK.”
Because in the brief few hours I have been awake, I have already wiped poopy butts, mediated a half dozen sibling arguments, and endured the bizarre and nasty sass and attitude that my daughter has been displaying lately.
This morning it began, I believe, with a request for her to put her shoes and socks on. I know what you’re thinking: “OH, NO YOU DIDN’T!” Oh, yes I did. I was THAT mom asking her children to get ready with proper attire for a 37-degree Minnesota morning.
But apparently that is equivalent to RUINING MY DAUGHTER’S LIFE. And once she gets upset about something little, she just keeps going and going. She’s the Energizer Bunny, with a steady drumbeat of attitude, threats, and yelling. It progresses to teasing her brother, to throwing socks and towels and shoes and backpacks, and responding to my {usually} calm statements of the impending consequences with “Fine. Okay. I LIKE consequences,” all done with a shake of the head and an intonation that suggest she is actually a thirteen-year-old trapped inside a seven-year-old’s body.
This morning her outburst ended with, “When we get home from school, I am kicking myself OUT of this family, and going to a HOTEL!”
I turned around so she didn’t see my smile. I’m trying to breathe and keep my calm through her outbursts, because I have learned that yelling back or even reasoning with her don’t work. And this just sounded so damn funny. I guess she’s planning a pilgrimage, too.
She had a plan. She would take her piggy bank {which probably contains about $1.63}. She would ride her bike. Or run. Or catch a bus picking up other kids. {Apparently there are lots of children in our neighborhood catching buses to hotels that rent rooms to minors at $1.63 a night?} She would spend the night eating candy in her hotel room.
But she would be leaving, because WE ALL MAKE HER MAD. We’re NOISY and BOSSY and SHE JUST CAN’T STAND IT.
It’s times like this when I truly feel like a pilgrim. Not a Pilgrim pilgrim, because I can’t imagine those devout seventeenth-century settlers dealing with children throwing fits over socks {maybe over those goofy shoes, though?}
I feel like a pilgrim in a foreign land. Parenting has been a journey to a New World. Sometimes I feel like all the other parents speak the language, and I am still working on mastering basic vocabulary. I have so many questions.
And I know my daughter does, too. First grade and seven years old and homework probably feel like uncharted waters. She’s navigating her own challenges, and sometimes our ships collide.
A pilgrim travels and wanders. Parenting has involved lots of travel as I try to plot my course through new stages with my children. Do I visit Attachment Parenting? Mindful Parenting? Free Range Parenting? Helicopter Parenting? Unparenting? There are so many options on the itinerary, how do we know where to go? I admit, sometimes I just feel lost.
How do we know what is normal? Are “You’re the meanest mommy EVER!” and “You’re ruining my life!” customary greetings in this land? Or have I done something wrong? Is there something wrong with my child?
What am I supposed to do when we hit these detours? Am I supposed to put up with this? Am I supposed to empathize and acknowledge her feelings of frustration over wearing socks in November? Am I supposed to lay down the law that she can NEVER talk to me like that? Should I just ignore it? What are the appropriate consequences? How do I impose “immediate and logical” consequences when we are heading out the door to school? How do I prevent a return voyage aboard the S.S. Irrational Tantrum?
That kid in front is TOTALLY looking for the closest hotel.
A pilgrimage is usually a long-distance journey, and I know parenting is too. We have more milestones to reach, and more tantrums and attitudes to endure. I will do what parents and pilgrims have likely done for centuries: I’ll ask my fellow travellers for advice, and I will seek to reconcile with the inhabitants of this strange land. I’ll read some parenting books. I’ll probably do some Googling {imagine the feast the Pilgrims could have prepared if only they’d had Pinterest!} And tomorrow we’ll begin anew.
For by the end of the day, my daughter had forgotten her plans for her hotel-bound sojourn, even though this morning felt like the Great War. Reunited after our day apart, we could talk about what happened, follow through with consequences, and plan for better mornings. We even ended up dancing to P!nk together. I think I understand why Thanksgiving was proclaimed during our nation’s civil war. It’s in times of conflict that we most need to celebrate gratitude and abundance and relationship, and hope that we will ultimately restore peace, harmony, and tranquility.
Because in the course of one day, we can go from threats to dissolve the union to conciliatory I love yous. Parenting is our pilgrimage through thousands of these journeys, beginning anew each and every day. We wander through this New World, travel guides in hand, attempting to map out the terrain. But ultimately, parenting is an experiment with one subject and no control group. We’ll never know all the answers, and that’s probably the whole point of a pilgrimage: to live the questions along the way. That’s probably the only sacred destination we will reach.
Just be careful if you ask your children to put on their socks and shoes before you leave.
*****
This post is part of the Finish the Sentence Friday linkup. This week we had two options for sentences to finish! You can find responses to “When I think of the word pilgrim, I think…” or “Today, I am thankful for…” by clicking the image below.
Top photo credit: Mr. T in DC via photopin cc
Middle photo credit: Walldürer Wallfahrer ziehen bei Höchst a. M. vorbei / Jakob Fürchtegott Dielmann, c .1845
Bottom photo credit: Pilgrims/ Franz Defregger, 1921.
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