October can be easily romanticized into the month of orange, of fluttering leaves and pumpkins and first snowfalls. After months of lazing haze, October is when the wind realizes its duties with a sudden swiftness. Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late! it echoes after the white rabbit. The prospect of winter, of the dull, colourless months is a oxymoron of its own. Large fur coats, laced with frost, complain against the wailing wind and razor-edge snowflakes – yet, knowing a warm embrace awaits at home is enough to keep one content.
I suppose I never had understood Thanksgiving as it was intended. Sure, I looked forward to the holiday as a child because it meant an extra day off from school. It also gave me great joy to stand in the chaos of a supermarket as parents and grandparents run to and fro, preparing for the big feast that lay ahead. The sight of bloated turkeys flying down the conveyer belt at the checkout counter was certainly worth a giggle.
From reading books, I knew that Thanksgiving meant pain for some and happiness for others. The dreaded feeling of meeting long-lost family members was enough to send shivers down one’s spine. Charles, remember Aunt Marge from you were little? (Who?) Oh, here comes Uncle Joe and your cousins! The only thing that could have kept one hopeful was maybe the dessert, which signified the end to the torture. If one enjoyed being around one’s family, Thanksgiving would be a totally different experience. Either way, it was an experience.
As a university student, I found myself in neither case as I studied in an empty residence hall this Monday. Sitting down with a warming cup of Earl Grey and irresistibly vibrant macarons, I tried to convince myself that it was an enjoyable afternoon as leaves flickered past my bedroom window. Peace, calm, and quiet – what more could one ask for during midterm season?
The orange of the sugar maple leaf caught my eye then – I guess that was when I realized what the orange meant. Mind you, I always have hated the colour orange, mainly because it was so obnoxious that it rarely got along with other colours; it brought disharmony to anything it dared to touch. What I saw through the window that afternoon, though, was not pumpkins or crackling fires or autumn itself. What I saw was the warmth of one’s family. Just the presence of them, nothing else.
It is only with seeing past the superficiality of the glistening turkey and the decorative dishes we could appreciate the little comforts in our lives. Although I wasn’t able to go home this weekend, many of my friends in university were. Scrolling down Facebook, one could see statuses pregnant with contentment. I found it amusing how much joy a private toilet can bring!
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Enjoy the little moments October has to offer 🙂