Ear­li­er this week, a friend asked what I’d be doing on Thurs­day. When I blinked dumb­ly at her for a few beats, she prompt­ed, “You know – for Thanksgiving!”

Oh. Right…

Grow­ing up in a frac­tured fam­i­ly of three insu­lar peo­ple far more com­fort­able with books and work than each oth­er, “the hol­i­days” don’t res­onate for me. I’m not down with the his­to­ry behind Thanks­giv­ing. I’m not a Chris­t­ian, and Bear the Boat Cat isn’t worked up about presents and pageantry. One of my favorite Christ­mases was the one I spent alone in a Cal­i­forn­ian apart­ment, dog-sit­ting for the man­ag­er of the Ben & Jerry’s shop that I spare-changed in front of. From about mid-Octo­ber to after the New Year, I’m hap­pi­est to opt out of the cul­tur­al hoopla.

Joel comes from a dif­fer­ent back­ground. His fam­i­ly tree has many branch­es – sib­lings, cousins, part­ners – and hol­i­days are an oppor­tu­ni­ty for bring­ing every­one togeth­er. They make big meals, play games, go on walks, get loud and laugh a lot and gen­er­al­ly show how com­plete­ly engaged they are with one anoth­er. Eight years in, I still feel like I’m par­tic­i­pant-observ­ing anoth­er species. (A gen­er­ous, lov­ing species that’s been noth­ing but wel­com­ing to me.) True to my Aad­sen roots, I get a lit­tle anx­ious as soon as there aren’t any dish­es to wash or oth­er tasks for me to fuss with. My social skills gen­er­al­ly run out while the fes­tiv­i­ties are still going strong.

(True con­fes­sion: I’m hid­ing in his aunt’s room right now. Slipped away as soon as the crab dip was gone. This is one of the rea­sons I’m so thank­ful to have weaseled my way into Cap’n J’s fam­i­ly: not only do they know I snuck away to write, it’s okay. Amaz­ing, the tol­er­ance these folks have.)

This all sounds bad, but I’m not a total Grinch. I believe in grat­i­tude. That’s why I cel­e­brate Thanks­giv­ing in September.

*****

Fishermen’s Thanks­giv­ing began in Sep­tem­ber 2010. The salmon sea­son had end­ed, and the Sadaqa was mak­ing the run south with anoth­er troller. Mid­way down the Cana­di­an Inside Pas­sage, they tied up togeth­er in Bish­op Bay Hot Springs. Mar­lin cooked a chick­en and Stove­top stuff­ing, opened a can of cran­ber­ry sauce, and offered thanks for the season’s harvest.

Joel and I got in on this tra­di­tion the fol­low­ing year. With both the Sadaqa and the Ner­ka spend­ing the win­ter in Sit­ka, we had seri­ous chores to do before any­one could hop on a plane and ditch our boats for six months. But in the midst of all that fren­zy, we agreed: there was time for Thanksgiving.

Though small­er, the Ner­ka was in slight­ly less dis­ar­ray than the Sadaqa. So at 6:00, down the dock marched our friends – Mar­lin, Ross, and Mikey – push­ing a ful­ly-loaded cart. They hand­ed over one deli­cious-smelling pan after anoth­er; I strug­gled to wedge every­thing into our tiny gal­ley. Mar­lin roast­ed a chick­en, onions and pota­toes in a cast iron skil­let. I made mashed sweet pota­toes and squash, and a piece of salmon for the non-bird eater among us. In addi­tion to a five-gal­lon buck­et full of Black Butte Porters, Mar­lin brought a fan­cy gin­ger ale for me. Mark­ing a long, chal­leng­ing sea­son with joy­ous reflec­tion, we basked in the glow of grat­i­tude for plen­ti­ful salmon, good weath­er, well-behaved boats, durable bod­ies, and beloved friends.

I cred­it Mar­lin with insti­tut­ing Fishermen’s Thanks­giv­ing as a tra­di­tion. One of his deck­hands, Mikey, has attend­ed all three years. In a bit of serendip­i­tous tim­ing, he called just as I began writ­ing this piece. When I asked if there was any­thing he want­ed to say about our tra­di­tion, Mikey didn’t hesitate.

“Fishermen’s Thanks­giv­ing ruins reg­u­lar Thanks­giv­ing – or ‘Low­er 48 Thanks­giv­ing,’ as I call it. It hadn’t been a super-com­mer­cial hol­i­day until pret­ty recent­ly, but peo­ple are pro­mot­ing the Black Fri­day thing now to the point that it’s fuck­ing stu­pid, right? And hav­ing that mess sit­ting right next to ‘Here are my good friends, being thank­ful for the sea­son we all just shared, made some mon­ey, had some good times’ cre­ates a pret­ty stark dichoto­my. Basi­cal­ly, reg­u­lar Thanks­giv­ing kin­da sucks after you’ve had Fishermen’s Thanksgiving.”

*****

My Novem­ber Thanks­giv­ing did not suck.

It involved a ridicu­lous abun­dance of good food, shared in a warm house, among lov­ing fam­i­ly. When we couldn’t eat anoth­er bite, we put the left­overs in the refrig­er­a­tor and scrubbed the dish­es with seem­ing­ly end­less clean hot water. All of us are rea­son­ably healthy and able-bod­ied – even the 93 year old – and hold sim­i­lar social jus­tice ethos. Each plate includ­ed a book­mark with this quote from civ­il rights leader Howard Thur­man, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go out and do it. Because what the world needs is peo­ple who have come alive.”

It was a good day.

And because it was a good day, I felt like that much more of a jerk. Mikey’s analy­sis of the two hol­i­days rang absolute­ly true for me. This arbi­trary autumn Thurs­day didn’t car­ry the pro­found sea­son­al punc­tu­a­tion our Sep­tem­ber gath­er­ing had. When Joel and I drove home tonight, we talked about why that was.

“This feels ran­dom,” he said. “That’s not to say that I’m not thank­ful for this time with my fam­i­ly, because I am. But in Sep­tem­ber, we’re actu­al­ly mark­ing a sea­son­al tran­si­tion. There’s some­thing spe­cif­ic on the line: we’re giv­ing thanks for a safe har­vest and a fin­ished sea­son, with friends who are our fam­i­ly, who we’ve just shared these intense months with, and now we won’t see much — if at all — until next sum­mer. We’re mark­ing the end of one side of our life and mov­ing into the oth­er. Thanks­giv­ing in Alas­ka just has big­ger mean­ing ground­ed in place and time.”

Maybe that’s what it is. Novem­ber Thanks­giv­ing pro­vides a day to enjoy fam­i­ly we oth­er­wise rarely see – but for me, it could be any day. Fishermen’s Thanks­giv­ing car­ries the weight of inten­tion­al change. We rec­og­nize what’s been with grat­i­tude, while invit­ing what’s next with open­ness. As chal­leng­ing as sea­son­al liveli­hood is, it presents a rare gift of reflec­tion. Delib­er­ate demar­ca­tions of life.

Still, I know both Joel and I will be thank­ful tomor­row morn­ing for left­over pie.

Despite what may come across as a cur­mud­geon­ly atti­tude, friends, I hope you had a love­ly day, wher­ev­er and how­ev­er you spent it. You’re in my best, most appre­cia­tive thoughts, no mat­ter what the season.