BRAVERY or: How the pandemic killed traditions

So, I suppose we are speaking again.

Hello.

As of now, the world at large is on the other side of the traditional English holiday season, and there has been a lot of surging emotions when it comes to what we had to sacrifice in order to maintain a safe and healthy(ish) life during that window. It is complicated, yet many of us knew that it was the right thing to do. For us all.

The foreign feeling of spending the holidays without some (or all) of the loved ones we normally surround ourselves with, can come and sit on your shoulders like a lead jacket. Does it make it any easier to know that most humans on Earth also had to suspend their patterns and forgo the lovely feeling of seeing their family?

Is it less difficult to cope with misery the wider the breach?

Somewhere within my wallet is my membership to the neurotic, compulsory, and slightly obsessive club.

That mindset simply boils down to a preference. A way of life for me. I will shake a sieve, wait for hours, simmer it down until I find the perfect or remarkable version of that thing, and I will cease wanting it any other way. When a friend or an acquaintance asks me for a recommendation from my list of favorite restaurants in a city, I do not wash over the town and spit out a list of doors to walk through.

No. Rather, I have a list of the best things I’ve had, and it is completely unrelated to the remainder of that establishment's menu. I cannot tell you where the best Diner is, but I will elaborate in excruciating details my experience eating what I firmly believe the best beef dip within a three-hour drive. Do not ask what else they serve. Or bring me with you and expect me to try something different. There is an astounding thing right there, and I’m going to pick that almost every single time.

Remarkably, I still maintain an excitement about adventure. There is a ton of fun to be had walking into a place I have yet to try even once. It feels like an open journey, and I will gladly take that road. However, if it is recommendations you seek, I will give you a thing at a place, not the place itself.

In a sense, this is as close to tradition as my family gets.

We are not religious folks. We do not contemplate the political landscape. We do not even see each other that often. However, when one or two “traditions” we have become obscured or erased it feels … slightly alarming. When it came to waking up on Christmas Day, knowing I wouldn’t see my mum or brother, I fell back into a chair and conceded to the reality that I did not know what to do with my day.

A few days from now, I will not be with my father and his partner, watching sports and trying to out joke one-another – a part of me knows that my step-mother will be slightly happy being able to get through that night’s meal without having to ignore any degenerate quips and disgusting anecdotes from brother, father, or myself – and that is a hard reality to swallow. Our traditions, as they were, feel more important than ever.

Something to cling to, perhaps.

Knowing that I am not in a solitary hell of broken practices – like someone is forcing me to order from the menu, but also informing me that my beloved beef dip is out of stock – is comforting in a way.

To all of you out there, struggling to get through this whole ordeal, you are not alone. Our opportunities to bank on past traditions will return. Alarming as it is, some of us will not have the same faces and folks to return to, and for that, I am deeply, truly, maddeningly apologetic and empathetic.

“Nothing in this book is turning out as I had envisioned it, and there is a veritable mountain of blank pages ahead of me. Ahead for us.”

Part of the last few months included a rising concern that the adventure I had penciled out for myself, for the time being, had been erased.

When I think about La Reine and how much this partnership means to me, I ponder about the traditions I have laid out above. With rampant excitement, I can sense that we will have a plethora of time in the coming years to birth and evolve our own traditions. It’s jazz, and it is enthralling as all hell.

Previously, there has been a delicate comfort in flying by the seat of my pants, one that hasn’t changed all that much. However, I am tremendously cautious these days, as I have another human to account for. On one hand, I am endeared further due to her level of trust. She would let me steer if I asked, knowing we are bound to shake loose something interesting. It goes beyond casting any doubt on our abilities to have and find fun without a plan, but even still that fact refuses to make the idea of uprooting things any easier.

Somewhere off the Norrish Creek Forest Service Rd / Nicomen Valley, BC

If it were just myself and my stored junk, there would be little hesitation. Now? Well, I am curious as to where she will end up as well. Thinking, I am, as to where we will raise our kids. If we will have enough sanity and comfort for them. And, to dance this grim fandango without falling into harm. Matching so well with a human that isn’t attuned to freestyle music of life has brought upon an incredibly intriguing mathematical think puzzle.

Do not misunderstand me. I would never choose a different path than the one I am currently on. However, it is – with increasing difficulty thanks to the global pandemic snipping all of the strings on the balloons we hold so dear – this path we are on, one that will see both of us carving through a completely untouched forest that takes thee situation from comfortable to inexperienced. No longer am I, reconciled with my own personality woes, left to dig my own ditches and scrounge my own food. We all need to eat, and that we may have more mouths to feed a few years from now.

Bravery is something I try to muster more and more daily. Something that, when it fails, keeps me from talking to you. Fortunately, there is a lovely warm glow coming from whatever destination awaits us, and that is the “us”
I get to take with me. No matter the end, the warmth will be there, because I am accompanied by the right people. And that matters more than any comfort I may have thought drove me.

When that wisdom-slinger proclaims that it is about the journey, not the destination, I believe that they meant it. Though, he neglected to notify the rest of us that the journey can and will change depending on the type of people you have in your adventuring party. This thought could have been delivered with a load more clarity. At least I see it now. See where I currently sit.

It is with this grasp of the present that I can more easily let go of the past, instinctively and proactive plan for the future, and sleep easier at night.

Let’s bring that glow with us, shall we?

Wyatt Ellis Fossett