Drudgery

It's amazing how quickly after being away, one settles back into the same old routine. Sadly, all of the unexciting tasks that were plaguing me before I left town last Sunday are here waiting for me now that I am back. I wonder if anyone lives a life absent of drudgery. Is there anyone who has managed to cut through all the crap and focus only on the important tasks, the tasks that improve the world and make you feel alive? Probably not.


Tradition

On Sunday morning, I will wake up early, shower, get dressed in something I think is cute and head to the plaza in Santa Fe for the annual July 4 Pancake Breakfast. I cannot remember a year when I didn't wake up early to walk around and see old friends and eat the spongy pancakes and greasy sausage links. My friend Britten's dad always plays in the band, my grandma always sits in the front row by the stage to watch the music, I always get a little too much sun. We walk up the side street with all the old cars parked along it and say things like, "Look how old this one is." and "I would totally want this car." We always act amazed even thought it's highly likely we've seen these same cars every other year at the pancake breakfast.

One year, not too long ago, I spent the morning walking around with a group of friends who had all gathered to see Carl, our friend who was undergoing chemo and would later die because of the tumor growing in his brain. But on that July 4th, Carl was very much alive. I still have a picture from that day tacked to my refrigerator. Smiling friends with arms around each other, posing in front of the puppet show booth -- my arm, linked around Carl's back. Sometimes, I try to look at that picture and remember what that year felt like at the pancake breakfast, what that hug in the picture felt like, but as with most things, the memory has faded and melted into all the other years that I spent July 4 on the plaza.

There is something both sad and comforting about traditions. The comfort comes from repetition and predictability. The sadness from change. Carl is no longer at the annual breakfast, neither is my grandfather, or the rabbi who used to get up on stage and dance like crazy. Other people have moved away and don't make it a priority to visit over the July 4 holiday anymore. The city built a big gazebo on the plaza instead of just erecting the metal bandstand that they used every year of my childhood. And so on.

But even though things are changing and there may be a year soon when I do something entirely different on the 4th of July and don't even think about the gathering I'm missing in Santa Fe, this year, I will be loyal. I will eat the pancakes and sausage. I will look at the old cars. I will visit my grandma in the front row and wish her a happy 82nd birthday. I will listen to the patriotic music, spend too much time in the sun, and remember who I am and where I came from.