Time carries on and yet we are still living, breathing, talking, and conversing with one another.
Thanksgiving felt different this year. Two years ago we couldn’t come together to meet. There were no hugs, no debates on roasted potatoes versus creamy mashed potatoes, no debate between canned whipped cream and cinnamon-flavored hand-whipped cream dolloped atop a slice of pumpkin pie, and no reason to feel that each moment needs to look like and live on a Hallmark card.
In all honesty, the entire day was quite beautiful, moving, and in one word satisfying. We took our time cooking, with no need to rush through preparing food for others or strategize oven prep against personal grooming to impress relatives. No, it was an honest holiday, filled with real laughter and perfectly shaped, crisped, flaked, oiled, spiced, scrumptious potatoes.
It was a group effort, with each team member playing their role in the project. Mum and my sister baked the traditional turkey-imprinted sugar cookies the day before. The morning of, I loaded my part-time puppy (we love Brady) into the second row of my reliable, sturdy, and ready-for-a-much-needed wash after one too many summer adventures, Santa Fe. We love another white crossover vehicle plopped in the middle of Orange County, don’t we? I think we would love it more if it was an EV, but it’ll do for now … it’ll do for now. Brady, what can I say other than he is an absolute angel of a puppy? He loved the intense and grueling journey of the all of one and one-half miles we traveled. He jumped out and looked at me as if to say “What now? Let’s go!”. We strolled to the front door, me with bag, gear, and celery in hand to support the stuffing we would be mixing in about 5 hours. Mum knows I’m there already and opens the door. “Shhh, everyone is still asleep,” she says. While I have been up since 5:30 am, some things never change, and I am still shocked. “Alright,” I say, “time to change that.”
“GOOD MORNING!”
I loudly share as I open my sister’s door. I turn to move down the hall toward my sweet brother’s room. As I open the door I can hear him snoring, I greet him kindly, he doesn’t fair as well with a loud, and in all honesty, rude awakening as my sister does. Dad walks by my brother’s room while we are chatting about how his week went at school. “Good,” I think, “I won’t have to wake the beast.”
They’re all awake now, brilliant, my plan worked. The sooner everyone is up, the sooner we can start the art projects. This turkey cookie decorating may seem simple, juvenile, and superfluous and in all honestly, it’s the easiest cookie recipe with the most rudimentary frosting dye for exciting color options; BUT it is my mum’s favorite part of the day and apparently mine as well. This is something that my dad’s mother (Grandmother, Oman, Pat, and Patricia, these were some of her nicknames and to me she was probably the smartest woman I ever knew) started when we used to visit El Paso, Texas for the holiday. In fact, mum and I found a photo of the two of us painting turkey cookies in my Grandmother’s kitchen a little while ago. It warmed my heart like a fresh slice of pumpkin pie.
Knowing that if I don’t start the icing mixture now we will probably be behind schedule for food preparations soon, so I get to work. As I said, this is as simple as can be. The frosting is sifted powdered sugar, mixed with orange juice. Just be careful with the juice, it takes over the mix quite fast and only needs to be dripped, then heavily beaten into the mixture to meet the right consistency.
Pulling out the food coloring mum and I decided to stick to primary and secondary colors, then, add pink, brown, and non-colored icing last, and now we’re ready for turkey painting. After corralling the teenagers we can finally start. I deep dive and start with the hard template: pulling only Thanksgiving colors like red, yellow, orange, and brown to make a realistic (this is a sugar cookie realism is impossible, yet let’s attempt it anyway) turkey. Now that that’s done, I can move to the fun patterns like marbling and crosshatching with color combinations like pink and purple, blue and green, and yellow and red. Before I know it I’m five decorated turkeys in and my sister is breathing down my neck. I reach for the sixth cookie and I get the sense that it won’t be possible when my sister says: “Umm, no I don’t think so. There is no way you are touching another paintbrush until mom and Wills get to play.” I fight back with, “Well you if you want to decorate you’re going to have to speed it up, or there won’t be any left.” She’s in the driver's seat with this one and I am limited by my reach against her athletic stature. I have no choice in this fight. I sit back and cross my arms in a huff and wait until mum and Wills come to play. She knows I love this stuff. I watch Brady and my parent’s dog Barkeley play in the backyard.
Suddenly, I am reminded of the child I really am.
I realize that in all reality I am actually now 28 years old, but when it comes to my family relationships, has the dynamic ever really changed? Probably a minuscule amount compared to the temperature change for Thanksgiving weekend in Southern California, over the past 28 years.
Truthfully, I am no more than five years old at that moment. My sister, who I believe is perpetually stuck at 4 years old due to her obsession with Pixar movies and giggling with her friends, reminded me that I am still a child and behave like one when I don’t get my way. It’s funny because I believe that she is the only one who can really put me in this mindset. When you grow up with someone you can never really ignore your child-self.
Eventually, she let me back into the blank canvas cookie box after mum and Wills had a go at art class. The rest of the day was a typical Thorpe Thanksgiving and really the opposite of everyone else’s version of smooth sailing. We probably argued for about 5 hours and continued into dessert, finishing off with a slice of pumpkin pie while we energetically crowded over the new board game my sister sourced and dominated.
Our love language is the truth, arguing, raw logical reasoning, and undying loyal love. There is really no other way I’d rather live, or we would be honestly bored.
I gathered Brady and my bag and head back to the house. We make a cup of tea and cuddle on the living room couch browsing Netflix. In search of the next documentary we land on Jonah Hill’s newest contribution to the film academy’s library of black and white emotional biographies’, ‘Stutz’. It’s not what I expected.
I appreciate Jonah Hill in his many amazing comedic roles. However, here, in the opening movie Hill made me feel uncomfortable and as if he was challenging his therapist, almost as if the documentary was a way to reveal more about how Hill has overcome his own trauma rather than help others through theirs. The film claims and offers a biographical narrative of Hill’s therapist Stutz as well as examples and practices Stutz has been using for years to help his patients. Rather than offer the emotional empathy that you hope to see in the film, Hill seems to expose Stutz’s past and personal trauma seriously making this more about Hill attempting a power play against his therapist in a fighting ring, rather than a way to help other people learn how to overcome their trauma.
Ignoring the confusion of the film’s composition, Stutz talks about someone’s shadow and explains that your shadow is who you are at your core and what is holding you back from improving your circumstances.
“The Shadow is an archetype—a universal motif or image built into all human beings. You can no more get rid of this inner Shadow than you can avoid casting an outer shadow when you’re in sunlight.”
If you don’t separate and nurture your shadow self, you will forever be attempting to live the unachievable. To nurture your shadow-self Stutz asks that you talk to the “sum total of the weakest, most flawed, inferior, or even disgusting parts of yourself”, i.e. your shadow.
As I watched this I thought back to myself trying to grab that next cookie and my sister tearing the box away from me. I saw myself and understood where I needed to create a conversation. I saw the teenager who so desperately wanted praise and acceptance from others and who tried her best in everything, attempting to be the perfect blonde girl everyone would want to know and love. But that was never going to happen, who is actually perfect? I saw the girl who played 3 sports, ran 7 clubs, took all AP classes, and was mostly overweight through high school. I saw the girl who tried to people-please in order to be accepted and told her that she is actually perfect on her own. She is exactly who she needs to be and can still change to be better, to learn more, to be kinder, and still can love herself, without needing acceptance from others. Because in fact, I am no longer just that individual, I am someone who has learned from quite a few life-changing experiences, each of which came with its own lesson. I am a 28-year-old woman working for a company that cares about its community and their health, someone who independently supports and loves herself, someone who enjoys time with her beautiful friends, and someone who makes each day count. Our time is limited here so why waste it, why waste your precious time aiming to be something you’re not, just play.
So now, I ask you the reader who is your shadow? Maybe you don’t have one - in that case congratulations, you are too cool for school. If you do, please use this tool and this reference to learn how to improve and navigate through your conscience.
While you do, I’m going to head to bed and dream about the patterns I’ll be making for turkey decorating art class next year.
Until next time.
- Frankie