Jeremy's Iron

Thanksgiving was a strange bird.

I spent it away from my family for only the second time ever really. Neither time even moderately approximated a traditional Renz/Baumgarten evening. The first time I was shitfaced, nearly falling off a triangular abutment of one of the Ponte Vecchio's less famous and consequently less tourist-choked cousins. There's a lot to be said for a holiday spent drowning in 49 cent table wine and Florentine lasagna.

Last night it was cases of 49 dollar wine with the family of a roommate of a girlfriend, traditional squash and celery root faire, as cooked up by an expatriate Martha Stewart in Shannon's half-unpacked house. The house is not yet broken in and it lacks some essential cooking accoutrements, so the most elaborate and gourmet Thanksgiving meal I've ever eaten came to be known as a "camping holiday" by most of the people eating it. Other-worldly.

The Coldiron matriarch was marthaesque for her food, chosen as much for color aesthetics as for taste, certainly, but also for the effortlessness of the preparation. All dolled-up with a kerchief, she cooked a dozen-odd dishes without having to re-apply her foundation. A fitting mother-figure for this diasporic human American family, these world travelers, these epicures, these anachronisms--this clan of hairless apes, unlike any creatures I've ever encountered.

The rest of the clan displayed similar surface perfection--the underside being perfect as well for all I know--with his or her own little thing that made he or she eminently unique in exactly the way you'd expect them to be.

Little sis is a history major who studies the barbarian invasions as rigorously as she studies the Nick and Jessica debacle. Her boyfriend sails. As in, he's a sailor, on a team of persons who also sail. Presumably, he does so in regattas--but not anymore, because of a falling out with the coach over the direction of the club. Drive.

Shannon's roommate, the Russian Literature major, whilst ruminating about this or that movement in classical music or modern theater, would drop a staccato expression of what I would eventually realize was French. By the time I'd realized what language she was using, everyone would be wiping tears from their eyes. She played rugby at Dartmouth.

Jesus, these people are smart, I thought, feeling like I'd met a whole group of intellectual superiors.

Lisa: Hi, Alison, I'm Lisa Simpson. Oh, it's great to finally meet someone who converses above the normal eight-year-old level.
Alison: Actually, I'm seven. I was just skipped ahead because I was getting bored with the first grade.
Lisa: You're younger than me too? [look worried, starts breathing into her paper lunch bag]
Alison: Are you hyperventilating?
Lisa: No...I just like to smell my lunch.

Thankfully they left their trophies at home.

In the mode of a Jane Austen heroine, which is how I felt, I'll say this: the conversating was of a perfectly splendid variety. They were neither vainglorious nor needlessly self-effacing. They did what they did with a complete lack of self-consciousness or arrogance. In short, despite feeling hopelessly lost and knowing not a fraction of that which they spoke on at length, I liked them. I felt like a goddamned debutante.

The matriarch told stories of hamlet-hopping through Europe, conversations and photo ops with Belgian transsexuals; Her daughter talked of the social disappointment that is modern Egypt and Mubarack's cult of personality. Not simply textbook lernin', these people had seen some shit, but also interacted with that shit. Such was their life that these were just things that happened; these were just things they knew.

When I realized that, I realized also that it wasn't an issue of brute intelligence, it was an issue of intense worldliness and the dogged pursuit of an intellectual life. Her father consumes literature gluttonously and watches Kurusawa films for their portrayals of Asian military tactics. Of his own Thanksgiving tactics, he confided, "when they're in the kitchen, you learn to stay out of the way." As Sun Tzu said, know the enemy and know yourself.

Of my own reaction to them, I'll say this: I don't think it's class-envy, it's admiration for the desire to understand and interact with the world around you, something I don't often see in America anymore (how's that for liberal arrogance). It's something I rarely see in myself--something I recognize as a tragic shortcoming.

With that also comes the mitigating realization that it's the kind of thing that requires a shitcan of experience bankrolled by a shitcan of money, and thus it's something totally foreign to even worldly old me. It's the bevy of world-learnedness I can only hope for my children to have, if I ever get off my ass and get a job or more book-lernin'.

***

After dinner, with everyone stuffed on pumpkin tarts, marzipan and hand-injected chocolate-covered cherries. The patriarch sat us down for a round of celebrity anagrams.

"Alec Guinness," He began.

Instinctively I returned: "Genuine Class."