Giving Thanks in a Messy World

Being November, the possible blog themes this month were Gratitude, along with Autumn, National Novel Writing Month, and Thanksgiving Day. When I chose Gratitude, I realized what a paradox it was at this time in history. Yes, I’m grateful for a lot of things. I have a wonderful family, a nice house, work I love to do. I write books, which means I can live part of my life in a fantasy world, creating stories, mostly crime fiction and suspense. I thought more deeply about the subject, and I knew this blog post would be serious and sad and a reminder of how blessed I really am and how blessed many who will read this are.

There’s a whole messy world outside my little office in my warm house, where plenty of food fills the refrigerator. I grew up in a different time. An innocent time. My parents worked in the shoe factories in a city in Massachusetts famous for making shoes.

The public commons were shaped like the toe and heel of a shoe, factories were everywhere, and there was plenty of work. It was hard work. I spent the summer between my last year of high school and first year of college working in the factory, along with a few friends. It was enough to make me know that was not where I wanted to spend my life. I had new respect for those who worked there to put food on the table, my mother included.

I went to a state college to study art. My tuition was $200 A YEAR. I commuted thirty miles a day, so I didn’t have to pay for room and board. That amount adjusted for inflation would be $1625 today, but tuition plus art supplies and books at the same college in 2015 totals $14,000. That doesn’t include living expenses. And that’s a bargain these days. So I’m very grateful I could afford college back then, which I worked through school to pay for, by the way. Those who want to go to college now and can’t afford the tuition take out loans they pay back for years, or they don’t go. That means college has become something only the well-to-do can afford, and unless something changes, that doesn’t bode well for the country.

Then comes the messy world—the world with kids who can’t even dream of college because all they want is a roof over their heads and a regular meal. Maybe it’s this week in particular that has me writing about how grateful I really am when I read and see the tens of thousands fleeing their homelands under siege to find a safe haven, and risking their lives and the lives of their children to do so.

Or the hundreds more killed by bombs set off by madmen for the sake of―you know, I really don’t know why. Religion? Power? Hatred? Romance? Adventure?

I’m grateful I don’t live there and feel selfish for the thought and sick at heart for those who do. I feel grateful for what I have, yet it’s an empty feeling somehow knowing that others are living in such dire poverty and fear and need, with no hope of getting out of the vortex pulling them down.

I’ve never been a person who prayed much, but this Thanksgiving, I’ll make a point of saying a prayer to whatever gods might be listening for this messy world to become neater, and that no child, no vet, no person should go hungry anywhere. It so happens that what’s going on in a world far away is material for my current work in progress that has a Middle East theme. Now, I need to make it mean something in my story.

Painting by Norman Rockwell
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, or maybe I should say, Happy Give Thanks Day.

Polly Iyer is the author of seven novels: standalones Hooked, InSight, Murder Déjà Vu, Threads, and three books in the Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series, Mind Games, Goddess of the Moon, and Backlash. A Massachusetts native, she makes her home in the beautiful Piedmont region of South Carolina. You can visit her website for more on Polly and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.