"Thanksgiving Distilled ..."

... into this simple scene:

A little girl is sitting at the kitchen table, watching her father closely as he sets about carving the holiday turkey.  She is mesmerized by the entire process, which begins with him sharpening a long slender knife against what she has learned is called a “whetstone”. She wonders if that word has anything to do with whetting an appetite; she recently learned that word too.  Her father does the sharpening with a flourish, then puts the stone aside.  Holding the knife in his right hand and taking a giant fork in his left, he contemplates the turkey, beautifully roasted, because that’s how her mother does it … almost a shame to take it apart. 

His meditation over, her father begins the carving process.  Not quite like Michelangelo, who carved marble to release the form he knew was hidden within, a subtraction that become an amplification, a completion ... but her father works with the same sense of respect towards his material as he reduces the turkey to its parts, no longer a whole.  Wielding knife and fork in perfectly choreographed movements, he peels the crisp skin away from the plump breast, and begins disjointing the legs, the wings.  These limbs he places carefully onto a fancy platter. 

The little girl is filled with anticipation, because she knows what comes next: her father will turn the solid rise of white breast meat into slices as thin as the handkerchiefs that her mother has recently taught her how to iron.  Each newly liberated slice draped delicately across his knife is gently placed onto another fancy platter.  Inevitably, some shards of turkey meat will fall; not worth putting on the platter.

And here is the part that the little girl has waited for and will forever remember.  Keeping her gaze fixed on her father’s face, she inches her hand across the table’s surface towards his turkey-carving work site ... picking up one or two shards, sneaking back for one or two more.  She nibbles, as her father pretends to ignore her, though he is careful to keep the carving knife away from her hand. 

This silent communion becomes a Thanksgiving ritual that continues for six decades, until her father carves his last turkey, not long before his death.  He keeps his graceful artistry, the little girl keeps her surreptitious joy.  He and she will always, in some way, remain as they are today.