Gratitude and guilt: A reflection on retreating to rural life over Thanksgiving break

The flutter of a wing scored the morning scene as the barn swallows soared beneath wooden beams. Sunlight slipped through the gaps of the crooked barn paneling as the swallows sang their final song before migrating southeast.

The barn swallow’s flight is an inevitable change, a whispered farewell to life as it knows it. Watching the bird, I couldn’t help but see myself traverse beyond the foxtail meadows of the farm. I will never forget the final glint of sun that pierced the car window as my family drove me to the airport. Winneconne, a quaint fishing village tucked away in northeast Wisconsin, would now be the place where I returned during breaks from school. As Thanksgiving approaches along with the time to retreat back to rural life, I cannot help but feel deeply grateful for my memories of rural life, yet guilt for choosing to leave it in the rearview mirror.

My decision to attend university out east was my own, but it has not come without doubt. I recall some members of my community and high school questioning my choice with wide yet concerned smiles. The prospect of trading my rural roots for academic aspirations caught me between a suspending balance of gratitude and guilt.

Thanksgiving, in particular, makes these emotions potent. A season in the name of giving thanks, of sitting at scuffed card tables surrounded by family and the candle-lit familiar. My gratitude is imbued with guilt as I realized how much of this table I am preparing to leave after just a few short days at home. In a blink of an eye: one nap in the backyard hammock, one catchup dinner with friends at the local Mexican restaurant, one family game of Scattergories, one forest stroll along mudded deer tracks, and then I’ll wake up on a plane landing in Newark, half-listening for the train stops, sitting on my dorm bed, plagued by how rapid time is slipping through my fingertips.

Beyond gratitude, Thanksgiving is about growth — a harvest to share what has been sown. I believe my growth is found in remembering. My love for nature, the farm, and writing has been cultivated in Winneconne. After morning chores, my adolescent self would sprint up to the hay loft to write mystery stories using a hay bale as my writer’s desk — penning characters whose names I cannot remember, narratives riddled with plot holes and crooked story arcs. These days the mystery on my mind is how guilt laces with gratitude. I suppose it isn’t singular or static; my gratitude is a multifaceted emotion tied to the memories of a place that bridges the past and present. It migrates between these two states of time — just as the barn swallows fatefully journey between seasons.

This realization has brought me pieces of peace. Leaving is not abandoning. Traditions evolve, like Thanksgiving itself, which thrives on challenging histories to shape present perspectives. Calls, visits during breaks, naps in sun-faded hammocks, catch-ups with friends, all have become guilt’s remedy; I now have become grateful for the remedies themselves.

There is a saying on the farm that if the barn swallows do not return to perch, the farm will have an unfruitful harvest. As I pack the car, I think of the barn swallows again and how they not only leave but also return. Their departures are not of permanence — but chances to embrace the transitional horizons. The swallows always return at the proper time to the place where their songs echo between cattle stalls.

This Thanksgiving, I give thanks for the roots that ground me and the gusts of winds and choices that have led me to Princeton. Though the fields blur in the rearview mirror, the car kicking up dust of the gravel on the way to the airport, my rural life’s imprints on myself remain clear. I will always carry its sentiments — an idiosyncratic balance of gratitude and guilt that is remembered as one emotional entity.