Waiting On The Pumpkin Pie

As I write, I have two dozen apples boiling with sugar and cinnamon on my stove (soon to be applesauce), peach-strawberry Jell-O in my fridge (I don’t have any containers, so I’m using a pie tin) and three cans of sweet corn waiting to be heated with salt and pepper in my tiny frying pan.

Yes friends, it’s Thanksgiving in Greece.

Tonight we’re eating a turkey special ordered from Athens along with a smorgasbord of food including multiple variations on the mashed potato, salad and noodle dish.

This morning Molly, Brianna, Suzanna, Lindsay and I tromped down the road to the grocery store, emerging much later with bags full of bread, spices veggies and ingredients for deserts and drinks. We’ve been preening our shopping lists since the beginning of November, ogling recipes online and praying that “the pumpkin” would arrive.

Living abroad, my friends and I have accumulated a handful of remedies for homesickness, including Snickers bars, painting, and pumpkin pie (not eating it, just talking about it).

It started at the end of September when somebody decided Molly should have a pumpkin pie for her 21st birthday. Easy enough, except, for the minor details: pumpkin is impossible to find on Paros. Believe me, we’ve searched every store twice. The closet we came was sometime before Halloween, when the Atlantic grocery store set out three, morose looking pumpkins beside their fruit display.

Unhappy pumpkins are not appetizing. We passed on the offer. I know living abroad requires sacrifice, but this was turning into an obsession.

Then we remembered the outside world and Molly’s mom in Washington, who visited Paros for a week at the beginning of November (everyone was excited to have a mom on the island, you should have seen the look on our faces when she cooked homemade macaroni and cheese).

Sympathetic to our situation, she agreed to mail us pumpkin, but up until the day before Thanksgiving it still hadn’t arrived. To put it lightly, we were concerned.

Enter the fates. Before we cleaned out the grocery store for our banquet, Molly popped into the Post Office and popped back out again with a medium-sized box. It had arrived, along with a pair of shoes, candy, a card and … at this point everyone let out a little sigh.

A pile of dried autumn leaves...

It was proof home isn’t an illusion.

There is still a place where trees turn amber, while fog hangs over Lake Sag and frost sticks to dorm windows. Still a farm in Cohasset where my Grandpa carries wood into the basement, stacking it on the cold cement floors, while my Grandma rolls dough for an apple pie. I can imagine her looking out the kitchen window towards the road, waiting for snow to come as leaves blow across the yard. Still a tiny cedar house above the Mississippi with a Springer Spaniel sleeping on the front porch, dirt bikes in the backyard and hockey sticks leaning against the grange.

I have a theory.

Political correctness aside, when pilgrims gathered for the first Thanksgiving they were celebrating the harvest, but I think they were also trying to alleviate homesickness with good food, laugher and rest. They faced short, harsh lives with no prospect of returning home. I’ll be home for Christmas. To give thanks is recognize what we have, where we have it.

I had the privilege of sharing this Thanksgiving with over thirty people from around the world, each missing “home” in their own way. We crowded into the tiny common room of our apartment complex, filled two tables with every sized pot and pan you can imagine, stacked our plates with layers of food and then went back for more.

Two HISA students had family visiting and one mom decorated the long white tables with flowers and tea candles. The cacophony (thanks for the word, Mrs. Hall!) of conversation filled the dim room where I knew I had a family gathered, maybe for the last time, who I’ll never forget.

So I gave thanks for the last three months which have changed me … and the approaching spring semester of my Junior year (I am so excited, so excited) … I gave thanks for my family gathered on the Cohasset farm and my college friends spread around the world (this is the short list: Chile, Italy, Nepal, France, Madagascar, London, Turkey, Australia, India) … I gave thanks for pumpkin pie, baklava and chocolate pudding … and later standing outside with friends cradling cups of wine, I gave thanks for this temporary community of artists.

It hasn’t been perfect.

I’ve purposely avoided littering my rosy interpretation of the experience with the fears, frustration and exhaustion that comes from living abroad or confronting what Brianna from Michigan calls “our soul work…”

But someone once told me we have to experience pain to understand beauty and beauty to understand pain. Even waiting for a can of pumpkin pie or a long awaited reunion, we learn and learn and learn … we are never far from home. We carry it everywhere. Even across oceans.

Last night without trying, I found everything beautiful. I’m not ready to be back in Minnesota, but there is no place I’d rather be … figure that one out!

I have two weeks left in Paros. I miss you. Be kind.