In Praise of Pioneers and Pilgrims

Happy Thanksgiving! It's been a quiet day here. Literally. I caught a cold that wiped me out on Sunday and Monday, and apparently it's still alive in my system because today my voice is gone and my throat is killing me. However, when I consider the epically poor health our family was suffering days before we came to Taiwan, all I can feel is grateful that our health has been so stellar, on the whole, for our entire trip!

Our "Thanksgiving" feast - Thai food!

So we have spent this Thanksgiving laying low. I've been clapping for attention and whispering to the kids. We've cleaned the apartment - which is tiny, so it's a tiny task when everyone helps. We've studied Chinese. We've played. Kai has worked on writing. The kids are watching the movie Cars on TV now, Q is working, and in a few minutes we are going to go to dinner (hopefully find a Thai restaurant that was recommended to us) as a very distant nod to the celebrations that would just be beginning if we were home.

Really, I should be grateful for this too! Between Nutcracker and being hostess for Thanksgiving or hauling our whole family to Salt Lake for the feast, this has been so much more quiet and restful than any past Thanksgiving in a long time, and probably the future ones stretching on for years too. But I can't help but miss all that Thanksgiving is - food, family, cooking, cleaning, and even Nutcracker season.

Still, this Thanksgiving is special for us in it's own way too. Like the pilgrims we remember, our family are strangers in a strange land at the moment. I have reflected on the pilgrim/pioneer/immigrant story ever since we got here, and I have a few thoughts I'd like to share.

They begin with WOW. I have a new and unbounded admiration for FAMILIES who leave the lives they knew in pursuit of their dreams of something better. Immigrants, pioneers, and pilgrims have all left lands that they love - family members and neighborhoods, support systems they have trusted, roads that they knew - to venture into the unknown. Many times the "new world" has meant a new language and the isolation one can feel when a perfectly capable adult finds himself freshly illiterate.

My journey pales in comparison to the unknown faced by others. I speak the language, sort of. I have come before. And I know I am going home. But I had no idea how hard it would be.

I thought, naively, that because so many of the foods we enjoy at home are from whole foods, that I would be able to easily cook them here. It turns out that not even the fruits, vegetables, and meats are the same. If, somewhere nearby, they ARE, I wouldn't know how to ask to find what I'm looking for anyway. Sugar, butter, herbs are all staples packaged in a foreign tongue and looking nothing like they do at home. I've reflected on the evolution of national flavor as a result. Perhaps many of the foods we Americans think of as Italian, or Irish, or Scandinavian are only the echos of what the cooks could create once they found themselves in America. I admire and praise mothers who have brought their children into an unfamiliar environment and braved the babble of market places, or sewn their own seeds in unfamiliar soil, all in the hope of creating a flavor of home that will nurture the bodies and souls of their families.

We left a house full of comfort and I didn't expect to miss it quite as much as I have. Again, I knew I was coming to a modern, first-world country. I can't imagine saying good-bye to my beloved house and all it's comforts forever! How DID women ever agree to leave so much behind to carve out lives in the wilderness?!

In dozens of small, little ways, living life as a family away from the family life we knew has been a challenge. Sometimes not one I can even put into words, but one I certainly feel. I am often alone as a mother in a country where most mothers work. I am alone by my illiteracy. The loneliness can feel like it's own wilderness. And yet, I am not alone. I DO speak the language and the kindness of the people here has made an eternal impression. I feel blessed to have a "big" family - that while my children feel this loneliness too because all of THEIR peers are in school all day, they still have each other.

And OF COURSE there is an utter joy for us to be in Taiwan as well. And maybe the immigrants, pioneers and pilgrims felt that too - marveled at the mountains, open spaces, flora, fauna, cities, or opportunities, or reunion with family, and felt blessed. But I am humbled by their sacrifices as I take the smallest taste of what their experience might have felt like. My own little sample has certainly become it's own feast of thanks giving.