Odd
One Out: At Home For The Holidays
To be Atheist, Pagan, liberal, and feminist in my family
already sets me apart as the Family Oddball; to be vegetarian-going-vegan
is just the icing on the cake of my freakishness. I
can hardly wait to drop the news: As long as my vegetarianism
was for "health reasons," that was acceptable, if eccentric.
To declare myself a vegan, on the other hand, is to
admit that I think that animals are not simply "things"
put here for human exploitation and consumption. Nobody
gives up leather clothing or beeswax candles in order
to cut down on cholesterol or drop a few pounds.
Am I ready to face the whole family as a vegan? To
socialize with the members of my family as individuals
is quite manageable, because then we are relating to
each other as the individual personalities that we are.
But to attend one of our big family gatherings is to
be sucked into the vortex of the Family Personality
-- Christian, conservative, traditional, and, above
all, dogmatically certain that the family's is the One
True Right and Holy Way to believe, whether the issue
is religion or politics or what should or should not
appear on the dinner table. It's not a lot of fun to
be the odd one out when the ball gets rolling on one
of these occasions.
My response over the years has been a gradual drift
away from this tightly-bound family identity. I love
the people in my family (well, I'm not so sure about
a couple of them) and want to maintain connection with
them. But I also have a healthy survival instinct, and
my survival instinct inclines me to avoid occasions
in which group ridicule and no-win debate sessions thrive.
So I attend all-family functions selectively, in the
interest of keeping the peace, and have learned to simply
decline to bite the argumentative bait that is inevitably
dangled during these events. My true celebrations of
the holidays have become the ones I conduct in the peace
and quiet of the life I have created for myself, apart
from my extended family. Over the years I have been
developing my own traditions, celebrating the turning
of the seasons with personal, informal observances and
rituals.
Rituals of food and drink: sipping a cup of hot spiced
apple cider and nibbling a spicy pumpkin or carrot bar
when the first brisk day of autumn arrives; savoring
a thick, vine-ripe tomato sandwich in mid-summer; simmering
thick bean and potato soups as the weather turns cold;
welcoming the delicate first vegetables of spring.
Rituals of connection with the earth's ongoing changes:
walking out in the winter's twilight and greeting the
return of the constellation Orion to Minnesota's evening
sky; watching the departure of the geese in the fall,
and the return of the geese in the spring; strolling
through the woods right after a greening spring rain;
standing on the shore of Lake Calhoun, immersing myself
in the sensations of wind on my face and sunlight glittering
on the waves.
Rituals of creating sacred space in my home: playing
music that evokes the mood of the waxing season, the
year's cycle of albums corresponding to the cycles of
leaf and light ever-visible through the windows that
span the width of one living-room wall; decorating with
pumpkins and corn, with holly and pine, with pastel
flowers and baskets, with bright and sunny colors and
deep blue watery images; lighting a candle in the colors
and scents of the season; lighting a stick of sandalwood
or rose or cedar or cinnamon or cherry incense; meditating,
reflecting, taking stock of that day, that season, that
year, my life as a whole.
In my own home the holidays have become what I always
yearned they would be, even as I was surrounded by chaotic,
loud, cacophonous family celebrations in my youth: a
time of quiet contemplation and attunement with the
seasons and cycles of the life around me, and of my
own life. To read a favorite meditation or poem or bit
of prose at a peaceful holiday meal; to sing seasonal
songs in the starlight, or in the sun and wind; to have
someone to share these quiet celebrations of life --
these are the things that make the holidays meaningful
to me.
So I celebrate the holidays primarily at home, according
to my own design, improvising as the mood of each singular
season inspires me. And I make space to visit the rest
of the family sometime during each holiday season, and,
misgivings aside, will likely continue to do so, bearing
my own vegan potluck dish in hand. As long as I don't
consider these big, noisy get-togethers my primary observance,
I can handle them in peace -- and in small doses --
as a purely socializing occasion, knowing that I have
my nice, quiet apartment to retreat to before I reach
critical mass.
Karyn M.
Minnesota
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