Fourth annual stencil-burning party, for those keeping score at home. Nineteen people, one burn barrel, forty-one stencils retired with full honours. The weather held. The barrel behaved. Somebody brought a folding table with a cloth on it, which felt like too much, and by ten o'clock felt correct.
The rules, restated for the record: every stencil gets read aloud before it burns — what it is, where it was used, and one nice thing about its service. This is a retirement ceremony, not a book burning. Somebody's grandmother stencilled that border, and she did it with the tools she had. We honour the labour. We incinerate the tool.
The turnout
Forty-one stencils across nineteen guests. The bird-on-branch mylar sheet from Ines's bathroom, a wooden pumpkin set so thorough it included gourds, three separate bee motifs (a swarm? a support group?), and the big one: Kayla's mandala. She brought it in a shoebox. Lined. Like a casket for a very small bishop.
Kayla cried a little at the mandala. We let her. That's the whole policy on crying at the burn: you're allowed, nobody films it, and you get the good chair. The mandala had covered four years of her dining room and one quarantine, and when it went in she said “thanks for the chaos,” which is the best eulogy of the night and possibly the year.
My contribution, obviously, was the mushroom border from the kitchen — see the full story for how that came off the wall. It got the loudest applause, which I accept on behalf of 2019 me, who moved in and simply chose to look at it for seven years.
The potato salad incident
A word on my potato salad, since multiple witnesses (Todd, it was Todd) described it as “fine.” Fine. Forty-one stencils retire with honours and the potato salad is “fine.” For the record: Yukons, skin on, dill from the actual garden, dressing made at 6am so it could sit and become itself. It was better than fine. It was, per my nephew, “pretty good, is there more” — which, from a 15-year-old, is a standing ovation, and I'll be taking that review to the grave.
Next year the salad committee is Todd's problem. I look forward to attending his “adequate” party.
Bring your own ferns, explained
People keep asking about the title. Tradition: the dead fern from 2019 (may it rest) started as a joke centrepiece and became the guest of honour, so now everyone brings a plant that failed them, and at the end of the night we vote on which one gets composted with full honours and which one gets rehabbed. This year's winner: Marcus's “bonsai” juniper, which was never a bonsai, just a juniper in a small pot, doing its best. Rehabbed. It lives on my porch now, recovering its identity.
No stencils were harmed at this party that didn't ask for it. (They asked.) Fifth annual: first Saturday of July, 2027, same barrel, new salad regime. Bring something that failed you and one nice thing to say about it. That's the whole door policy.
Marcus — July 5, 2026
The juniper thanks you. It has new soil and I've stopped calling it a bonsai in front of it. Small steps.