July the 4th

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time staring at this bend in our driveway during the summertime, waiting for a car full of cousins, uncles, and aunts to come into view.

Summertime has and likely will always be fun cousin time for me. And when I say "cousins," I don't just mean first cousins- the children of my aunts and uncles. I mean second cousins and third cousins, both once and twice removed. I lucked out with an enormous, interconnected extended family whose company I mostly enjoy. Of course, no family is without its handful of more challenging members, but some of my third cousins really do feel more like siblings to me than distant relations.

And for that reason, the 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. It's when family members from far and wide descend on the pond and carry out some amusingly wholesome long-time traditions, including a stickball game, a potluck lunch, the first sailboat race of the season, and a flag-raising paired with a singing of all 4 verses of "America The Beautiful." Plus a reading of the Declaration of Independence. Plus the first and last verses of the Star Spangled Banner. (But not the middle verses.)

I love observing the changes caused by the passage of time through the lens of our eccentric 4th of July. Members of the older generation pass, while new babies and significant others come into the picture. Some family members drift out of contact, while others you haven't seen since age 7 make a reappearance. My attitude towards it all changes as well- what once mildly embarrassed me as a teenager I now embrace fully as a unique family eccentricity.

Some things will never change, however. We will always sing hilariously off-key, salmon will always be served at the lunch, and I will always refuse to play stickball in favor of spectating.