Texting My Way Through Thanksgiving
it’s not just for the pumpkin pie—it’s for the dozens of relatives I now text
I first started writing in 2016—fun stories about the bands I used to play in and the record store I used to co-own. After I published a couple of small pieces, I grew more comfortable writing about more personal topics, and although I hadn’t yet shared any of those pieces, I was deep into stories about my father and my racial background—both topics I generally tried to avoid.
When I did 23andMe in early 2018, the walls came down. That led to the discovery of my paternal family tree, which led me to one enslaved man, Isaac Ayers, born in Alabama around 1824. That’s the short version; there’s a whole book about the long version. :) Wanting to share my story and hopefully connect with more people, I pitched NPR’s Code Switch, who, to my surprise, agreed to work with me. It took months of hard work and frustrating pauses (which my editor warned me about). I couldn’t wait to get the story out, and by October 2018, we were finally ready. The story was done, scheduled to run in late October.
Then I got an email from my editor: “I know I said October, but we’d like to move it to Thanksgiving—the most family of holidays—where we can give it a lot of attention.” Of course I agreed. NPR’s push on social media brought a ton of eyes to the piece, including some belonging to my first cousin and my aunt, whom I’d never been in touch with.
Things grew from there. More connections surfaced, and now that there’s a book, it keeps happening.
Seven years later, I just had lunch in LA with cousins who aren’t really “new” anymore. Last week I spent time with my new sister (also not so new) in London, playing games with her one-year-old daughter—my new niece. The number of family members I now text “Happy Thanksgiving” is truly daunting, something I never imagined as someone who grew up alone with my mother.
So on Thanksgiving, as much as I love stuffing and pumpkin pie, what I really look forward to is texting all these people. My favorite part is that there are actually too many to remember. More every year.
Here’s to another year of celebrating—and collecting—family, whatever that means to you.
—Nabil
When I was a kid, my mother and I lived in Cambridge, Mass while she went to Bunker Hill Community College. We’d moved up from New York because my uncle Alan was studying at Berklee. My mom worked part-time at Harvard’s Widener Library, which somehow got me a scholarship to the Radcliffe preschool next door.
We left when I was five, and I’ve barely spent any time in Boston since—just a few quick tour stops over the years. I recently spent a couple of days in Boston speaking to students at both Harvard and Berklee, and I’m here to report that there’s no need to worry about Gen Z. Everything is fine. Those kids are smart, kind, motivated, hard working, creative, musical, and ready to take our jobs.
One of my favorite Identified episodes yet is this week’s with Massima Bell on her journey growing up between rural Iowa and urban cities, discovering her gender identity, and navigating family relationships.
My memoir is called My Life in the Sunshine. You can order it here, or listen to the audiobook on Spotify.