PeonyMagazine

  When I think back to the Thanksgivings of my childhood, the memories come in warm, heavy waves. Everything felt prepared long before I ever stepped into the kitchen: mashed potatoes already whipped to a creamy softness, cranberry sauce cooling in its glass dish, casseroles arranged in careful rows that promised comfort long before anyone even sat down. Back then, Thanksgiving didn’t feel like a holiday someone had to work for. It felt like something that simply happened, almost like the table set itself. I wandered, I waited, I ate, without ever realizing how much invisible labor pulsed beneath the surface of all that ease. What I remember most vividly, though, is seeing my mother at the counter one year, slicing something, in my memory it’s red, something bright and bold, and her eyes were watering. As a child, I didn’t think twice about it. I assumed the sting in her eyes came from whatever she was chopping. Maybe onions, maybe peppers, maybe something sharp enough to summon te...