The Need for Complexity: a Thanksgiving Tale
Learning how to choose the things I need to overdo, and let go of the rest.
File this one under: I contain multitudes (don’t we all?)
A while ago, I posted a Venn diagram on Facebook about neurodiversity, and it sparked a great conversation between several of my friends.
We all agreed that talking about the traits of so-called “giftedness” as a form of neurodivergence was useful, though it desperately needs a different, less egregiously ableist name (or perhaps not — it could also be a stop along the Autism spectrum train, and trying to separate it out might itself be ableist — but I’m not a scientist and that’s not the point of this post).
I see a lot of myself and my kid in several overlapping areas of this diagram. In truth, I only realized how many of these traits I possess by watching my kid grow up to be a lot like me. Like both positive and negative ways, become a tool for success or a major obstacle. Our homeschooling journey so far has put this into sharp focus.
I posted the Venn diagram in the first place because a particular trait caught my eye because it has been a defining feature of my life. The “need for complexity.”
Two stories from this Thanksgiving weekend, to illustrate.
Thanksgiving Dinner: A Short Story about Overdoing It
My mother was a holiday over-doer. It did not matter that we were not religious, we celebrated “Canadian Christmas” and “Orthodox (aka Serbian) Christmas” every year. Easter too (x2). We did Thanksgiving, every family birthday, and two Slavas (dad’s, but also mom’s, because she always liked to stick it to the patriarchy). If there was an excuse to throw a party or cook a feast, she would grab it.
On each holiday, she cooked for a family of twenty, even though I’m an only child, and we have few relatives in Canada. I was the only person whose help she would allow, so I spent many hours with her, mixing doughs and batters, chopping, grating and mincing various ingredients, assembling stuffings and casseroles, roasting meats. Mom was an amazing cook but she had no patience for, or interest in, aesthetics. My job, in addition to being a dedicated sous chef, was “presentation.” That is, laying things out on fancy dishes and making them look pretty.
I loved those times we spent together in the kitchen (and out on the back deck, because the barbecue would often be used as a second stove or oven to help speed things along). If I have a love language, it is this. Overdoing festive occasions with and for my family.
I always start with a simple menu, just one main dish and a couple of sides, because Colin is tireless in his efforts to help me simplify. But then I remember a particular sauce that might go well with the main, and another vegetable that goes with the sauce. And then I think of the appetizers and decide that some cheeses and crackers strewn across a platter aren’t enough. I’ll also bake mini quiches (from scratch, not from the freezer aisle) and stuff tiny cherry tomatoes with a mixture of bacon, chives, and my homemade mayo. Sure, it takes an hour to do with the world’s tiniest spoon, but it’s worth it, because this is how I recharge my batteries, fill my cup, or whatever metaphor you prefer.
A few months ago I was introduced to a truly perfect concept that I now hold tightly in my heart, by fellow Substacker Sara Saljoughi (Not Yet). In a beautiful post, Slump Cake, she wrote:
There is a Persian word, حوصله (hoseleh), which is very hard to translate. It means patience or forbearance, but it’s more accurately something like a desirous and
uncalled for effort. I have hoseleh in spades.
Same, girl. Finally, I had a word for the best expression of my need for complexity.
In a comment on her original post I described this as “the thing I inherited from my mother that I think of as being her most essential self.” And mine too.
Overdoing the holidays makes me feel close to my mother now, just as it did when she was alive. I exhaust myself, make more food than my tiny family can eat in a week, and drag myself into bed at the end of the day with an aching back and sore feet. But I am bursting with love. I’m reborn through these uncalled for efforts.
This year, I roped Colin into my elaborate Thanksgiving preparations, and it brought me so much joy to have a partner in the kitchen, like I used to have with mom. I made the hasselback potato gratin, leek and bean casserole, roasted Brussels sprouts, salad (with home-pickled red onions), squash & roasted red pepper soup. And of course, I baked the cornbread and the pumpkin pie.
He made the apricot glaze for the ham, and the horseradish sauce.
You might think that making the horseradish sauce doesn’t seem like a big job. Well, that’s because you don’t realize the extent of my and my mother’s mania for DIYing everything, our need for complexity.
Colin had to dig up the horseradish roots from the massive plants in our back yard that my mother planted years ago. He then had to scrub the roots clean and trim them, peel them, and then process them with vinegar. The intensity of the volatile oils expressed by a horseradish root during processing is … epic. It’s like that “too much wasabi” feeling, but in your whole kitchen, instead of just your nose. He ended up having to take the food processor outside to do it on the back deck. He wore a mask. He cried. He made an Instagram reel about it that you should definitely watch.
I had a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving. My cousin came over, and we ate and talked and laughed. My kid ate a mountain of Brussels sprouts and some pumpkin pie, a perfectly balanced meal. I feel completely refueled for six days of parenting on my own, which start today. And, I have enough leftovers to last the week.
The Wreath: A Short Story about Letting Go
Sometimes, it’s wonderful to embrace my hoseleh tendencies. And sometimes, I’m actually just overcomplicating things and robbing myself of joy. Every trait has a head and a tail. To wit: a story about a wreath.
I want an autumn wreath on my front door. I like silly little seasonal decorations, and while I love Halloween, I don’t want the whole season to be just about that. When I walk through my neighbourhood, I see other people’s fancy pinecone and bauble wreaths, with sprigs of wheat braided around tiny gourds, and I think “yes, that is what I want.”
The only way I could conceive of acquiring a wreath for my door was by making it myself, from scratch. I have Googled wire wreath frames (cheap and easy to buy from crafting shops) and image-searched other people’s wreaths for inspiration. I have mapped out in my mind what seasonal items my ideal wreath might include. Some leaves and dried flowers, certainly. Maybe some twigs, or those artificial red berries that look like they’re lightly frosted, although those are a bit more wintery. Definitely no ribbons, and probably no decorative gourds. I have enough of those inside the house. The colour scheme has to be autumnally riotous. I know some people think that an all-grey palette is classy or something, but stuff like this gets a hard no from me.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about making the wreath. This has gone on for a couple of years now. Autumn comes and goes, and I map out the wreath, but never find time to make it. The fall is an extremely busy and emotionally intense season for our family. There’s TIFF, the start of the school year, Thanksgiving, my mom’s birthday (which I still mark with a nice little dinner and a cake she’d have loved), our family’s Slava, Halloween (and its many associated events, from kid-friendly haunted houses, to scary movie screenings at our local cinema, to a family trip to Elora, Ontario for their “Monster Month” celebrations), Colin’s birthday, his father’s birthday (another family member who left us during the last couple of years) and the anniversary of my mom’s death. It’s a LOT. This year, it also includes a week of solo-parenting for me, as Colin’s off to Spain for a week to attend the Sitges film fest with Phil Tippett.
The point is, fall is not a season in which I have time for things like wreath-making. And yet, every time I come home, I look at the front door a bit forlornly and think “I would love this door so much more if a wreath was hanging from it.”
A couple of days ago I went shopping with my family. Usually, groceries are a solo errand for me, but this time it was a whole team effort. Chaotic, inefficient, but mostly fun. My kid wanted to show me some spooky plastic pumpkins he found in a seasonal-stuff aisle of the supermarket. We passed a whole display of wreaths, ranging from plain to over-the-top (one had a whole-ass owl perched on it) and I sighed to myself and said “I want to make a fall wreath.”
Colin (the sensible one, the neurotypical one, the problem solver) looked at me and said, “just buy one.”
I looked at him. I looked at the wreaths. This possibility hadn’t occurred to me. I was amazed.
And so, I bought one.
Did Colin know how revolutionary his suggestion was? How unexpected, how far outside the box? Of course not. Because he doesn’t have a debilitating need for complexity that makes him blind to the simple options.
I’m so happy every time I look at the wreath on my door. I’m learning how not to overcomplicate things that don’t require it, but believe me, it is very hard.