Fossils behind glass

[ellenkushner]

"I could have protested her decision, but I knew that I would merely be seen as playing to type . . . . We want our comforting traditions to stay suspended in sap while our families constantly revise their understanding of us like software that updates automatically. Instead, traditions crumble and nostalgia yields to melancholy, but our identities, to our families, are as fixed and stagnant as fossils behind glass.  

"Anxious to demonstrate how mature and flexible we’ve become, we return to our birthplaces and we’re cut down to size, encountered as predictable once again."

--  Heather Havrilesky, Our Family Christmas, Rescinded, NYTimes Sunday Magazine, 12/21/12