By the time this column is printed, I will be back home in Los Angeles wearing jorts and Vans, enjoying 65-degree weather. I will have spent close to nine hours on an airplane or in an airport to spend six days at home and then spend another seven or so hours getting back to Medford.
I'm lucky; my mother is an Expedia fiend who bought incredibly cheap flights incredibly early. The catch is that I have two stops on the way home, and thus the five-hour flight becomes nine hours. All I really want for Christmas is a direct flight home, but I know it's not going to happen. Not all my friends are so lucky. A lot of people from California and farther don't get to go home for Thanksgiving. And no matter how old we get, when we finish midterms, we all would really like to spend a few days at home getting spoiled by parents and bugged by siblings and pets. So this column is not only for those coast-to-coast commuters like me but also for my friends from Singapore, London, Israel, Turkey, etc., who can't go home for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is a weird holiday. It's a celebration of the beginning of America and the cooperation between the Pilgrims and the Indians, but it also exists in the shadow of a genocide conducted against the American Indian population by European settlers. It's not the most politically correct holiday, yet we still get school off and have humongous dinners with family.
The picture-perfect Thanksgiving includes a huge family, a huge turkey, a fire in the fireplace and coats hung in the hallway. In my head, this perfect Thanksgiving has always taken place in New England, never at home in L.A. The effect isn't the same when you can wear flip-flops to Thanksgiving dinner. I have a similar issue with Christmas — it just doesn't feel like all the movies say it should when it's 70 degrees outside and you get a bikini instead of a sweater.
So basically, I have Thanksgiving envy. Before I graduate, I want to spend a Thanksgiving in New England and see if the reality lives up to my mental image.
But the meaning of Thanksgiving, to me at least, goes beyond the Pilgrims and the Indians and the weather. Since coming to college, Thanksgiving has been about going home, about seeing my family, about getting a break from living in a dorm and eating in a dining hall. By this point in the year, I'm burned out and I need a break. I need to be able to just turn off — to not worry about what I look like or who's around to get dinner with and just be able to lie in my big bed and let my mom tell me what to do for a while.
That much-needed break is the reason I'm spending so many hours in an airport this week. The flight sucks, the waiting sucks, airport security sucks, but spending time with my mom, dad, brother and dog is worth it. Getting to drive my own car around neighborhoods that aren't filled with terrifying Massachusetts drivers is worth it. Getting to hang out outside late in November without getting frostbite is worth it. The feeling of flying into LAX, seeing the city I know so well spread out under me, is worth it. Don't get me wrong — by now, when I fly into Logan, I feel an immediate sense of recognition when I look down at Boston. But no matter how long I spend out here, no matter where I go after college, L.A. will always be home, and that is really the reason I'm willing to spend almost a day traveling in order to go fly there for Thanksgiving.
