There’s a staunch Puritanical and traditionalist bent that persists in New England, now resulting less in atrocities like the perennially invoked Salem Witch Trials and more in people being doggedly polite: here, that means ignoring each other in public, not making small talk when you can be direct, and extreme propriety around personal questions to the extent of depersonalization. It can leave a queer kid uninspired, and in communities where, for better or worse, coding is still a vital method of communication, it can make the world feel small.

In QTPOC community, the future can feel precarious. If queerness is so often associated with action and survival, how do we learn to slow down and rest so we can live long enough to grow into the queer elders we always dreamed of having?