The Border, Before the Feast
A quiet Thanksgiving ritual on a frozen river between two countries.
We start before sunrise,
where Vermont and New Hampshire shake hands
over the Connecticut River…
a thin blue ribbon stiffening into ice,
breath hardening in the November dark.
The world is half awake.
Pink gray light gathers over the water,
frost clings to the banks like a secret.
Our skis score the first lines of the day,
honest, deliberate, unhurried.
This is the new tradition.
Not malls, not traffic, not timers on ovens…
but going north.
Letting the river draw the route,
letting the cold strip everything to truth.
The first miles are silent
except for the soft shhhh-shhhh-shhhh
of skis working through early snow…
a sound older than any holiday,
steadier than most prayers.
Barns flare red against the morning.
A deer raises its head in the field.
Snowmobiles haven’t carved their claims yet.
It feels like we borrowed the whole world
before anyone else woke to want it.
By noon the border appears…
not as a line, but as a shift.
Air growing sharper,
river narrowing to a disciplined thread,
trees standing like witnesses
to two countries sharing the same cold.
We stop just shy of Quebec
and pour coffee from a dented thermos.
Steam rises like a white flag of peace,
our gloves stiff, our cheeks burning.
Up here the world speaks plainly.
And it comes to us…
this is Thanksgiving too.
Not the table, not the scripted plates,
but the decision to move toward something
that demands presence over noise,
effort over ease,
clarity over comfort.
On the ski back south,
the low sun spills gold through bare branches,
turning them into cathedral ribs.
Our shadows stretch long and thin,
racing us down the banks.
Tomorrow someone will ask,
“Why ski a river instead of watch a parade?”
We’ll shrug, smile… “It felt like the right direction.”
But the truth is simpler
and harder to speak…
Up here, with nothing but river and breath and miles,
gratitude becomes real again.
Up here, we return home
carrying the kind of quiet
that makes us better to the people waiting there.
Maybe that’s all a tradition ever needs to be.
-Joe Garvey