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Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
"Shower" by Kevin Dooley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

When I am in my shower, I try to be aware of gratitude. I love showering. I love the sound of the water and the way it blocks out other sounds, the feeling as it hits my skin, the temperature, the humidity, the feeling of being cocooned in this space. When I was fortunate enough to be able to design and build my house, I created a beautiful bathroom with a great shower. I am grateful for my shower.

I try to remember that what I have is extraordinary. I am able to shower every day. I can take a nice, long, hot shower. I can shower simply because I want to even if I don’t really “need” to. These facts are incredible. This is an amazing gift I give to myself. This is an astonishing opportunity that I have. And this is something that I always remember is rare indeed.

I live in a time and place where the municipality provides clean, safe water directly to my house, and utility companies deliver the energy needed to warm that water to whatever temperature I desire. A thousand years ago only a few hundred people in the world would have been able to access an effectively unlimited supply of hot, fresh water, and fewer still would have been able to indulge themselves in this way with any frequency. But even today, in most parts of the world, it is only the wealthiest individuals that can indulge such pleasures. For most people in most places around the world and across all of time, enjoying a shower would be unimaginable decadence.

Indeed, the access to clean, safe, reliable water in any form for most of humanity is something to be prayed for – I flush such water down the toilet. It is not lost on me that someday the drought in the western United States, exacerbated by climate change, will cause the water to run out, or my health will run out, or this space will be gone… someday this will be just a memory of a sweet, long-lost time. This is something that I appreciate when I am in the shower.

It is not lost on me that I have such wealth that I was able to create this space, and to purchase water and fuel. It is not lost on me that I have the freedom to choose to live in a place where clean water is delivered to my home. It is not lost on me that California is in a drought and that should the water stop, I can choose to move. It is not lost on me that I have the time to enjoy this.

I also do not take for granted the fact that I am able to shower without assistance. In her later days, my mother loved Thursday, because that was the day that her caregiver helped her to take a shower. She couldn’t undress herself alone, nor safely get into or out of the shower. She certainly couldn’t control her body sufficiently to wash her hair. I think of Senator John McCain, who, due to torture in Viet Nam, could not lift his arms over his head. Did he have to rely on others to wash his hair for him? I am aware of those in wheelchairs, paraplegics, and quadriplegics, for whom showering is likely a lengthy and involved process and may be impossible without assistance.

For myself, there was a time, not long ago, when due to medical devices attached to my body, I had to prepare myself for a shower. I had to wrap my arm in plastic wrap and tape it in place to keep my arm dry, and I had to keep my showering brief to reduce the risk of water getting under the wrapping. For a while I needed someone to help me wrap my arm, and then to unwrap it afterwards. Washing my hair alone was challenging because of limited mobility. If I could wash my hair at all, it was only with one arm. What a gift that taking a shower no longer requires any preparation beyond disrobing, and I need to do nothing more than dry off and dress afterwards.

I indulge myself in these moments of peace and beauty, knowing that just a few miles from my shower there are people living in tent camps. I don’t know how they bathe themselves. I don’t know how far they must travel, nor what they have to do to get to any kind of washing facilities at all. I indulge myself, well aware of the fact that there are uncounted millions around the world without access to safe drinking water, let alone a shower.

Sometimes these thoughts make me sad, so I cut my showering short. But more often I just try to appreciate this amazing experience, this incredible experience, this rare, unique, gift of an experience.

Forgive me for waxing poetical about the joys of showering. But I encourage all to find something in your life that you are taking for granted and to instead give it the attention that it deserves.

Afterword:

When I was a child, Thanksgiving meant a day off from school and a big, delicious meal prepared by my mother. Later on, living on my own, invited to friends’ houses for Thanksgiving, I was introduced to the ritual of each person at the table saying what they were thankful for. We had never done that in my family so I thought it was silly, but being a good guest, I went along with it, coming up with some statement of thankfulness. Now that I am older, with the perspective provided by time, and experience, and loss, and pain, I try to be thankful every day for all the great gifts that I have received. I am so very grateful for friends, and health, and food, and freedom, and among the many, many fortunes that I have, I am grateful for my shower.
Image from Delish.com


Yesterday, Delish.com posted an article about a petition being put forth by Vegans, complaining that Starbucks needlessly puts condensed milk in their pumpkin spice latte mix. Because of the condensed milk in the mix, it is impossible to make a Vegan pumpkin spiced latte. Other lattes offered by Starbucks use mixes that dont contain dairy products and can therefore be made with milk substitutes to produce a Vegan version of the beverage. See http://www.delish.com/food/recalls-reviews/vegans-petitioning-starbucks-pumpkin-spice-lattes?src=soc_fcbks.

I reacted to this story in a way born of ignorance. I wanted to publicly present my "mea culpa." I blew this one on so many levels. Let me hereby apologize for any aspersions I may have cast on Vegans or their traditional fall consumption of pumpkin spice lattes.

I did more research on the matter and learned a number of things that I had not known. First and foremost, it turns out that the Pilgrims were Vegans! Wow. That explains a lot! Furthermore, the tradition of consuming “pumpkin spice lattes” was introduced to the Pilgrims during the famous First Thanksgiving. It was, in fact, Chief Starbuck himself, leader of the Massachusett Indians, who brewed the first pumpkin spice latte ever tasted by a European. It occurred on that fateful day of sharing and celebration in 1621.

Furthermore, it turns out that the word “laghtee” is a Wampanoag word (adopted by the Massachusett) meaning “any type of frothy liquid, especially a beverage.” It was over two hundred years later that Italian Americans brought the Anglicized word “latte” back to Italy (along with the use of tomatoes in pizza.) Later, during WWII, riding the wave of Italian wartime nationalism, the similarity between this corruption of “laghtee” and the Latin “lactis” resulted in the creation of the myth that the “latte” was an Italian creation. This myth has spread far and wide despite numerous failed attempts by descendants of the Massachusett and Wampanoag to reclaim their rightful beverage history.

Needless to say, the “spice” in the original pumpkin spice latte was not the combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves that we think of today. The pumpkin spice latte was originally brewed with a powder made from the bark of the Gesundheit pine (Pinus gesundheit), known as “ahchoobangbang” in Wampanoag. Because of this, the pumpkin spice latte was a seasonal brew, since the pine only developed its distinctive flavor in the fall as the tree began preparing for the cold northern winter. The Gesundheit pine, named after famed 18th C. German botanist, Dr. Freidrich Gesundheit, went extinct in the early 1930s, not long after the discovery of penicillin. As a result, we now make our pumpkin spice latte with a mixture of “spice island” spices.

Apparently, drinking pumpkin spice lattes in fall has been a dearly held tradition among American Vegans, linking them to their Pilgrim ancestors. Furthermore, by surreptitiously adulterating their pumpkin spice latte mix with condensed milk, the Starbucks Corporation is guilty not only of depriving Vegans of this important fall beverage, but also of co-opting and perverting yet another Native American tradition. Not only has the Starbucks Corporation stolen and sullied the name of one of the greatest chiefs in Massachusett history (for which they have never provided ample compensation.) Not only are they earning huge revenues from the very brew that Chief Starbuck gave as a gift of peace to the Pilgrims. But, as if that weren’t enough, they are needlessly corrupting this traditional drink in a way that makes it unfit for the very people to whom it is most meaningful, further commodifying and distorting early American foodways.

My apologies for suggesting that Vegans should not work to protect this significant beverage. My comments in reacting to the original story were the result of an inexcusable ignorance of the true facts in this matter. I hope that this will serve as ample compensation for my earlier unfeeling words.

Note: for more important information on American culinary history you can learn about the Pie of July celebration here.