#73: Tradition
Title: "Tradition", #73 from the prompt table I'm working on.
Notes: This is an honest description of my great-grandfather's birthday, which I just attended today.
PoV: Second person, which I generally dislike but I didn't want 3rd person, and 1st was too...awkward. I'm showing, not telling.
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Everyone there is older than you, and back in the days where family gatherings meant you got shoved into pale, patterned dresses and white socks, that was annoying. Intimidating, even, with the cacophony of loud scratchy voices talking without shame about subjects you hadn’t been introduced to yet.
Now, however, you’re not being dragged among the crowds of relatives, swelling in their respective groups around the yard. You’re actually taller than most of the women and some of the men, and whether that’s a tribute to lucky genes on your part or just them getting old is hard to tell. Now you’re old enough for the privilege of standing alone, watching but not forced to recite old stories or perspective careers without any knowledge of what college is.
Somehow the lack of forced interaction makes it easier to watch; when you’re suddenly not the subject of the conversation it’s easier to listen in.
An Italian family might be a source of unwarranted stereotypes; but you know from old stories that the Mafia, actually, wasn’t a foreign thing to some of the older relatives. On that note, it seems that the younger the party-goers get, the calmer. A young, tanned woman in a sundress and bleached white teeth walks by with an armful of child, and you wonder whether it’s that her teeth are really that white or that her dark skin is just contrasting with them as best it can.
A group nearby has a few of the older relatives - if wrinkles have anything to say about it, no one’s under fifty. Some are probably in their seventies. The great-grandfather whose birthday it actually is has just turned ninety-three, but he’s the oldest one in the family.
Said older relatives are only distinguishable when they’re women, it seems. All have short, cropped hair that manages to curl up youthfully despite their old age; whether by curling irons or just Veronan inheritance, it’s hard to say. Fake nails curve past their fingers as their hands spread out in the air, alternately hugging in greeting or simply adding to the story they’re telling. Despite how similar they sound in brief, their personalities far outstrip their male counterparts, who for all intents and purposes seem to merely have tagged along to stand about and watch, sipping beer while their wives use the blender someone’s tugged outside to make mudslides.
“He killed a rabbit of mine once, you know. Took it into the pool across the street to see if it’d swim. Then tried to make it look like he’d done nothing; put it back in the cage. Well, it was dead, soaking wet, and smelled like bleach.”
“You know your uncle Danny’s been in and out of jail a few times, right? Well, he’s not so bad. Randy got in for attempted murder.”
“God, you’re taller this year. Time flies when you’re having fun, uh?”
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Written swiftly and on a whim. I realize there's bound to be either an abundance of oddities/mistakes or a lack of point, or perhaps both.
Notes: This is an honest description of my great-grandfather's birthday, which I just attended today.
PoV: Second person, which I generally dislike but I didn't want 3rd person, and 1st was too...awkward. I'm showing, not telling.
--------
Everyone there is older than you, and back in the days where family gatherings meant you got shoved into pale, patterned dresses and white socks, that was annoying. Intimidating, even, with the cacophony of loud scratchy voices talking without shame about subjects you hadn’t been introduced to yet.
Now, however, you’re not being dragged among the crowds of relatives, swelling in their respective groups around the yard. You’re actually taller than most of the women and some of the men, and whether that’s a tribute to lucky genes on your part or just them getting old is hard to tell. Now you’re old enough for the privilege of standing alone, watching but not forced to recite old stories or perspective careers without any knowledge of what college is.
Somehow the lack of forced interaction makes it easier to watch; when you’re suddenly not the subject of the conversation it’s easier to listen in.
An Italian family might be a source of unwarranted stereotypes; but you know from old stories that the Mafia, actually, wasn’t a foreign thing to some of the older relatives. On that note, it seems that the younger the party-goers get, the calmer. A young, tanned woman in a sundress and bleached white teeth walks by with an armful of child, and you wonder whether it’s that her teeth are really that white or that her dark skin is just contrasting with them as best it can.
A group nearby has a few of the older relatives - if wrinkles have anything to say about it, no one’s under fifty. Some are probably in their seventies. The great-grandfather whose birthday it actually is has just turned ninety-three, but he’s the oldest one in the family.
Said older relatives are only distinguishable when they’re women, it seems. All have short, cropped hair that manages to curl up youthfully despite their old age; whether by curling irons or just Veronan inheritance, it’s hard to say. Fake nails curve past their fingers as their hands spread out in the air, alternately hugging in greeting or simply adding to the story they’re telling. Despite how similar they sound in brief, their personalities far outstrip their male counterparts, who for all intents and purposes seem to merely have tagged along to stand about and watch, sipping beer while their wives use the blender someone’s tugged outside to make mudslides.
“He killed a rabbit of mine once, you know. Took it into the pool across the street to see if it’d swim. Then tried to make it look like he’d done nothing; put it back in the cage. Well, it was dead, soaking wet, and smelled like bleach.”
“You know your uncle Danny’s been in and out of jail a few times, right? Well, he’s not so bad. Randy got in for attempted murder.”
“God, you’re taller this year. Time flies when you’re having fun, uh?”
-------------
Written swiftly and on a whim. I realize there's bound to be either an abundance of oddities/mistakes or a lack of point, or perhaps both.