Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

My children are grown. Romie turned twenty-one this year, which is wild! I am effectively an empty nester, which means I look forward to the holidays like a farmer waiting for the harvest season. I don’t see them enough, and I worry that too many phone calls from me might disrupt their days. I keep it cool and occasionally text them. Meanwhile, I look at the calendar, prepare rooms in my home, and ponder which dinners and movies and board games we can share.

When I was younger, as an introverted kid, I did not value large family gatherings during holidays, especially not Thanksgiving. Everyone squeezed into my grandparents’ home; my uncles sat in front of the TV, transfixed by a football game; tons of aunts at the dining table smoked and chatted away about their jobs; my cousins played ping pong in the basement and showed each other the latest dance craze. I thought it was merely a day of noise. When my father married into a large family, replete with step siblings, these gatherings went longer.

Now, I appreciate what I once shunned. Gather me among kinfolks.

Let’s talk loudly with drinks in our hands. Let’s enjoy the bounty of family and rituals that fill us with connection and the purpose of loving each other. And when we sit down to dinner, let our blessings surround us. Let us relish joyful interactions.

Today’s poem speaks to our deep seeded hunger for closeness. The poet points to the sensory experience of emotional sustenance and familial love. But they also capture the profound absence within us when our lives are depleted of touch.

Farmers’ Market
by Molly Fisk

Yesterday I was so lonely
I could barely walk,
my friend being mobbed 
by her grandchildren
as we made our way 
past the farmers’ market’s 
delicata squashes, the last
tomatoes. I couldn’t think
what to buy—came home
with nothing but sweet
peppers, myriad colors
in a single flavor, an elusive
solitary note. I watched her
lay her cheek against
the downy faces, saying love
love love love, and would 
have wept except I’m dry
of tears. I love how she loves
them and that she has them,
I love them all from my arm’s-
length distance, half-familiar
grandmother’s friend 
with a laughing eye, glasses
one might want to pluck
from the top of her head. 
All that touch. That flesh.
The body heat. Fingers woven
together. I am starving.

“Farmers’ Market” by Molly Fisk. Used by permission of the poet.