i never thought about love when i thought about home

Sometimes I think I shouldn't love these kittens as much as I do, as soon we will give them to someone else and they won't be ours anymore. Then I think that this is true of everyone and everything you will ever love, and that makes me love them even harder.

Tonight I put on Lana Del Ray and The National and Josh Ritter and made a smoky minestrone soup and thought about Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'll be spending it in the city, a city that is emptying as I write this. I would feel more alone, I'm sure, if this were my holiday, but since it is only a borrowed one I feel like this is a gift, this time, this empty apartment, this night to pour wine and make soup and weigh onions in my hands, looking around at everyone else in the aisles, their carts and cellphones, their lists and traumas. Later I will prep the dishes I'm bringing to the potluck and maybe watch more Parks & Recreation or just lie in bed in my suddenly quiet apartment.

I get to thinking about this holiday, and how many places I have celebrated it since I moved to this country. To wit:

2002: Maryland
2003: New Hampshire
2004: London
2005: New York
2006: Chicago
2007: I was home, I didn't bother, maybe I made a quiche?
2008: Maryland
2009: New Hampshire
2010: Phoenix

It's a strange list. London was a sort of desperate affair, with lots of American beer. In New Hampshire, with Tom, we ate early at his grandparents' house, just across the lawn. His grandmother drinks vodka and chain smokes and sits in front of a jigsaw puzzle. His Honduran uncle says grace in Spanish. In New York I came down with the flu and passed out on the marble floor at the Palace Hotel. A guy I was seeing came into the city to eat pizza and watch me sleep. In Chicago, Liz's friends killed a turkey in their backyard and looped the death on a laptop during the potluck dinner where a guy in a kilt DJ'd. I think I spent most of 2010 crying into my kale chips.

Some Thanksgivings of yore. 

In a way, this makes me lucky. That I can go where I will. I like thinking of it that way. I like thinking that I can wake up tomorrow and go to the coffee shop on my street and order a chai and write. I like thinking that I can then paint my nails and eat dinner surrounded by people I barely know, all of whom are transplanted and lost in some way, all of whom are loving someone who is not at the table. There's a generosity in that. I'm one of the biggest holiday-whores I know, but this year I truly feel thankful that  I have no one to answer to.

That sounds like a disturbingly New York attitude, I know.

A smoky minestrone: Omit the bacon, add smoked paprika and a frozen parmesan rind. Use store-bought pesto and stock. I won't tell if you won't.
A kale salad: Use walnuts and cranberries in place of the pine nuts and golden raisins. Use hot sauce in place of the fish sauce.
Nanaimo bars: This will make you miss home, but it will be worth it.

Covet this dress, watch this video, read this book.