The Turkey Truth No One Wants to Sit With.
Unleashed Opinion Vol.10 Thanksgiving Edition
Day four of being fully sober for the first time in 20 years,
and somehow, I ended up on a farm sanctuary in Poughquag, New York, watching four lady turkeys demolish a pumpkin like it was the last good thing on earth. I didn’t plan that. I just needed something wholesome to hold on to today, something soft, something breathing.
The sanctuary was buzzing, pumpkins cracking open under big pig teeth. Male turkey’s gobbling at the perfect time like they understood the assignment. A hundred people showed up just to witness animals being alive, being safe, being treated like their lives actually mattered.
And then Bill, one half of the husband-and-wife team that runs that place, told this story about four baby turkeys who once sat quietly in a square around a circle of Girl Scouts as they made a pledge to respect animals. He said, “I don’t think the turkeys understood the words, but I think they understood the energy.”
Tell me why that hit me harder than anything I’ve heard all week, because the truth I keep circling is this. We act like turkeys are furniture, objects, tradition on a platter. Meanwhile, 46 million of them are killed every year just so we can perform a holiday that lasts, what, two hours? If you think too hard about it, it’s sickening. If you feel too much about it, it’s heartbreaking.
Standing there today, sober, present, fully in my skin, I realized something simple. Animals understand more than we give them credit for, and humans understand less than we pretend.
I’m not here to preach, eat how you eat, live how you live. But after today, I just want to remind people that turkeys aren’t decorations. They aren’t tradition. They’re animals with personalities, intuition, energy, and a life expectancy we don’t even know because we never let them live it.
Sometimes sobriety isn’t about avoiding the hard stuff. Sometimes it’s about letting yourself stand in a place full of living things and remembering you’re one of them.
Xoxoxo,
Outtamydamnmind
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BTW, congratulations!
thanksgiving table set . . & my young nephew sitting next to me - & I sez " we cooked BIG BIRD"
OH MY!