Re//Starting

Hello, or welcome back. This represents my third attempt at blogging, if you count my middle school xanga (I do) and the short lived thatgayshit.com (RIP, but it was time for a rebrand.) ((Also you do want to imagine the type of SEO that was getting)). I've written a short "About" page with some rationale for why I am re(starting) this effort now and what I hope to get out of it. Thanks for being here, with me, in my attempt to muddle through language and thought.

As mentioned in the "About" page, I expect many posts to be inspired by the prompts provided in the substack Writer-ish with Darien Gee. The below is one such example; when I do so I will always link back and credit Darien's post/prompt.

Writer-ish Prompt #189: Write about a tradition.

The strongest traditions in my family revolve around two things: food and lakes. It is no wonder I find comfort in both.

Food in some typical ways, specifically around the Thanksgiving holiday. While my feelings toward the holiday as a whole are more complicated now, there is no denying the power this day has had over my family - a day truly focused on one cumulating, shared experience around a table ladened with familiar foods. My father's gravy and stuffing made from homemade broth; my mother's creamed spinach casserole; multiple kinds of potatoes and pies.

Lakes is maybe slightly less typical but similarly pleasurable in the singular focus on relaxation and joy. August weeks spent in Lake George that morphed into year round escapes to the weekend home on Candlewood Lake. As much time as possible spent on a motorboat, or fishing, or kayaking as a reprieve from the demands of daily life and city or suburbs my family gathered from.

These traditions are beginning to shift once more as my family ages; no longer is there a home big enough for all of us, or on a lake, and our aging bodies collectively require and expect different things. This year will be the first Thanksgiving where, COVID and illnesses aside, we are not all going to be together - and will be doing it in a new place to boot. There will be parts of the tradition still in place for sure, kept aloft by our commitment to sweet potatoes. But more and more we are tasked with deciding what was just inertia to be let go of and what legacy will be kept into the months and years we hope to come.