Every year since starting this little blog, I’ve written about Thanksgiving. Most of those years, I’ve also written about Christmas. The holidays (even ones like Memorial Day and July 4th) are some of the more stark reminders that in moving away from home four or five years ago, I made a pretty hard departure from many long-held traditions… traditions that usually involved friends and family, routines and familiarity. As a person who appreciates routine and consistency along with friends and family, not having established any new traditions is, at times, unsettling.
Last year, I arrived in California about a week before Thanksgiving. I was living in a hotel and I didn’t know anyone. Given those two things, I chose to go hiking and then have a turkey dinner at the diner across the street from my hotel. All things considered, it turned out to be a pretty fantastic way to spend the holiday.
Thinking it might be a new tradition for me, I had planned on doing the same thing this year – a hike and dinner at the diner. A tweaked back forced me to change plans and skip the hike, and while I managed to go the diner, it somehow seemed less festive and the food wasn’t what I remembered it to be. If I remember, last year, the diner was decked out for Christmas. This year it was decorated in Thanksgiving browns and yellows.
While Thanksgiving felt like a bust this year – my back eventually felt better and I was able to get out into the mountains with a friend before the weekend was up. We hiked to an old air force station near the west peak of Mt. Tam where we had a sweeping view of the city and the ocean. At times, the low angle of the late fall light filtering through the redwoods had a magical appeal to it.
Maybe any new tradition can involve plenty of wiggle room. Maybe it’s as simple as having turkey somewhere (anywhere) on Thanksgiving, and getting out into nature at sometime over the long holiday weekend.