Thursday Noodles 1/11

Boast, Toast, and Oath edition

At a solstice party in the pre-Covid times, we were standing around a backyard fire-pit sipping some brewskies

—what just happened? This is the first and last time I will ever use that term for beer—

when a friend said that their family New Year’s tradition was to share a Boast, a Toast, and an Oath.

Photo by Joshua Newton on Unsplash

Later, much later, at 2 AM, the party had wound down to the last four of us (another nod to Banks, who is clearly not reading these, still don’t anyone tell him, especially you Andrea and Susan!), we four went around with our Boasts, Toasts, and Oaths, toasting with the last shots of liquor that we had been protecting from the teens.

(The teens had all fallen asleep hours ago. But we take our responsibilities very seriously.)

Anyway.

We’ve kept the tradition, and this year my 19-year-old suggested an addition: Growth.

I share this stolen / borrowed / adopted tradition with you this Thursday Noodles.

Mayhaps you’ll adopt it yourselves.

Photo by Wout Vanacker on Unsplash

A BOAST is something you’re proud of having done this year.

It could be anything, as long as it’s something you feel good about.

This is not about society’s standards of success or achievement. Hell nah. This is about you.

For illustration purposes, I’ll share my BTO&G from this year.

My boast was … this. Right now. Here.

Unruly Quaker on Substack.

And all of y’all.

Because NFUQ got me writing again and getting paid for writing, which is a big forking deal. Honestly I’m super happy (and grateful to y’all!) about it.

A TOAST - is to someone else.

Someone you want to acknowledge for doing something good, or brave, or kind, or deeply moral, or anything else, big or small.

My toast this year was to my son and husband - for returning to the site of Sam’s Very Bad Mountain Biking Crash, and riding the same trail on which my son broke his neck last year.

It was a terribly scary crash, for Sam who crashed, and for my husband Noah who witnessed it. If you dare, you can watch it on Sam’s Youtube channel. Shared with permission. He had has GoPro rolling and it caught the crash and my husband’s response, and then came on again at some point when they were loading Sam into an ambulance. Content warning: BAD CRASH. Probably some swear words, too.

It took a ton of courage and healing for BOTH of them to return to that trail.

Also - I really must write it - we have so. much. gratitude for the first responders, the ER nurses and docs, the helicopter crew, the UVA trauma team and neurologists, and local concussion specialists, and just incredibly good luck, that Sam is fully healed and riding again. It was a bad, bad crash.)

Very proud of my brave boys. Cheers!

An OATH - is a goal, or even a resolution. Something you promise to do this year.

Photo of the Horton Grove Nature Preserve from Triangle Land Conservancy website. Hi, Sandy!

My oath is the same every year: go someplace new-to-me.

Happily, I went to a new-to-me Triangle Land Conservancy spot for a New Year’s Day hike with friends (Banks makes another appearance) with whom we shared our BTOGs. So, that’s my oath, done and dusted. Cheers!

This year Sam suggested we add GROWTH: a skill or trait we’d like to work on this year. A way we’d like to grow.

What a great suggestion.

And no, your Growth does NOT have to be a “SMART” goal (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound). No corporate or organizational lingo allowed.

It can be as general as you want. As long as it’s meaningful to — say it with me — YOU.

These wonderful resolutions, by Grant Snider for Evernote, have graced our fridge since 2017. The echidna in the upper left corner is hiding the word “Less.” Less stuff. (Fridge magnets and detritus don’t count.)

My own GROWTH for this year is to go a bit farther afield, traveling and in general.

I’ve always been a fairly contented homebody, but since (1) COVID and (2) Sam began to be able to drive himself places, I’ve maybe become a little TOO happy of a homebody. Taking Sam to school used to at least get me out of my PJs and saying hey to folks.

It’s not that being content at home is a bad thing. It’s just that I think I’d be a little happier being out in the world a little more, and a little more often.

As for travel, because of family scheduling, silent retreats and adventure travel have become a zero-sum game for the past few years. An either / or. I intend to change that back to a both / and. Both a week-long silent retreat and fun travels.

The road to camping in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia with our besties, David and Jo, in 2019. If you want to talk about fun adventures, sleeping under the outback stars has to be tops.

So there you have it.

The ol’ BTO&G — along with front-yard fireworks, and of course a big plate full of collard greens and black-eyed peas — has become our New Year’s tradition.

We’ve found that a Boast, a Toast, an Oath, and some Growth are lovely ways to reflect on the year that has passed and set some intentions for the year to come.

How bout y’all? What are your favorite traditions to ring in a New Year?

And how ‘bout it? What’s your Boast, Toast, Oath, and Growth?

XOXO

P.S. Truly, paid subscriptions are making a HUUUGE impact in multiple ways. Thank you, thank you, and an extra Cheers! *clink of glasses* to the Unruly Quaker paid subscriber community. I appreciate you more than I can say.