I love the traditions of waking up to my dad cooking green bean casserole and cranberry crunch, and then bundling into the car to go to my aunt and uncle's, where we're greeted by my uncle, who is always standing in the kitchen with either a beer or the turkey carver (sometimes both).
I'll miss how generously gracious my aunt is at hosting - she never comments about cooking for 12+ people every year but makes a HUGE deal out of how nice my dad is for bringing our dishes. I love how, while my aunt could easily make both recipes in her sleep, she always squeals over how good they are when my family brings them. Meanwhile, she's made about 10 other dishes that we all inhale. No Thanksgiving is complete without reminiscing about the year Sam ate 12 rolls - or was it 24? (It doesn't really matter.)
Not Thanksgiving. Just food.
THANKS
I'm grateful for SO many things in my life and thought now is the perfect time to share them - both because I feel so blessed every single day, and also as a personal way of celebrating Thanksgiving.
When I started writing this list, I realized I was mostly writing about things I'm grateful for at home but in the spirit of sharing my life here in York, I'm going to share a more specific list about some wonderful things in my life right now.
I'll caveat that to say that I'm so, so grateful for the PEOPLE at home - and honestly, if you're reading this, you're one of them.
My surrogate little bros, Gabe and Baird
York Gratitude List
My house: It's so cute! I love how warm my room gets and the space I have here. And my commute to work is less than two minutes door to door.
Carecent: I'm volunteering at a free breakfast scheme for homeless people here on Monday mornings and the women volunteers there ARE THE BEST. I have never met a bunch of more welcoming, funny, kind people. Case in point, earlier this week I had a weird eye infection. They immediately offered a bunch of suggestions and told me to leave volunteering early to get it checked out. Side note, one of them was making raunchy jokes about the sausages we serve to the homeless clients. It made me like her even more, if that is possible. Another of them even called me this afternoon to check on my eyes (which are on the mend, I think?). I was so, so, SO touched! I am also relishing the relationships I'm developing with the great guys who come in for breakfast - some of them have experienced unimaginable trauma but I'm grateful to get to know a small piece of their lives and chat about Donald Trump, the Panama Canal, and American football.
Piano lessons: Taking piano lessons was one of the Resolutions I made for my 25th year. I'll wrote more in the future about an update on my Resolutions. But for now, I'll just say that I'm taking them and from the most wonderful lady called Helen. She has become a friend and teacher to me. She is just lovely - practical, firm, patient, and so interesting. After retiring from nursing, she decided to learn the ORGAN which is crazy hard, and now goes around to different churches each weekday to practice. She inspires me and I think she is super cool and creative. We meet for about a half hour each week and now we're even doing duets together! Enjoying her company is about 50% of the reason I adore these lessons so much. The other 50% is that playing piano is so cathartic and fun.
New friends: Firstly, my YAGM cohort is amazing and I can't sing their praises enough. I'm so pleased to be on this journey with them. I'm making new friends outside YAGM and work too! My first friend was Chantal is a German au pair. I'm deeply grateful to Chantal for her warm presence in my life - she is absolutely lovely and I enjoy our walks and chats together so very much. I'm making other friends through groups I'm getting involved in and it's such a nice feeling to spread my friend-making wings and realize I can, actually, make new friends (which previously I assumed I was terrible at because I've had more or less an expanding group of some of the same friends since middle school).
Chantal!
St. Columba's fellowship and friends: It's such a new and fascinating experience to work closely with a church family. At home, I'm involved simply as a congregant and occasional volunteer, though my faith is important to me. Now I'm learning what it takes to run a church community. While I probably won't be the person on-staff running a church in my future life, it's still a great experience for me to grow spiritually and professionally. (Hopefully it's a good one for the congregants but the jury's still out :)).
The Bulletin Board after I decorated it...sometimes it's the small things!
Potluck Dinner after an Organ Concert
Mission Partners & School-Based Mentoring: Working with The Island, The Besom, and the Street Angels has given me purpose when other parts of my job seem fuzzy and unclear. The teams of these orgs have been really welcoming and supportive of me. I am volunteering with The Island's School Based Mentoring program, which is 2.5 hours a week working in a primary school with my mentee, whom I'll call her N. N likes to draw, cook, and be barefoot and outdoors. Upon discussing these things, we decided we're twins. We realized this even further when we realized our eyes are the same shade of green-brown and we both wear glasses. N is so creative - we were struggling to stick down a pipe cleaner to paper last week when she figured out how to unobtrusively use tape to get it in the shape we wanted. She brightens my week so much and I feel blessed she is my mentee.
From an activity with the Island's Girls' Group
Learning: This last year or two in Baltimore, I began to learn a lot about racial justice issues and be awakened to how seriously unjust racist systems oppress people of color. I also have explored other social justice issues like food justice and environmental justice. Here, I don't get to learn much about those topics in my working life, which at first was a disappointment. I feel guilty that I can walk away from these topics while people must still live with the ramifications of unfair systems of oppression every moment of their lives. However, I can't really change how white York is, and because England simply has different issues than the United States, I've decided to embrace being educated about other things - for example, mental health care services, the class system here, and the functioning of the local government, as well as the role that the church plays in state-run entities. (This is RADICALLY different than the USA - the unity of the Church of England with the government is singlehandedly the thing that gives me most pause when I run across its implications, because I'm so used to separation of church and state.)
Me in the Dales. With a tree.
Fun Random Things From Lately:
-Lunch with my new friends David and Mandy (and Chantal and two French exchange students) at their house & a walk around Castle Howard
-The Christmas lights in York
-Meeting Jamie Oliver on Halloween!
-Going to the Dales with my roommates and the minister of St. Columba's
-Going to Bishopthorpe for Bonfire Night with my roommate and some of her friends
-York Interfaith Week & the Doncaster Conversation Club visit
-My 20 pound Jorvik Museum card that gets me into 5 different museums an unlimited amount of times for the rest of the year
Barley Hall's Henry VIII exhibit - sooooo good!
Being in York, England: Of all the places I could have ended up during this year, it was very random that I am in York. I can't say this without feeling cheesy or pretentious, but I do believe I was meant to be here. I am so grateful every day that God decided to jump in and redirect my seemingly-perfect Peace Corps path and land me here, in this beautiful, historic, vibrant, walkable North England city. I love so many things about it - the library, the shops and pubs, the narrow snickleways (narrow streets), the ancient city walls, the Minster, the museums, the parks, and the easy access to public transport. It's totally not what I'd envisioned for my international service year, yet somehow it feels like this is where I'm meant to have landed all along.
Giving
What I don't often do is consider the other half of Thanksgiving - the giving. How generous am I? Am I good at sharing? Do I consider others before I consider myself? Unequivocally, I can say that I am NOT good at the aforementioned qualities.
Now, before you state the obvious, yes I'm a big fan of doing service, hence the reason I'm on my second year of full-time volunteering. That could be considered giving. I don't really think it is in my case though. Because in truth, this is selfishness. I like to do the things I'm doing, just like computer nerds like coding and doctors like blood. I love working with kids, the elderly, and the homeless - it's fun and interesting. I like making new friends of people who are struggling and brightening their lives. Community engagement and service projects are exciting. Other people are good at math and statistics, some people like playing video games or violin or Connect Four. I'm good at engaging with people and finding solutions to problems. Doing these things isn't inherently giving because it's playing to my strengths and I find it to be the most rewarding job.
But I'm definitely bad at sharing and giving. Pretty much all the people in my life at home in the USA that I know are better at sharing and giving than I am, so this isn't some sort of modeled behavior for me. I just suck at sharing, giving, and being generous. I'm a reluctant giver. (First step to recovery: Know thyself.)
It's ironic, because I often get annoyed at some of the attitudes of some of the church congregants at St. Columba's towards our Mission Partners. The Mission Partners use our space at the church as their offices, a situation created to support charities in the York area. Some congregants (though not all) approach this arrangement from an attitude of, well we are their GENEROUS hosts and they should be eternally grateful to us for this! Uh, are you really being generous if you constantly whinge about the space the Mission Partners are using? Is begrudging someone the gift you gave really generosity?
I don't think so. But then again, I do the same thing on a regular basis. I say I'll help with some event or other, and then feel grumpy when the event rolls around and I'm tired and would rather watch Netflix. I'm happy to lend out my stuff temporarily, but then I get annoyed if it was returned in less than good condition, or if I need it after all when I've given it out. I'm ok with someone eating my last banana (with permission), but then I worry inwardly - oh, no, what if I'm making oatmeal and miss having a banana!? And I grump when my oatmeal sucks because it didn't have banana.
I list the funny (true) examples but there are deeper ones; do I always feel that things need to be "equal" in my relationships with others? Can I put up with a challenging person knowing that they will never support me back? Am I always asking what is in it for me? In these senses too, I'm terrible at giving.
Is giving WITH hesitation really generosity? I don't think so. It's giving without fear that's generosity.
Two of the most perfect examples of this are Mr. Bob and Mrs. Hilma. I can't think of more giving people than those two. Case in point is how they garden in their backyard and give probably 50% or more of it away. Whenever I manage to grow something, even a tomato, I'm like HOLY SHIT THIS IS AMAZING!!!!! It shocks and awes me and I immediately worry if another one will ever grow if I pick it.
Not giving to others is about fear - that there won't be enough of something, that it will put you out or cause you harm to be generous. And that's entirely possible that it is true. Another tomato might not grow.
Sheep in a parking lot in the Yorkshire Dales. It was exciting.
Deep down, I have faith. I just need to work on growing it. I need to let my faith take root to flourish me into being the giver I want to be. I want to become the person that gives without hesitation, because I know truly that when I share, there will always be enough. Because there will always, always be enough.
