Happy Thanksgiving
According to photographer Tyler Moulton, that turkey is/was a resident of Falmouth, Maine, which is appropriate to my current location. We will be spending the week with Sally’s family, enjoying some much-needed connection and relaxation.
It has been a rough year. Leaving aside the political situation as—as if anyone could leave that aside—the beer industry has seen a number of closures and setbacks. I learned just this morning on Facebook that FH Steinbart’s, the oldest homebrew shop in the country (located in Portland, of course), is going to lose its lease and close its doors. I haven’t seen that confirmed anywhere yet, so make of it what you will—but it’s another grim reminder of our bleak times.
Nevertheless! We keep our chins up and carry on. This is Thanksgiving, not Regetsgiving, and I have much to be thankful for.
Last night I stopped in to a couple breweries here in (the other) Portland. At Oxbow, over saisons, Sally and I watched a group slowly form as more and more members joined. The scouts brought with them a wiggly and snuggly little dog, who made the rounds and said hello to everyone nearby before settling on the bench next to her humans. Portland was bustling and we saw families out having a nice time. Later, we shut down the Austin Street Brewery sipping decadent milk stouts (admittedly, it closed at 8p).
As Beckett said, “We can’t go on. We’ll go on.” (Okay, he put it in the singular, but close enough.) In all the generations of humanity in all the villages and cities on Earth, many have found themselves in difficult situations. You can’t choose your circumstances. You can choose how to live. Giving thanks and engendering gratitude is a wonderful antidote to darker feelings.
I am thankful for the wonderful people I’ve gotten to know in this lifetime, the families I was born and married in to, the fresh Oregon air and its tall fir trees. I am thankful that I stumbled into a career where I get to write about beer, and even more grateful that there are people out there willing to read it. I am grateful to live in a time in which people make saisons and milk stouts, and that in a town of seventy thousand there are more breweries than I can visit. (It’s good to be thankful for small things, too.)
I’ll leave you with some pics from last night, but first, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope you will find your hearts filling up with gratitude this week.
