Thanks, for real

I wanted to tell you a story for Thanksgving.

I wanted to tell you how, when I was 23, I made the best Thanksgving dinner Highland Ave has ever seen (God, I miss my house on Highland) I wanted to tell you how I stayed in the night before (for the first time ever!) and blanched brussels sprouts instead of crushing long islands at Kev's Pub with my girls. I wanted to tell you what a baby my ex-boyfriend was about his deathly hangover the next day and how I managed to pull it all together at the last minute despite an incident involving a bloody nose and an almost fire. I wanted to tell you how I curled up at the end of the night, watching Sideways for the first time and eating Delice d'Argental with my fingers, and felt like I had finally entered adulthood and like things could stay that way forever.

And of course they didn't. That was the moral of the story I wanted to tell you. Things change.

But I wanted to tell you about what stayed the same, too. I wanted to tell you how right before that 23rd Thanksgiving, I received the largest sum of money I'd ever seen and in my infinite 23 year old adult wisdom I decided to invest it.....in as much vintage as my closet could hold. I wanted to tell you how I purchased this unnasuming BCBG piece that I ended up wearing that Thanksgiving, and how it sticks out in my mind more than any other detail about that day, how I've worn it a million times since, ripped it and sewn it back together. And I wanted to tell you how my Thanksgiving this year felt like a real holiday because I wore that dress and all it's history, because I followed a tradition that I made by accident while trying to be an adult, and that's why clothing is important to me, and that's the only reason I'd ever even bother to take a picture of what what I was wearing on a certain day or list my outift details.

(I promise I will never be one of those fashion bloggers who bores you with endless outfit posts that all look the same and then feels clever because they managed to rip off someone other motherfuckers stupid, trendy look so accurately. I think that's shameful and disgusting. But seriously, though, have you ever seen a more perfect dress to wear on Thanksgiving? I promise you haven't because it does not exist.)

But I didn't write anything on Thanksgving. I barely even managed to take photos of the aforementioned dress. Instead, I made this hazelnut cake with brown butter (minus the chocolate) and it was quite possibly the best and most easiest cake I've ever produced, ever. I also made a stuffing that included way too much chicken stock and resembled more closely a bread pudding, but was adictively good nonetheless. I discussed with my uncle the promised benefits of listening to binaural beats and whether or not they could possibly be anything other than bullshit and I played with my new SLR and learned a tiny bit more about how a camera actually works.

Most importantly though, I felt thankful. Without warning or warrant, seemingly from nowhere, I felt thankful. I felt thankful because I felt at home. I felt thankful because this year, on Thanksgiving I felt like I was having a real holiday and not just honoring the ghost of some ritual I used to celebrate, in my old home, where I used to live.

This is my excuse. This is the reason I did not write you a meaningful story on Thanksgiving. I was too busy giving thanks. Being humbled by the kind of gratitude that comes swooping in like a storm and knocks you on your ass. Yes, things change, but on Thanksgiving for me this year, all the changes I have endured over the past couple of years added up to one of those perfect moments where all you can do is sit in awe and honor that perfection with the knowledge that it is fleeting and thing will change again. Soon.

So, I hope you can forgive me, for my lack of proper picture-taking and for my confession of supreme gratitude on a day that's not even sanctioned for that. And I hope you know that whether they are belated or not, my wishes that you and everyone you love should constantly be humbled and awed by intense gratitude are no less sincere.

Happy (late, late, late) Thanksgiving!