Hello blog, and happy Wednesday!
Today I’m writing you from Marion, Iowa, zip code 52302, where I am home for the holiday!
On Monday night, my friend Emma and I pulled an all-nighter watching Anne of Avonlea, the four hour second installation in the 1985 Anne of Green Gables miniseries. At 3AM, we took an Uber to Logan Airport in Boston where Emma flew home to Detroit and I flew into O’Hare in Chicago and spent the day hanging out with my cousins until my dad could pick me up and bring me home to Iowa. As I write this, I’m sitting on the couch with my dad watching The Muppet Show.
At the airport with Emma!
It feels sort of weird to have a short break from school; last year we were only able to go home for the break between semesters and for summer vacation, so visiting home for a few days instead of two months is kind of crazy.
Before I get into my plans for tomorrow, I’d like to share Wellesley’s official land acknowledgment:
We acknowledge that Wellesley College is built on ancestral and traditional land of the Massachusett people. We also recognize that the United States’ removal, termination, and assimilation policies and practices resulted in the forced settlement of Indigenous lands and the attempted erasure of Indigenous cultures and languages. We further acknowledge the oppression, injustices, and discrimination that Indigenous people have endured and that there is much work to be done on the important journey to reconciliation. We commit to strengthen our understanding of the history and contemporary lives of Indigenous peoples and to steward this land.
We further recognize the many Indigenous people living here today—including the Massachusett, Wampanoag, and Nipmuc nations—who have rich ancestral histories in Wellesley and its surrounding communities. Today, their descendants remind us that they are still here, where they maintain a vital and visible presence. We honor and respect the enduring relationship between these peoples and this land, as well as the strength of Indigenous culture and knowledge, the continued existence of tribal sovereignty, and the principle of tribal self-determination.
While tomorrow might be a day of gratitude for many of our families, for many others it is a Day of Mourning, and it’s important to take some time to think and learn about those communities and their oppression while we’re giving thanks with the ones we love.
For my family, tomorrow will be our biggest Thanksgiving gathering on record, with twenty-two people expected to turn out to my grandparents’ for dinner tomorrow afternoon, including my Grandma Terry from the other side of my family. I’m really excited to see everyone; it’ll be the first time a lot of us have been together since 2019. My family is the most important thing in the world to me, and while I will be missing the members who won’t be able to gather with us this year- my nephew Leo in the header image most of all, who started babbling for the first time after I left for school in August- I’ll be so glad to see everyone who does make it tomorrow.
I hope you’re all feeling ready to head into the holiday season, and that you take some time this weekend to reflect on the most beautiful and wonderful parts of your life. It’s supposed to be a beautiful day tomorrow here in Iowa, and I hope there’s sunshine wherever you are, too.
Sending you joy,
Andrew