As a kid, I was a bit of a brat. I protested mightily whenever my mother packed us up for a trip to our nearest relations for Easter or Thanksgiving dinner. It was a two-hour drive; I got carsick; I didn’t see the point. “Someday,” my mother predicted, “you’ll appreciate family traditions.”
She was right of course (and I’ve since given her the satisfaction of telling her so). I appreciate family traditions so much these days that I’m all about making more of both – more family, more traditions.
When I was 17 I took up the family imperative to emigrate. Like my mother’s parents who had moved from Italy to the US; like my father who had left the South as a teenager for New England and then left his marriage for Hawaii; I flew across the country for college in Oregon and never looked back. With my family of origin 3,000 miles away in either direction I had the good fortune to be adopted at the age of 22 by a pack of lesbians.
Friends since college, they’d migrated from Bowling Green, Ohio by way of Corvallis and now gathered several times a year for holidays. Thanksgiving in the Columbia River Gorge. Christmas Eve in town where the original gang poses on the couch for an annual portrait while they belt out the BGSU fight song. Fourth of July on the Nehalem River in the Oregon Coast Range.
Over the years this extended community has celebrated each other’s birthdays and anniversaries (35 years for the longest-standing couple), and mourned each other’s losses. And the family keeps expanding, with kids and new partners, new friends.
She was right of course (and I’ve since given her the satisfaction of telling her so). I appreciate family traditions so much these days that I’m all about making more of both – more family, more traditions.
When I was 17 I took up the family imperative to emigrate. Like my mother’s parents who had moved from Italy to the US; like my father who had left the South as a teenager for New England and then left his marriage for Hawaii; I flew across the country for college in Oregon and never looked back. With my family of origin 3,000 miles away in either direction I had the good fortune to be adopted at the age of 22 by a pack of lesbians.
Friends since college, they’d migrated from Bowling Green, Ohio by way of Corvallis and now gathered several times a year for holidays. Thanksgiving in the Columbia River Gorge. Christmas Eve in town where the original gang poses on the couch for an annual portrait while they belt out the BGSU fight song. Fourth of July on the Nehalem River in the Oregon Coast Range.
Over the years this extended community has celebrated each other’s birthdays and anniversaries (35 years for the longest-standing couple), and mourned each other’s losses. And the family keeps expanding, with kids and new partners, new friends.
I’ve come to inherit a tradition established by the host of our Fourth of July campout. Years ago she found the perfect Fairy Log in the wooded acres above the main camp. Covered in moss and surrounded by wildflowers, the log invites the imagination of the kids who trek to visit it. As they crest the hill, shafts of sunlight illuminating the log, they discover what mischief the fairies have been up to. A bottle cap from our kitchen, little bits of food, agates from the river below – it’s clear the fairies have been amongst us.
Being the keeper of the Fairy Log gives me an excuse for a quiet solo walk in the woods away from the boisterous camaraderie of the firepit and swimming hole. As I made my way to it this year, pockets full of secret fairy loot, I started out on the wrong trail. But I didn’t worry. I had faith that all paths would lead to the Fairy Log. Sure enough, after a few meanderings I saw those rays of sunlight like nature’s neon sign flashing on my destination. A little critter – a chipmunk or a squirrel – hopped off the log as I approached. Two orange butterflies danced around me. A snail inched its way across the trail. I almost expected Bambi and Thumper to show up.
And the next day the kids’ anticipation and the look on their faces as they came upon the log made me fall in love with tradition all over again.
Being the keeper of the Fairy Log gives me an excuse for a quiet solo walk in the woods away from the boisterous camaraderie of the firepit and swimming hole. As I made my way to it this year, pockets full of secret fairy loot, I started out on the wrong trail. But I didn’t worry. I had faith that all paths would lead to the Fairy Log. Sure enough, after a few meanderings I saw those rays of sunlight like nature’s neon sign flashing on my destination. A little critter – a chipmunk or a squirrel – hopped off the log as I approached. Two orange butterflies danced around me. A snail inched its way across the trail. I almost expected Bambi and Thumper to show up.
And the next day the kids’ anticipation and the look on their faces as they came upon the log made me fall in love with tradition all over again.
A Fairy Song
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
~ William Shakespeare
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
~ William Shakespeare
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