Papa at Thanksgiving

Almost everyone came for Thanksgiving. The one who didn't make it wasn't really expected, but it was good that we offered. We know how much she struggles and we realize that she has to hold it together any way she can. For the rest of us, the importance was just in being there. We sat together, ate together, and were together at the time when families should be together.

In complicated, extended ways, everyone here was family. All of us are tied together by my daughter and son-in-law. In many ways we are the modern American family which has gone through a process of mitosis and has regenerated laterally as well as vertically. One of those present was there with his four parent, and they even brought a couple of parents of their own. It made for an interesting inter-generational interweaving of bloodlines and fault-lines. The fault-lines have long been sealed over, but the tremors have not been completely forgotten. Still, everyone was warm and friendly, and everyone wanted to be there.

After everyone left, the dishes were put away, the chairs were folded and the leftovers stored, my wife and I took a breath. My wife asked me four times if things went well, and then four times what I thought of it all. Then I went upstairs to listen to the rain.

I read about the neurological arousal systems in mammals, mostly rats.

I read how "an individual's cell firing properties can also change continuously as a result of the state of the sensory periphery, the animal's past perceptual experiences, its internal brain dynamics, whether it is actively or passively sampling its environment, and the animal's expectations for the future.*

The article went on to say that we humans do that to. I was doing that all during Thanksgiving. I was sitting there, sometimes actively, sometimes passively, trying to figure out how I fit into the world and how I should react to it. At the moment my survival did not seem to be at stake. There was no cat chasing me. I was certainly not facing starvation, I did not sense any dangers lurking in the dark as the terrorists and suicide bombers are far away.

I, probably more than anyone at the table was conscious of how much I am plagued by thinking about what I am thinking about (or is it a choice?). I think about my place in the family, and the family's place in the world, and the power structure of the world and its history and its future, and how much of a part we all play in it.

For further clarification and insight I moved next to my ninety-three year-old father-in-law who has had more past perceptual experiences than all of us. I wondered what thoughts were going through his head after having amassed the wisdom of all of those years. His reply, paraphrased, was that he was wondering how much he could eat and when he could go home and rest.

There is an unquestionable basic evolutionary truth in that.

Of course, there is the next question which is: Beyond survival, what?

From watching TV today the answer is apparent -- Shopping.