The Collapse XLIX: Thanksgiving

28 November 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

The calendar (which I still try to keep up with) reliably informs me that this is the last Thursday in November and thus, Thanksgiving Day.

I understand. The thought of a traditional holiday in the midst of what we are currently living through seems at best a dream today – somewhere, I suppose, someone is enjoying the traditional feast of turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie, but only in those places this year that turkeys live and can be shot and processed, where someone has yeast and flour to make bread and then convert it into stuffing, and where someone has the makings of pie crust, pie, and a pumpkin.

In other words, a traditional Thanksgiving feast this year would be quite a thanksgiving indeed, merely for having been able to assemble all of the food.

Nothing that exotic here, of course: I splurged my breakfast with dried blueberries and for dinner allowed myself an entire piece of smoked fish for dinner with some honey and dried fruit for dessert. Given the monotony of my recent diet, this was very much a feast indeed. The rabbits each enjoyed a piece of dried apple to go along with their evening meal as well, so we all got to celebrate.

To cheer myself up a bit, I played Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons in the background as I ate – which is something I rarely do anymore, due to the potential power draw. It was – for the current time – a rather festive period.

As I sat there, eating my dried fruit and honey, listening to the violin move up and down the scales in a musical representation of the seasons, I thought of Thanksgivings past. They have run the gamut, as I suppose they do with many of us: in the beginning we have them with our immediate family, then we have them as we visit home, then we have our own families for Thanksgiving, then they leave and perhaps we become part of their Thanksgivings, until perhaps we are celebrating Thanksgiving in a much smaller group or perhaps even by ourselves.

That chain is largely broken now: no-one is going “Home for the Holidays” and is likely not to do so for some time. At best, people are huddled together in small groups like I am, enduring the late Autumn cold, eating something of special value (as I am). At a lesser value, they are eating something out of the weather.

At worst, they are eating nothing at all.

It is both easy and difficult to give thanks in such circumstances. Easy in that I have a great deal to be thankful for: I am warm, fed, provided for, and relatively safe. Difficult in that, given the fact that in a mere seven months we seem to have fallen so far so quickly and in that sense there is little enough to be thankful for.

The fire is starting to die down. As a treat, I may burn one more small branch, listen to Vivaldi again, and think on happier times.

Happy Thanksgiving, my old friend.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca