This Morning, I'm Warming My Heart, Mind, & Soul, with Thanks to Many, especially @easms for Gifting Me with Maple Toddy Black Tea from @TheCulturedCup

Last night, my house smelled like smoky peppercorns, salt, sugar, orange peel, and herbs as I prepped the turkey brine (btw, that's how they said my name in Kentucky). Inhaling this smell accompanied a crisp day and it acted as a reminder that this morning would be a day for giving thanks. 

I awoke, and said, "Okay, Crandall. Check out the tea diffuser you bought so you can finally taste the maple, toddy-black tea Ellen Shelton sent from the University of Mississippi." 

This was a gift mailed after I slid into year 50 with a hernia, stabbed eye, Covid, snapped ankle, and an eight inch wound on the back of my head. I fell out of a bathtub right before presenting with her (and several other brilliant mentors) at NCTEAR. This deliciousness comes from The Cultured Cup, and I must admit, it is as aromatic as last night's brine (what? did you call me?). I'm an upstate NY kid, so maple is one of my favorite flavors, and anything having to do with Toddy...well. That's easy. (Hmmm....actually, if I brew more of this and mix with bourbon and a little sugar, I think I might have a new evening cocktail).

And soon...around 4.5 hours after it gets in the oven, my house will smell like the once-a-year Mt. Pleasant turkey (no, not my armpits. Brine, you stink). 

I've only lost myself twice in front of students (and an additional time during my dissertation defense). Like Wendy Kohli, a philosopher who I worked with when I first started at Fairfield, I sometimes inform people I'm a leaker when I have to talk about what is beautiful. The work is never easy, and when someone cares to ask why you do what you do (which is rare), the emotions come quickly. When I told my students I was leaving the Brown School in 2007 (yes, right after Harold & Maude...there's something wrong with me), I couldn't get the words out. All my years at that school poured out of me as I did - the passion, the history, the love, the difficulties, and the joy of what is possible when someone envisions a great school. I was a sobbing mess.

At my dissertation event, when a reviewer asked a question about why this subject, these boys, and my ability to represent their voices, I turned my head and regrouped, because the tears came quickly. "If the world was an equitable, fair, and kind place," I said. "I wouldn't have to defend their literacies and greatness...they'd be here to do it for themselves."

Then Tuesday night, after a week with NCTE, my YA lit course happened to be an evening where everyone read books that featured immigrant and/or refugee stories. 

I learned from Penguin Random House that a new YA biography is coming out about a woman who is an unmet hero of mine, Luma Mufleh, and as I worked with refugee communities in Syracuse, another text written about her by Warren St. John, became a textbook of sorts. Luma Mufleh amazes me - her drive is unmatched. When I shared that all this work is in memory of James A'kech Mungui from Louisville, a Sudanese man who was murdered in the U.S. after all those years he survived the war in his own country as a child, and I alluded to the NYTimes article From Hell to Fargo, which began my desire to volunteer with relocated refugee "Lost Boys," and shared how I used to teach a movie where Ger Duany played a coincidence, then vetted a book for Penguin Random House, only to be asked to write an educator's guide for them with Abu Bility years later, then hosted him at my house with Jessica and William right after the grasp of Covid....

Well, the slide that came next with pictures of some of the young men from Syracuse who quickly became parts of my life as teenage readers and writers, and who are now, well, men with careers, I lost myself. I choked up. I couldn't get words out. 

Coincidence. 

And I knew that Abu & Lossine were going to drop into the ZOOM and tell their story, which they did, and then they shared all the books I've given them over the years, and how they have them in their own classrooms (both are teaching at Syracuse Academy of Science now)....well, you can understand. If you can't understand, I highly recommend you look into global history, the brutality of imperialism and post-colonialism in African nations, and the conditions many, many people live with in refugee camps there, and all around the world.

This summer, too, will be the 10th year of Ubuntu Academy - and we can approximate the program has served almost 300 immigrant and refugee youth since 2014. It's a lot.

But I'm thankful. Why? Because all I've invested into this work, is because so, so, so many have invested in me...including Ellen Shelton and everyone in the National Writing Program. It's the students I taught in room 301 on the 1st and Muhammad Ali, the brilliance of my own educators (especially Carole Boyce Davies), the endless investments of Sue McV, the wonderful colleagues across the nation who I read, listen to, study, and admire, and my friends who have always found a way to keep me laughing, enjoying life, and remembering the important stuff. 

And then there's family....Mimi Sue, Papi Butch, the older sister and the younger one, their families, my cousins, aunts, and uncles....all the dogs of today and yesterday, the niece and the nephews, & the boys who have folded into our lives seamlessly, with love & humor, and incredible achievements that simply are hard to believe. 

It's hard not to be thankful (especially since I'm drinking this delicious tea, Ellen). And I know this day comes with controversy and I remain thankful to those who bring forward the multiple truths that they know (and that question those single stories). 

A day of thanks is healthy. And nothing feels better than appreciating those we love.