The Thanksgiving Walk

Not everyone does it, of course, and some years there are more than others depending on the weather. But this year was a particularly warm Thanksgiving, so going for a walk was almost like a moving block party. lol Thanksgiving means you don’t just mutter hello and hurry past, and certainly ignoring anyone entirely is not an option. There’s eye contact and smiles and cheer and little chats about the weather. Entire multigenerational families so you greet the whole crowd as they file past. This year it felt like a relief. It brought to mind some snippet I’d heard as I walked past the TV one day. Some fellow saying that if you’re out and about in the country, people aren’t that miserable. They don’t hate everyone and everything, and they’re really not that outraged by others who aren’t exactly like them. It just sounds that way because that’s what the internet tells you. That’s what your news channels tell you. They tell you to be on the look out for your enemies. That you should be mad. That there’s an “other” that’s evil and it’s coming for you. And I think that works, not just at the extremes but slowly permeating the air as there is almost a fear of reaching out, of simple acknowledgment or courtesy…a suspicion or even just the weight of all this stress making it feel easier to keep one’s head down and not interact. So I don’t know if the sense of relief was just mine or was radiating off those I passed as well, but for half an hour, I felt the echo of what used to be so common here and so easy. Good Will Toward Men. No application required.