Thank You

My American Appetite

My first thanksgiving in this country was miserable. Without much money I stayed in town while I watched my roommates and friends take off for the 4 day break. I expected festivities to be like back home when holidays came around, but instead the walk around town on the day of thanksgiving resulted in experiencing one store closing after another. I was getting seriously concerned when most of the food places seemed closed and I hadn’t any groceries at home. My rescue meal was in a Chinese restaurant by myself and other stranded misplaced souls.

I had a tough time falling in love with this country. It was vaguely strange considering how much I admired formality, discipline and cleanliness. But for the longest time I missed the chaos that was a significant part of my life back in India. I looked down on the lack of people and real friends. I was bothered by how everyone asked me how I was doing but no one really wanted to know how I was doing.

It took a while but America eventually started drawing on me. It began with significant improvement in materialistic possessions and lifestyle changes. As my closet began gathering branded clothing, I began traveling the country. The new sights along with my new car started to rub me the right way. Yet, I missed the people element and sentiments.

I often wondered why it took so long to make friends here. But the question I never asked myself is how long it took me to make my real friends back home. The answer to which was surprisingly the same amount of time. And as that time passed I began to admire more than just sight, sounds and smells.

While my experience is limited to Americans in the mid-west, I would be highly surprised if my observations wouldn’t be applicable elsewhere in this expansive nation. I have seen families here, I have seen relationships here. There is the sameness of emotion here but a refreshing lack of sentimentality. I saw parents doing incredible things for their kids. I saw big families and extended families. I saw jealously between spouses and I saw meddling older parents. Language of love was different. The customs stood out. And at times, the formality seemed stifling.

But between those oddities, bonds between people lay just as strong. This is a much more complicated country than most people think or it may be appear at first sight. There is no denying the incessant materialization or the ignorance of smaller poorer worlds but I don’t believe any of it is ever intentional. Americans are a proud bevy of people blessed with a sense of humility that is only understood in tougher times. They might be rulers of the world but they have no problems doing their own dishes even if they are pushing 60. This is a country of no old men. People here have installed in me a sense of getting things done. An ability to take the big hits, shrug them off and get back on my feet again. At times, I have been incredibly alone here but the country had me covered for those times as well.

And as for the low quotient of sentimentality, I find that to be a wonderful filter. Where the friendship isn’t diluted by drama and relationships aren’t strengthened by guilt. I am thankful for all these things. I am thankful to the people I have met here.

And mostly, I am thankful to being invited to a family only thanksgiving dinner, casually, without ever alluding to the magnitude of the invite. I, of course, accepted in a mildly thankful manner knowing fully well that, being excessively emotional would just be not American.