Missing You Missing Me ~ ALEXANDRA AGAH

Missing You Missing Me

ALEXANDRA AGAH

While I was in preschool, my grandparents, “Mimi” and “Papa,” retired ‘down south’ in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina where they had vacationed for years. The island and its surrounding counties are part of the “Low Country,” containing centuries-old plantations where African Americans, known as the “Gullah” people who derived their language and culture from creole tradition, tended land and crops. Visiting my grandparents always gave me a chance to experience life in this “sLow Country,” as I came to call it, sitting on their back porch for hours, watching the resident alligator camouflage itself as a moss-covered log in their lagoon, motionless while red mullet constantly vied for attention, breaching the water’s surface like skipping stones, whether at dusk when the fading sun’s reflection off the glass deck doors of houses across the water made us squint or at dawn when November’s chill raised the mist from the water like steam escaping a pot of gumbo. Our annual visits to Hilton Head Island took place over Thanksgiving break after Connecticut had already turned brisk and the tree leaves were swiftly falling like party confetti. On HHI, we could still go to the beach, bringing sand toys for building castles and shovels to bury our dad in the sand. Mimi always sought out safe real estate, so our construction would not immediately be wiped out by the waves. Papa assembled kites for each of us and helped them get airborne into a gale which nearly tore their tails apart. When he left me holding my taut kite string to help repeat the liftoff with my brother, I wondered whether my kite would fly up to heaven or crash down to earth if I let go. Mimi flashed a radiant smile and said, “Since that kite is brand new, let’s not try and answer that question for a while.” Every trip, my grandmother, mother, and I went to the Tanger Outlet stores. We would go from shop to shop looking for the best Black Friday deals. The three generations of Agah women took the phrase “Shop ‘til you drop’ literally. We’d always stop to refuel at Olive Garden for pasta or Zoe’s Kitchen for a hummus platter. Dining out always offered her a break, as Mimi did all of the cooking and housework. She was always the last to bed and first to rise, and caused a ruckus whenever my parents slept past 7am. “Get up you lazy bums and get breakfast ready for the kids,” she scolded, breaking the small house’s silent slumber. Over many Thanksgiving dinners, Mimi and my father sparred in the kitchen until she had had enough. In 2015, everything seemed to change, when Mimi chose to simply make the pumpkin pies. They had started cooking at 6:30am, aiming to put dinner on the table by 4:30pm, when dad noticed around 1pm that Mimi hadn’t even started the pies. He asked Mimi for an update and why she hadn’t started baking. She looked disoriented, even though she had made them for years without forgetting a single step or ingredient. From the adjacent family room, I saw tears trickle down his face, when he watched Mimi try to measure out the ingredients for the pies from a family recipe card she’d made. She was helpless when reading her recipe, not being able to understand measurements, directions, servings, etc. My dad called my mother over to inform her of this ‘development.’ He helped her measure out and make the pies. In the interim, my mom asked my Mimi ‘for the time’ but she hesitated to answer. First she tried with her watch. Then, after realizing that

digital time might be easier, she failed to read a digital clock correctly. Then my dad asked me to show Mimi a calendar to see if she could remember our birthdays and other important dates. She stared blankly upon the pages embossed with photos highlighting the island’s wildlife and lighthouses. I asked her to point out her own birthday on the calendar, and well as other dates she’d always remembered (my birthday, for instance). She couldn’t recollect anything and didn’t turn the page. Though the food was terrific, we were seated with anxiety and fear about Mimi. We looked at my Papa but he wanted us to not dwell on it and wasn’t ready to discuss it. I couldn’t understand what was happening to her and why. Later in the week, my brother tried playing some of his practice pieces on their console piano, yet the keys were so out of tune that they sounded like screeching baby birds calling for their mothers. My father decided to hire a piano turner, and when it was time to pay him, my grandmother could not remember how to write out a check. My dad turned on the TV to distract my brother and I, then went into the kitchen with my mom and Papa. I hid to the left side of the dining room door to listen in to their conversation. When talking about my Mimi, I heard them mention “Alzheimer’s” and “dementia” multiple times, yet I had no clue what either of those words meant.

The next time we visited, my grandfather had moved my grandmother into an assisted living facility. When we arrived at the home, we went straight to her room. As soon as we opened the door, she seemed startled and almost irritated instead of overjoyed. What was happening? Why was she acting like she did not recognize me? What kind of a joke was this? As my father got closer, her facial expression remained constant. She didn’t even recognize her own son. When my mother got out her camera to take a picture, my grandmother must have felt like a superstar. I would too if people I did not recognize approached me to take a photograph. She had forgotten me. My father told my brother and me that she had Vascular dementia: “dementia resulting from disease, esp. atherosclerosis, of cerebral blood vessels, most commonly associated with multiple small areas of infarction in the cerebral cortex.” One of the main causes of vascular dementia are strokes yet I knew for a fact that Mimi had never had one. At this time, I had never felt more selfish. I was not thinking solely about how it would affect my grandmother yet was thinking about how it could affect me. What if it could be inherited? I could never live with forgetting everyone I hold dear. Does that make my grandmother selfish or does that make me selfish for even thinking that? Whenever someone passes, consolers will say “They’re in a better place now,” which in my Mimi’s case was true. After living with such a terrible condition for several years, she was freed. My whole family believes that she really is in a better place now. Whenever I go back to HHI to visit Papa, I look in the bathroom mirror and ponder. What if the gene that puts one at risk to develop vascular dementia is passed down to my father? What will happen if it is passed down to me? The thought of forgetting everything and everyone that I love paralyzes me, yet there is nothing I can do but wait.

Erosion

EMILY TWITCHELL

The cliff began to fall the summer after the hurricane. It had stood tall for years on Lucy Vincent Beach, surrounded by the company of Martha’s Vineyard’s summer visitors. I’ve visited that beach my entire life and always paid attention to the cliff, decorated with the remains of misplaced pebbles and cream-colored shells. I would notice the way the light cascaded down it at dusk, dripping down the cliff until it hit the forceful waves, and I would trace my fingers over its skin while passing by, feeling the way it mimicked the craters and mountains of the sea. Before the cliff began to erode, the beach was a place for extravagant sandcastles, seagulls who’d steal snacks out of beach bags, and waves which would crash up against you as you dipped your toes into the freezing tide. My grandparents, who I referred to by the Chinese names of Nainai and Yeye, would sit at the top of the beach in colorful beach chairs under a floral Marimekko umbrella. The beach was a place for time to pause and drift out to sea, with the breeze blowing up against our necks. When I was ten, the hurricane hit Martha’s Vineyard and the erosion of the cliff began. When we went to the beach that summer, the cliff looked backwards, like the sky had picked it up and flipped it in the other direction, or the sun had beat down so hard on its back that it had to shield its face from the light. But up close it looked the same, cream-colored shells and misplaced pebbles. My Nainai stopped coming to the beach that year, the sand was too difficult for her to walk on, so my Yeye now sat alone, shaded by the Marimekko umbrella listening to the ambiance of the waves in the distance. It was strange to drive away from our house without my Nainai, leaving her to sleep under the glow of the television rather than under the hue of the August sun. When I was twelve, the cliff eroded faster than it ever had before. Missing important sections of its structure, the cliff now resembled the profile of a face. It could watch the waves swaying in the distance, the seagulls flying above, and the occasional seals darting between the tides. As the school years became more difficult, the short month of August was now designated for finishing summer reading. I now took the place of my grandparents as I sat in those colorful beach chairs, a book in my lap. As my pointer finger held down the pages, my attention was drawn away from their glossy print and instead, to the younger kids, who sprinted away from the creeping waves and dug holes in search for tiny crabs clawing beneath the rocks. Time felt shorter at the beach, it didn’t stop like it used to. The endless days of sun melted into a moment. Last summer, when I was fifteen, the cliff crashed down. Now, it was as if there was too much sky. The cliff no longer blocked the clouds, and you could see straight past where it had once stood, onto the oversized concrete summer homes. We didn’t spend much time at the beach, instead focusing our time on going through my Nainai’s old clothes and belongings. The few times we did go to the beach, we walked down past where the cliff stood, occasionally dipping our toes into the cloudy sea. The artifacts of what was once the cliff were scattered everywhere, those same misplaced pebbles and cream-colored shells now spread out across the forgiving damp sand. I picked up one of the pebbles. It was warm. The smoothness of the stone felt familiar in my palm, and I slipped it into the pocket of my raincoat.

portraits of a girl in progress

ANTARA GHAI

For as long as I can remember, I’ve known what a wedding is. Hell, I’d been an essential part of one: at my aunt’s wedding, I was the witness to their ceremony as a pudgy toddler just one laddoo1 shy of throwing up. My earliest memories are of flashing lights, red lenghas2 and the jingling of bangles3, and, of course, tables stacked with food. I suspect my experiences mirror those of many other desi women: the concept is everywhere in our culture, particularly in Bollywood films. The story is always the same: Beautiful girl meets mediocre-to-slightly-attractive boy, they fall in love, something gets in their way, but they persevere because of pyaar4, and bam! Shaadi5 . Every film is about education or marriage-like some binary imposed on our culture occasionally meets in the middle. I suspect this focus is because weddings in my culture are grand affairs, full of dancing and singing. In my younger years, I knew, without a doubt, that I’d have one of my own one day. However, as I grew older, weddings increasingly seemed to me to be a trap. Learning the concept of nuance had ruined some of my idealism, and marriages weren’t an exception. Yes, it’s a huge party, but it’s also a departure from an old life into something new, where you’re expected to be subservient to a man. Yes, the concept now is antiquated, but it persists in the way women do most of the housework. Younger me hated this concept. If I was going to do housework, it’d be for myself, thank you. Attempting to say this out loud– that I didn’t want a husband or children– just got me a laugh and a fond head pat and a “you’ll understand when you’re older.” That only infuriated me even more. I do not come from a family that treats their children like, well, children. I wanted a proper conversation, and I did not get one until my father briefly explained it to me. “Beta6, it’s complicated, and honestly, you’re too young to learn everything about it. Maybe you’ll find someone, maybe you won’t. Just wait until you’re older, okay?” His answer satisfied me enough to get me to stop talking about it, but I still privately thought that weddings were a trap. What is a desi woman? It is to be from a culture where your freedom wasn’t even a question, then to be put in an exotified, gilded cage, and now to peak around the bars of the cage and wonder if this freedom they promise is really worth it. I suppose that’s true for all women, but for us, it’s a strange, strange contradiction. You can’t blame all of the boundaries placed on our behaviour on colonization, but you can identify many of them. Chafed isn’t a strong enough word. I should probably use struggles. I hated this concept in a way that I’ve hated nothing before or since, the idea that people would look at me and just see a box rather than a person. I hated that I was told to cover up whenever we went out in India, and I hated that those in the U.S. thought it was all that much better. I cut my hair, started wearing

1 A very rich indian sweet made of flour, fat and sugar. I had my sixth after the ceremony, and I did fall sick. 2 Thin bracelets made of glass or metal that make a noise. 3 Lit translation country, but as an adjective, referring to people of South Asian descent. 4 Love. 5 Wedding. 6 Lit. son, but more commonly used as term of endearment for a child.

baggy clothes, all in an attempt to escape my increasingly gendered. When people thought I was a guy, they treated me better. That just proved my point. What I had privately referred to as “the woman issue” only got worse in my move to the South. I was convinced that this tiny town was a microcosm of the 1940s, where no woman hadworked ever. Questions abounded about “did your mom make you breakfast?” “Is your mom coming to pick you up?” Eventually, I got so irritated I answered all of those questions in the negative, even if it was a lie. “No, my dad is.” This was followed by a “My mom’s in Connecticut on work,” which was usually correct. Seeing people’s faces shut down provided some small form of satisfaction. When I described my actions to my mother, furious in the way only twelve-year-olds can be, she laughed. “You can’t have them thinking I’m negligent, Antz.” “Well, clearly all their fathers are negligent, the way they speak,” I shot back, fuming in the car on the way home. Eventually, my personal crusade against sexism gave me somewhat of a reputation. Not a good one, but I was known around school, and it inflated my head to an extreme degree. My feelings evolved from being less personal to more of a system to more of an I have to do this because it’s what everyone expects of me. I still hated the course that was charted for me because of my gender, but at least a little bit of my railing was preformative, even as doubt rose in my stomach once more that I wasn’t doing the right thing--not for the world, but for myself. I wish I had a good interlude for this story, a transition between then and now. I don’t, sadly. Eventually, I softened, metal put to heat. Some of the trappings of femininity have come back to me, though I wouldn’t say I’ve embraced them fully. I’ve taken what I like and disregarded what I don’t. This slightly more selfish worldview of the concept of balance has impressed onto me what I was really trying to say all those years: it’s not all the bars of the cage I hate so much as the fact that the cage exists in the first place. There’s nothing inherently wrong with wearing a skirt, it’s just that society devalues those who do. That’s what infuriated me as a child, and that’s what it took so long for me to accept. I guess the most important thing right now is that I’m at peace with myself. Maybe one day I’ll find a cause that makes my blood sing as much, makes me want to dedicate my whole life, but I can wait. I have time.

Whale in the Sky

CHARLOTTE WALTER

Today, I found myself sitting on the icy stone step that led to my front door, my head tilted back, looking up at the sky. It was almost completely a cold baby blue, a huge cotton ball of a cloud being the only thing interrupting the color. The gentle breeze rustled through the trees, pushing the cloud steadily through the blue. It had always disappointed me that clouds weren’t actually soft and fluffy, that they weren’t made to be bunnies or elephants or dogs walking through the sky. When was the last time I looked at the clouds and brought them to life? The last time I still believed the dangerous sharks and dinosaurs above me came from the factories, before I found out the real danger the animals caused? I can’t remember. Back when the scariest thing to me was the T-Rex stomping high over my head, I used to take time out of my day to spend fully immersed in the sky. I would go into the backyard with my Mom to lay in the grass, ignoring how it itched our backs, as we searched for the animals that were playing hide-and-seek with us. “Look, a rabbit!” I’d exclaim, pointing at the clouds that were peppering the sky. “Yes, I see it!” my Mom would reply with a smile, her eyes the same color as the sky darting around, trying to find an animal of her own. I wonder if she really did always see what I saw. The two of us would lay there for a while, taking turns calling out when we spotted something in the unknown forms above us. The puffy clouds were the best for this, they had the most life in them. I would’ve stayed there forever, effortlessly recognizing the clouds that tasted like cotton candy, sweet and melting right when they hit your tongue. Breathing them in would smell like right after it’s done pouring and you take a walk, and everything is so clean, so fresh, and you can just exist. I found utter enchantment from staring at a completely separate world filled with limitless running, swimming, or galloping creatures, that had been above me my whole life. Clouds have become so common, so boring, I barely even give them a second glance. I wonder what happened. As I turned my focus back to the beautiful blue sky, I decided I would freshen up my skills and animate the white shape above me. It didn’t take long for me to conclude that the one cloud today was a whale. It started out round, full, and thick, gradually getting thinner and thinner until it finally split into two flukes. My lips turned upwards as I watched the whale take its time swimming solitary and slowly through the sky, and I stayed there staring until it completely vanished into the vast infinite sea of blue.

Ecstasy and Orange

BEYZA KALENDER

“How can the sky be orange?” I wondered out loud, amazed at the sight that had taken hold above our apartment that night. Standing on our balcony, with my mom’s silent presence behind me, I found myself staring at the incredible color reflected against the pale beige of the apartment buildings. The sky was filled with a stunning orange light that rose from the city, reaching so high up that the color almost spilled out into space. And I was lucky enough to have a front-row seat to see it all as if all of this had been done just for me. Maybe someone had come along and seen the pretty city, with its big windows that covered the tallest buildings I’d ever seen and the shiny lights that filled those buildings, and decided the sky couldn’t reach those same standards. So, just like a superhero would, they rushed in to save the day with a paintbrush and a bucket of orange paint. But if they had seen the look my mom was giving the sky, they would’ve dropped that bucket in shame. She looks so… serious. Maybe she was still processing how pretty the sky looked and her face hadn’t had enough time to react. With all of that amazement that had just washed over me, I’m surprised it hadn’t taken me longer. The air was filled with this exhilarating energy that somehow made the air crisper, each breath more satisfying than the last as if the air somehow gave more life to life itself. With each inhale, I was left wonderstruck as if I’d just discovered a new way to breathe. Taking in the air was like inhaling energy, like my chest would burst open if I didn’t exhale quickly enough. The wind blew around me, rushing past me almost silently so only a soft woosh could be heard. As I stood nine floors above everything else earthly, on a small balcony surrounded by other small balconies, with the wind and my mom to keep me company, I felt myself wanting to reach through the cool air and touch the extraterrestrial sky to find out what the orange felt like. And although I could barely reach the metal railing, I felt that if I stretched far enough, I would be able to touch the color. Would it be as soft and smooth as I imagined, the texture like freshly whipped cream? Or would it be more like a house of cards, so fragile my touch would cause the clouds to part? Would it feel as warm as I imagined, and smell like freshly baked poppy seed cake with its sweet aroma that reminded me of my mom? Maybe it wouldn’t be like anything I knew at all. Maybe it would be an entirely new sensation of its own. A sensation no one has ever felt before, special just for me. “It’s just the lights from the buildings, sweetie,” my mom explained, in a way so nonchalant I had to turn and look at her in alarm. Her face was solemn, her green eyes looking calculatingly towards the orange sky, then at me. So serious. How could she have looked at the sky, the one that simply from the sight of it, I froze in astonishment, so interesting that I could only stand in captivation, and only think of the city lights? It was hard to imagine she had even glanced at the same enchanting orange I had. This sky with its color that had left me with the most intense yet calm feeling I’d ever experienced, this beautiful, ecstatic night sky that had let me believe my wildest dreams could come true, and the first things on her mind were the lights. The sky had turned orange, and her first thoughts were the streetlamps. But, then again, it did make more sense. It’s not like anyone could actually paint the sky, let alone do it just for me. And when we turned to look up again, both my mom and I looked at how the city lights had turned the sky orange.

Stricken

after Joan Didion

CHRISTOPHER NOLAND

I don’t remember when I first noticed my tinnitus. I remember hearing it in old memories when I tried to sleep, but my memories are so fuzzy past a certain age that I can’t be sure if I created an artificial ringing sound to fill the gap. What I do know is that it became a problem about three years ago in eighth grade. Something changed inside me so that I became aware of a constant, loud noise at the border of my head and right ear. I have tinnitus. Tinnitus, at its simplest, is hearing something that doesn’t exist, which manifests in most cases in both ears as a high-pitched monotone noise somewhere between the sound of chalk on a blackboard and a dog whistle. Tinnitus is a symptom that something’s gone wrong somewhere around your head: it could be from noise exposure, hearing loss, pressure problems, bone movement, neck stress, earwax buildup, physical trauma, jaw issues, cholesterol issues, tumor growth, bad posture, concussions, or plain old aging. Most cases are linked to noise exposure and hearing loss, which come hand in hand. Everyone’s tinnitus is unique. I’d bet the 20 million Americans who call theirs burdensome and chronic could talk about theirs for hours. Mine’s a bit unusual; My tinnitus’ pitch is ~900 hz in my right ear only. It sounds like a constant A6 note on a piano, right next to the high note of the “Just killed a man...” piano part on Bohemian Rhapsody, a low pitch compared to others. Sometimes, a more standard tinnitus noise somewhere in the thousands of hz appears right between my eyes. My ‘middle’ pitch isn’t problematic to me at all because the right one is almost always 5x louder, a little quieter than what I’d call indoor speech volume. It’s difficult to describe how I’ve learned to play with it: when I yawn, it becomes higher-pitched and deafening, when I lay down it becomes louder, if I change my ear pressure with my nose it becomes two or three times louder… Little quirks like that are hard to miss. The one thing I never pinpointed while exploring my tinnitus is why it appeared in the first place. When my tinnitus came to my attention back then, I felt frustrated above all. I’d lay in bed, unable to sleep for hours, with a permanent, constant distraction in my ears, knowing that nobody would believe me because only I could hear it; a phantom noise. I obsessed over trying to find answers. I studied it, memorizing what changed its volume, but simple, unavoidable things like sitting down or being in a quiet place made it so much worse. One thing became clear as my hunt across the internet continued, and I absorbed more info; there is no cure for tinnitus. Time passed, and my anguish over my tinnitus grew. Why would this happen to me? I found it unfair. I couldn’t accept that I wouldn’t find a magic pill to cure it. I discovered ways to fight back and cover it up but never found the root, the cause. My right ear’s tinnitus happens to become silent when I hear literal white noise or when a certain volume level is reached. I sought out more and more of these relief methods, like one of my favorite things; music! Music emerged as my silver bullet. My unique tinnitus, with its low pitch and residence in a single ear, seemed to evaporate when exposed to music. Music gave me both my normal pleasure of listening but also relieved me of an inescapable malady. I listened harder than ever before;

“Should I believe that I’ve been stricken,” my music asked me. “Does my face show some kind of glow?” David Bowie wrote that line in 1975 for an upbeat and triumphant song during the height of a life-wrecking cocaine addiction. My problems were galaxies away from his, but I found comfort in our shared feelings of doubt. My tinnitus’ nature as a ‘phantom noise’ made me question its severity and whether I overreacted over some trivial matter. Did I really have tinnitus, or was I imagining it? Did my face show some kind of sign of pain which others could see? If nobody else could see my struggle or hear the sound, did it exist at all? Anytime I wanted, I could escape into music, careful to keep it at low volume to not worsen matters. However, once I found sweet immediate relief there, my mind turned to questioning why tinnitus chose me in the first place. Nothing on those inescapable, infinite “Causes” lists seemed to apply to me. I knew the when, the who, the where, the what, but not the why, and that consumed me. Tinnitus is a symptom; if its cause had a cure, then the symptoms would go with it. Time continued to pass as I researched that dreaded why, becoming both desperate and exhausted. Maybe there’s something wrong with my jaw. Maybe falling on a ski trip caused it. Maybe I hit my head once. Maybe my brother blasting music once a million years ago gave me tinnitus. Maybe I’m about to develop heart disease and discover that my blood vessels are clogging around my ears. “Who knows? Not me,” my music agreed. I still haven’t found the cause of my tinnitus nor found any proper treatment. Ever since my discovery of it, I’ve learned that there are few true constants in our lives. What’s always with you no matter your age, your body, your class? Almost everything in life changes, evolving as time marches on, eternally. Maybe that’s why those definite, inevitable happenings can be comforting. The sun always rises. Winter always comes. My ear always rings. I have tinnitus.

Seaglass

ANNA REYNOLDS

I opened the door of my old sun-stained room, and there it sat, our seaglass. Tightly sealed, the jar kept all the pieces and memories safe, each with smoothed edges, carried by careful hands. A sort of melancholy feeling rushed through me as I reached for it; the same way the dominant ocean collided with the beach that day. My mother told me we can’t control the tide. I still remember that last perfect day with Zoila. My mom called her our “Babysitter,” but I remember her as my friend. She had earthy brown eyes that would open so wide, every time they met mine. Her thick black hair fell to the lowest part of her back and swayed back and forth, like ocean waves. I only saw her hair down on certain occasions; it was almost always tied up in a neat knot. She would walk around our house with a towel draped over her shoulder, humming and smiling every time I asked her questions. Her soothing voice wisped about like a cool breeze on one of those unbearably hot summer days. When my mom told us she was leaving I was sitting at the kitchen table with my peanut butter sandwich. “Zoila just got engaged,” my mom said in a forced happy tone. “Really?” I smiled and looked down studying the bread. I didn’t know she had any other friends. My mother could tell I didn’t know what this meant. “She’s not going to be babysitting for us anymore.” My heart started to sink in my chest, like a boat choking on ocean water. I could tell my mom was doing her best to comfort me but I couldn’t hear her. I could faintly see the silhouette of Zoila’s long black hair through my flooded eyes. Her hair was down. I blinked hard and could feel my face start to turn red. Why would she leave? The last day we spent together we walked down to the beach and started to pick up little pieces of seaglass. Zoila was always good at picking out the best ones. She told me that each piece of glass was from a different part of the world and washed up here for us to find. We searched for hours stopping countless times to sift through little sections. I was obsessed. One piece that reminds me of that day was tiny, bright blue, and egg shaped. It was hidden under other small stones, something that beautiful needed to be searched for. I showed Zoila, and the corners of her mouth creased upwards and her brown eyes lit up. She loved it and told me blues were the rarest. I clasped my small hands around it. It was almost like everything was normal again. Until we got home, and it wasn’t. And she left. I poured the seaglass we collected into a jar and dropped the tiny blue egg in last. I watched as it fell through the cracks and nestled itself in the middle. It was hidden once again, but I knew it was there. The jar still sits in my room untouched and unopened, a film of dust collecting on its rim as the years pass. Now, when I gaze up at the jar on the top shelf of my bookcase I’m no longer reminded of when she left or how angry I was. Instead, I think about how she taught me to look at everything with eyes wide, just like hers, even though mine are green.

The Paperweight

JAKE FARBER

A couple of weeks ago, I was redoing my room when I stumbled upon the metallic star that had gone missing for the past two years. It was one of those things that you lose and then try to look for, but after a couple of weeks, you no longer have the effort to keep looking. Because I had made the reasonable choice to start the process at around 10 pm, I ended up finding the star close to midnight. I was looking through a drawer full of impulse purchases when I saw the hand-sized paperweight in the back corner. The gold-colored metal star gleamed in the light. As I picked it up, I bumped one of the points on the side of the drawer. It took me a little time to adjust to the weight of it. The fuzz still sat on the bottom of it, and there seemed to be no significant changes, but it almost felt full on the inside, almost like it could do more than just hold down a couple of pieces of paper. Without thinking, I placed it on the side of my nightstand closest to my bed. I’ve heard plenty of stories about my grandfather Gene throughout my life, from his IBM adventures when he traveled the world to his sense of humor and good spirit that he took wherever he went. I guess the ones I cherished had to do with Gene’s trips to South Africa and Capetown, of which my grandmother always spoke. There was something about those scuba diving stories that never failed to brighten my day. I can’t remember when I finally made the connection that I’d never meet my grandfather. I’ve always been going back into different albums and looking at all of the photos of my family. Still, I can’t remember when I comprehended the fact that I’d never shake his hand or truly share anything with him. Carrying his name never changed how I thought about him or the person I was. I never met him, so I didn’t know what kind of person I was supposed to emulate. For me, the name Eugene was just something that came up only occasionally. During attendance at the beginning of the school year, my teachers often say “Eugene Farber,” and I usually respond with “here, but I go by Jake.” There’s also the security boarding pass check where I have to respond with the obligatory “Eugene Farber” when they ask me what my name is. Other than that, I have sort of steered away from Eugene. I was never ashamed of the name; it’s just that Jake has sounded better to me for the longest time. It might also be the fact that nobody called him Eugene. It was pretty apparent that he went by Gene, whether my grandmother was telling me a story about him or I was looking through his old documents from IBM. Gene’s a cool name too, but I don’t see myself going by that anytime soon. A couple of years ago, more of his stuff started to accumulate in my room. My grandmother began giving me more of his possessions as I got older, and I kept putting them aside in my room. When I first started to do this, it was because I thought all of the IBM pieces looked cool in my room, like the mini, tan-colored computer that, when you pulled out the bottom compartment, revealed a bunch of paperclips. If it had something to do with IBM, even if I didn’t have a clue about what it was, I found space for it in my room. From this IBM computer paper clip holder that I keep on my desk to the old photos of the IBM processing machines that he held over the years, I’ve tried to decorate and fill my room with everything IBM. For the longest time, that’s all they were, decorations. Even the star sat there, undisturbed and unnoticed. It was only after my

grandmother got sick that I slowly started to put more of an emotional and historical emphasis on the IBM objects in my room. When my grandmother got sick, my family was sad but understood what was going on, or should I say everyone but my twin sister, younger sister, and I knew what was going on. The same thing had happened to them when my grandfather passed away 16 years earlier. For us, though, we didn’t know what to do. We visited her as much as possible, spent as much time as we could going through old photos and remembering trips we went on with her. We also each had our ways of dealing with the situation. For me, I just kept collecting and collecting, as if I could buy back time with her by finding more and more star-like objects. It’s been over a year since my grandmother died. More than a year since I heard her tell a story about before I was born. When Gene was alive. About a month ago, my family and I went to visit her at the cemetery. When we got there, clouds began to hover above, and there was a slight drizzle. We spoke to her and thought about her. We each put a small pebble on the top of the tombstone and said our goodbyes. For me, the monument didn’t mean much. After all, it’s just a stone with a name on it. It’s not even close to what that star held. It was my grandmother who gave me his star. She probably told me what he got the star for, but I can’t remember. The paperweight sat on my desk for the longest time, forgotten because it was not needed. The bronze shine didn’t need to tell a story. The “NEA #1” engraved on the front didn’t need to remind me of anything. The small scratches and scrapes on the star didn’t need to keep anybody alive. My grandma was there for the longest time to do that. I guess I only started to realize this when she was gone, when she wasn’t there to tell me all of the stories about him, when she wasn’t there to embrace me. Now the star sits on my nightstand. The hard metal shell protects everything that’s held inside. The countless stories I’ve heard over the years. The fuzzy underbelly of the star ready to soak in any new accounts that come in the future. I look to it every night, reminding myself of all that it has seen, all that it reminds me of. The stories of my grandmother now live in it too, from sleepovers at her apartment in the city to countless Mahjong and Mexican Train games we played over the years. I can’t help but think, how many more people will live through this little hand-sized star that sits on the side of my nightstand closest to my bed, and how long will it be before it’s not just me that the star is hugging memories for.

Photographer Unknown

The Portrait

ROSALIE CARGILL

The young woman unfurls her hair-curlers and touches up with one more spritz of hairspray. Her mascara smoothly rolls onto her thick eyelashes, and one swipe of her favorite lipstick shade leaves her lips a pale, faded rose color. She picks up a delicate bottle filled with golden liquid and sprays it on her wrists and along her collarbone. A faint aroma of Gardenia and citrus drifts behind her as she walks up the stairs. The woman and her husband– whom she met in her hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota– moved into this house in Southport, Connecticut just under two years ago, yet it still felt new. She makes sure each one of her children dons their Sunday best. One woman wrangling four of her young children down the steps while carrying the fifth, who is on the brink of a meltdown. God forbid her husband help her. Instead, her husband stalls the photographer while checking his watch. “Can I offer you a drink? Her husband is tall, his hair slicked back like his favorite movie star, Clint Eastwood. When his wife reaches the bottom of the stairs, he whispers, “what took so long? You know the photographer was only available before 3:00.” His signature stench of bitter scotch and Vitalis Hair tonic repulsed the woman more than

usual.

Finally, everything is in place. The dog barks one last time. Her husband smiles straight ahead. As she holds her eighteen-month-old daughter, she looks at the camera lens. She hides behind her fake smile and waits for the end of the photoshoot... The camera flash makes her flinch. “What a beautiful family!” says the photographer. The woman’s smile says: This is what our parents want. This is what the world wants. A picture-perfect family. Don’t we just look great? She looks over to her husband-what is he smiling about? Surely he couldn’t be happy with this life. Unfortunately, she was right. Her husband was thinking about the life awaiting him in Spain, the life without his wife and children. The young mother winces at the grinding sound that fills her ears as the photographer winds up the film camera. “One More. One...Two...Three...” Click. Flash. The camera click echoes like the slamming of the door behind her husband on the day he left. Was her husband ever coming back? But the woman wasn’t so sure she wanted him to come back. Last night I stood there in my grandmother’s empty apartment. I gaze at the damp photograph in my hands, the layer of gloss almost entirely worn off and the paper yellow with age. Why would my aunt want this to be included in her mother’s obituary? She writes only about the amazing things my grandmother experienced, yet she chooses to include a photo that represents her suffering. After reading her obituary, I decided to write my own version. The real story. And I begin with this photo. The portrait of my grandmother’s pain.

No Place to Be

NEIL GAWANDE

When I was young, my mother used to fly around a lot, my father was busy a lot, I had nowhere to be. For most of my early years, I lived around those who could only speak Marathi. My aunt took care of me. I was an American boy in India, dressed and pampered like the son of a king, relatively. I wasn’t allowed to drink the water that came from the tap; my western tummy was deemed too weak. In my grandma’s home, there was a servant woman who lived on top of the house and spent the day sweeping, cooking, and talking with me. I shopped in the local markets with my grandma and built contraptions with my grandpa. After what seemed to be a haze, hordes of kids would fly from the back of shoddily built school busses, and after half an hour or so, they would flock to the park. At four years old, I didn’t really need to go to school. The park had my last name on it. I would linger around until I finally approached the kids with dirt-covered bare feet to play, but I felt guilty because I had an advantage with my Nike shoes. I could see the ridicule in their eyes, “Kona he mula ahe,” (who is this boy?) one boy said. Why am I here, and why are they there, I thought. I watched a lot of movies. Anything… there was no rating limitation– my grandma didn’t care. My grandpa put on all kinds of action movies. “The Good, The Bad, The Ugly” was his favorite. I was entranced by the action, explosions, parkour over bullock carts, and sprints through rooftop laundry lines. I found it amusing when the hero would go through people’s ordinary lives while creating chaos, oblivious to them. I wanted to be like “The Good,r” a solo soul on some adventure. After an ambiguous amount of time, things settled, I was back in an American public school. I was in kindergarten. It was Friday. It was dull. We were learning about colors and shapes and vegetables and things. The beautiful blond teacher asked the class about what color was on the board. I raised my hand, “the vejietable is green.” No one knew what I was saying. I clarified, “the vejietable is green.” I caught the teacher’s gaze, with her half crooked smile and scrunched eyebrows. I whispered, “the vejietable is green....” I was now an Indian boy in America. After what felt like an eternity, the bell rang. I was guided to the school gym along with the rest of my classmates for dismissal. Behind me, a group of boys and girls were talking. I tried to listen, but it felt as if cloth was being stuffed in my ears. They were, the boys were messing with me. “look at this girl... with his stupid long hair,” they said. In front of the mean white and black kids, I felt they looked at me the same way I looked at the impoverished in India. I felt dirty, poor, and weak.

My parents had moved to Connecticut in 1999. They found friends among the Indian community, mostly other couples who had just moved to the states. As the weekend came around, they would all pick a house to hang out. Usually, it was mine. I could not understand why the friends of my parents all decided to have little girls. I tried playing with them regardless. A boy among girls, bored and ignorant, I threw a green ball to one hoping for a regular game of catch; it hit her forehead and landed back in my lap. They all looked at each other, then at me with a glow in their stares. I took steps backwards while my hand and my

ball slid into my pockets. Tired of all the kids, my father put on a movie in the downstairs theatre for the kids. It was Kung fu Panda, the first one. A movie about a fat panda, the chosen one. Only he saw himself as nothing but a noodle seller from a small village. He had to defeat the Jaguar, but he had to believe in himself first. The final fight scene began. I took my hands out my pockets, gripped them behind my head, and enjoyed myself. I wanted to be the chosen one, the statistical anomaly, all I had to do was believe in myself. The fight was amazing, and it wrecked the whole village, which I found beautiful in a way. At the end, the kids stayed below speaking what seemed to me to be childish gibberish. I felt like an outlier. I ran upstairs into the musk of maturity. It smelled like leather and poisonous perfume. I sat in a little corner and listened to the adults. I paid attention to the way their eyes moved when they talked about their jobs. It seemed odd the way coughs appeared at the troughs and peaks of their discussions. I talked with them as if I were equal. It seemed it was the world of their words where I should be. But they shunned me away. I got bored again. In my mind, the floor started to sting and sizzle … I hopped onto the couch. I began to imagine the floor melting into lava. My fingers discovered the absence of my bouncy ball, it was in the theatre. I had a mission like the heroes I admired. I had a challenge as well, the couch was far from the kitchen table, and the table was far from the basement door. This man, they called him Goldy, I jumped on his back, avoiding the floor. He jerked forward, sending his wine through the air. He slipped. I flew off onto the kitchen table destroying the platter my mother arranged. Curry, meat, rice, drinks, all over the place. Destruction, like the village.

I could see the horns in my father’s head erupt as he charged towards me. I ran like a crippled monkey, betweens peoples’ legs and tables. Out the porch door, over the railings, onto the trampoline, and into the woods. In the woods I heard a noise, I ran again. I’m an American among Indians, an Indian among Americans. I’m not boy enough for the boys and too boy for the girls. I’m too classy for the rough and too rough for the classy. I’m too grown for the young and too young for the grown. This pattern repeats itself all around me; I am too much or too little. It’s evident in every nook and cranny in my life. I don’t know where I’m supposed to go or what I am supposed to do. In school, in my relationships, in my sports, in my future, I am utterly confused. Perhaps the place to be for me is not stationary. Like the western wayfarer mentioned above, all I need is an adventure. But, if only someone were there with me, if I didn’t feel so alone. The truth is I am just a coward, unwilling to let my attachments go. I should be like the wind, never here nor there. Maybe when I am eighteen, I don’t know.

Madison Gordon

Night Air

ZOE MONSCHEIN

There is something fragile about the silence of the night. I had given up on the notion of sleeping an hour ago, but I still sat there in my darkened room, not wanting to break the silence with a step towards the door or a turn of the knob. My house is old, my room messy, and the only light was coming from the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, put there by a little girl who’s probably older than my mother now, and I knew if I wasn’t careful, I would fall flat on my face and wake everyone up with the noise. No one ever wants to be the person who messes with the tranquility of the night time. No one wants to deal with the glares that come from their neighbors the next morning because they accidentally forgot their book in their car and set off the car alarm at one in the morning (that only happened once, I promise). But seeing as sleeping was getting me nowhere, I decided to brave the warzone of books and art supplies that is my room and take a walk to visit an old friend. The night air smelled the same as it always had, clean like some higher power had taken soap and a sponge to the world as we know it to make the next day even better, pure and refreshing, and it was that familiar feeling of fresh, cold wind that sent me running down the street, barefoot, on my tiptoes, so I wouldn’t make any sound. The pavement was cold and damp from the rain earlier in the evening, making little puddles in the crumbling potholes and deteriorating concrete. Wearing shoes probably would have been a good idea, but I was notorious in my neighborhood for never wearing shoes, and seeing as every single parent in my neighborhood was already mad at me for being a bad influence on their children because they no longer wanted to wear shoes either, it seemed a shame to ruin my reputation just because I was chilly. I slowed down to a walk, gasping for air, trying to slow my breathing. As any regular visitor to the world at night would know, if you find the right place and you stay still and quiet for long enough, you can almost see out of the corner of your eye the night breeze reaching out with its many tendrils to scrub down the world, make it new again; and if you are respectful, if you mind your place in the universe, the night air reaches out to you to run its fingers through your hair, making it windblown and frizzy and clean, and fills up your lungs with the purest air you’ve ever inhaled. The breeze passes through the trees, bringing them to life and making them dance as they aren’t allowed to when human eyes fall on them, before moving along to the puddles left on the concrete and sending ripples through it, making the surface bright and clear. I leaned over it and saw my reflection. It was different from what I saw when the sun was out. I looked taller, my eyes were sharper, and I could see knowledge in them that daytime me would never understand. In this moment, I was invincible, as if the night itself had taken me in and made me one of its own. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then looked up at the sky, almost as if I had to check to make sure that it was there, the same sky I’ve lived under all my life, to make sure I was still here and the night hadn’t stolen me away. The sky was a mixture of indigo and violet, of darkness and new beginnings. Almost like I really was in another world with closed up houses and a sense of freedom in the air. Daytime was different, daytime was when people would come outside with their loud voices and louder children, their machines keeping their artificial lawns a green so bright it should be a biohazard. I let them keep the day because right now, the night air is mine, and mine alone.

Strength in Self-Identification

after Brent Staples

CARL CORIDON

Indistinguishable: “not able to be identified as different or distinct.” I’m indistinguishable from being black. Whether it’s hearing the now routine racial jokes or feeling everybody’s eyes on you as you read To Kill a Mockingbird, being black is inescapable. It’s not just a race thing; it’s a culture thing. The music you listen to, the way you dress, the hairstyle you have, the dances you do; all of it gets thrown into this umbrella of black. The way I talk, using words such as “aight” instead of alright and “you buggin” instead of you’re freaking out;” that dialogue gets labeled as “hood” or “ghetto,” words synonymous with black. Looking back at it, there were many subtle signs and ways that my classmates tried to me feel indistinguishable; I just consistently missed those flags throughout the years. To me, I was Carl, and part of my identity was being black. To my classmates, I was one of the few black students, and my name just happened to be Carl. My ears picked up the whispers of my classmates claiming all I listen to is rap music or the only sport I can play is basketball. While I did enjoy those things, I never limited myself to a few categories. Continually listening to rap was a barrier that could’ve kept me from experiencing new genres such as blues and reggae; only playing basketball would’ve prevented me from enjoying sports like paddle tennis and lacrosse. I always explored and stepped outside of my boundaries. As moment after moment occurred, my vision started to clear. A common tactic of my classmates was “mistaking” me for my friends Mason and Anthony. I used to think it was an honest mistake even though I didn’t really understand how you couldn’t differentiate between us as we were vastly different appearance-wise. I had the glasses and extremely short hair combo, Mason had the wild afro that could hide small objects like erasers and mini pencils, and Anthony had the high top fade that’s reminiscent of Will Smith’s haircut during his “Fresh Prince of Bel Air” days. Only months later did I remember the condescending sneer that followed their “sorry!” I was definitely annoyed and very angry; however, I never felt identical to anyone; in my mind, I was unique, from my bright and neon sweatshirts to my obsession with beanies that have a pom-pom on top, and no one could lump me in with anyone else. Boy, was that mindset about to change. During 8th grade, I was fortunate enough to go on a class trip to Washington DC with my class. One of the highlights of our trip was going to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I was walking with Anthony when a kid ran by yelling, “Yay, we’re going to the black people museum!” Anthony and I went silent while that kid and his friends started laughing hysterically at the joke like the idiots they are. A couple hours passed, and suddenly I was talking to one of the teachers leading the trip about how I felt when that was said. I was disappointed and disgusted because this kid was someone whom I considered to be a friend, yet he showed no respect towards the museum. The teacher understood, and we were able to have a productive and helpful conversation. After talking with the teacher, I decided to talk to this kid and his friend group was also present. I used slightly different, NSFW wording to ask, “What was going through your mind when you said that?” Phrases like, “I didn’t think it was offensive,” and “It wasn’t intended to hurt you,” flew out, but the phrase that stuck out to me the most was, “I don’t get why you’re 110

so mad about a joke like why are y’all always so sensitive.” Y’all... as in black people. This might seem like exaggeration, but this is the same kid who would intentionally call me Anthony or would shout racial slurs or would even talk about how all of “us” (black people) are bound to end up in the system. That y’all wasn’t just you all, and it wasn’t just our small group at NCCS; it was every single black person that he could think of. That y’all attempted to strip me of my individuality and lump me into a group. And if it ever got to the point where I let him say that and just accepted it… well, I guess I truly would be indistinguishable. The moment reminded me of one of my favorite Kanye West lyrics, “Even if you in a Benz, you still a n**** in a coupe.” When my classmate said, “Why are y’all always so sensitive,” it didn’t matter what I had done to distinguish myself from others; in the end, I was still just one of them, one of those “black people.” And that feeling that I felt when he said that- the feeling of my heart dropping down to my chest, down into a pit with no visible bottom; that’s a feeling I never want to experience again. That’s why I’ll stick to wearing my glasses at the bridge of my nose and buy new bright, neon sweatshirts to wear and energetically skip through the halls, smiling and singing the lyrics of whatever artist I’m listening to- Kanye or Kendrick or Kesha… (well, not so much Kesha: I just wanted another artist that started with a “K,” but that’s not the point.) I’ll embrace my awkwardness to the point that it might make you uncomfortable; I don’t mind being looked at as different. Because to me, anything’s better than being seen as a copycat or a look alike. If you asked me if I wanted to be seen as an outcast or indistinguishable a thousand times, not once would I pick being indistinguishable. After all, what’s not to like about a neon-sweatshirt wearing kid who skips through the halls, occasionally bumping into walls and doors because their glasses are always on the bridge of their nose?

A Single Step

RONALDO JOHN

The Chinese philosopher and writer, Lao Tzu said, “the journey of a thousand miles, begins with a single step.” I’ve always used this quote throughout my life journeys. It has accompanied me throughout the series of crossings I’ve made, and it will continue to be my mantra for the many crossings that lie ahead. I want to share with you all a series of crossings that I have made in my life, some of my personal experiences that would give better insight into who I am. After 6 years, I finally felt compelled, as an educator that has stood before you in the classroom, as a colleague you have interacted with but most of all, as a black man in this community, to be your Friday speaker. Through this address, it is my hope that we continue to engage in dialogue in light our Coyle Scholar, Mrs. Julie Lythcott-Haims’ address. I was so moved by Mrs. Lythcott-Haims’ address (my eyes welled with tears many times during her talk) that I would be remiss to pass up on the opportunity to talk to you all today about my experiences as to how it has felt and what it means being ‘black’ in white spaces. I must admit, I was first at conflict with our speaker. Her introduction to herself at the start of her talk as a biracial woman of lighter skin (self-identifies as black) coming from college-educated parents and belonging to an upper-middle socio-economic class stood in glaring contrast to my identity as a black (AfroTrinidadian) not of lighter skin, who was not raised by college-educated parents and belonged to a middle socio-economic class. “How was I going to connect to her story, I wondered? As a black man listening to this black woman introduce herself, I felt no connection to her, for I was the total opposite. I do NOT share the “privileges” she has! I imagined myself as a black student here at GFA or elsewhere in the country whose parents weren’t college-educated or who did not have lighter-skin or belonged to an upper-middle socio-economic class… How was I or students similar to me going to connect with her? My identity is complex and, I hope that the selected stories that I am about to share will hopefully allow you to better SEE me! I was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, and oftentimes, people assume it’s in Africa but to avoid that inaccurate presumption, I’ll help you out. It is located in the Caribbean chain of islands, right above the South-American continent. I lived there up until the age of 18 when I headed off to college right here in our very own state of Connecticut. I attended Trinity College, however, to give a bit of context to this story I’ll start at my first home. Growing up in Trinidad was a completely different experience compared to living in the US. For you see, in Trinidad, yes, there are varied races, yes, there are racial tensions (especially on the heels of elections), yet nevertheless, my social context has ALWAYS been diverse, and black and brown faces are the majority. I never had to question my blackness or even had my blackness questioned. I never felt like I stood out. I had the privilege of feeling like I BELONGED. So naturally, when I arrived at Trinity’s campus, overwhelmed by all that was new, I needed to find a retreat, a safe haven, where I felt comfortable. When people reference Daniel Tatum’s book, “Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” he could have very well been

lunch, and dinner. My college cafeteria’s layout was like this: ‘minority island-inhabited by all the blacks and students of color’ and the other side, ‘no man’s land,’ where all the white students sat. Minority Island became my safe haven, the place where I felt most comfortable because the kids there looked like me. I remember spending hours at a time laughing and clowning around with the other kids. Minority Island was always lit, and we had all sorts of conversations and debates. In retrospect, I consider my time spent at minority island to be my formative years. It helped me discover who I am but that came at a price. My place of refuge from my very white college campus threw me for a loop when one day, in one of our heated debates, I discovered that some of my African American friends did NOT see me as black. This was the first time I’ve been told that I was NOT black. “Yeahh... you have dark skin,” one pointed but, you’re not really black, you know, like American black. Another even went as far as saying that I was taking the spot of another black “African-American” kid who would have loved to have this opportunity. I was at a lost for words because in all my 18 years, I considered myself to be BLACK. I guess what some of those kids were trying to communicate to me then is that, at first sighting, for the white folks and African-Americans on my campus, I am BLACK, but my BLACKNESS was only REAL right up until I spoke. Here enters the conundrum of being ME. The privilege of having an accent made me a “different” type of BLACK to white folks while it revoked my “BLACK CARD” amongst African American students. My safe haven didn’t feel so safe anymore. My BLACKNESS was put into question and for some time, I even questioned whether I was black enough. I questioned where I truly fit in but, what I did know, was that ‘no man’s land’ was NOT where I belonged. Throughout my college career, I was the definition of ‘a fly in the milk’. I was a double major and for my 4 years at Trinity, I was the only black student in my Spanish classes and one of two blacks in my French classes. I noticed my reality, but my privilege of having grown up in an entirely different social context made me ignorant (for quite some time) that being the only black kid in my classes was in actuality a pretty crappy thing. I did not perceive these ‘white spaces’ the way African-Americans did. I didn’t give it much thought because the environment in which I was raised did not require me to know what it feels like to be black in white spaces. I guess that’s why the black Americans questioned my BLACKNESS… why they didn’t see me as one of them. In my junior year, I studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I was extremely excited after hearing about the amazing experiences of the students who visited, but AGAIN, I did not consider that their experiences would not have necessarily been my own. Why do you think that is??? They were WHITE and I was BLACK. The city of Buenos Aires is the ‘whitest’ in the South-American continent. The city’s demographic makeup and quite frankly, the snobby attitude of some porteños (what persons from Buenos Aires are called) has given the city a negative perception by neighboring countries. When I arrived in Buenos Aires, my first day on the ‘colectivo’ (bus) heading to orientation with my host mom met me with many stares from the Argentines. (I’ll say this, in the US, if someone is staring and eye contact is made, the person looks away… In Argentina, that is NOT the case. They make it known that they are looking into the depths of your soul). I expressed my discomfort to my host mom and she said to me, “es curiosidad más que nada” (It’s curiosity more than anything). I suppose they didn’t see too many six-feet black men with dreads very often. I endured these stares for my entire 5 months there, but I was only bothered for a few weeks. I had to make the decision whether I would allow the stares to ruin my opportunity of experiencing the

up as planned. So, I put on my blinders and blocked out the many stares and heads turning while I walked in the streets. Oh, and how can I forget the many people always wanting to touch my DAMN hair at the clubs. I never told my white friends about my experience and they never noticed. I’ll just say that being black means being used to feeling discomfort. There are some people, like myself, who have the privilege of spending 18 years of their life not truly feeling discomfort thanks to their social context, while others feel it and have been made to push through it from a very young age, and then there are those, like my white friends, who will never know and understand the discomfort I speak of. My experiences in Buenos Aires changed my perception of Trinity’s many white spaces. Upon returning to campus I felt emboldened, more comfortable, because I had perfected the craft of inserting myself into places that once caused discomfort. After a two-year relationship with ‘minority island’, I decided it was time. Crossing that imaginary barrier into ‘no man’s land’, some 20 feet away, wasn’t such a big deal after all given the many barriers I crossed during my time in Buenos Aires. When I interviewed at GFA, like Trinity, I found myself, AGAIN, in a predominantly white space. However, this time around, I was more equipped for this crossing. Being at Trinity and having lived in Buenos Aires equipped me with that ‘tough’ skin to push through and allow myself to embrace the experience at hand. The faculty and staff, the students, and everyone I met that day were all warm and welcoming. This soon-to-be college-grad was used to being the fly in the milk, but man I tell you, I was not an ordinary fly then. I didn’t allow myself to become paralyzed in the sea of whiteness. Instead, I swam… I backstroked, breaststroked, and freestyled my way to getting that call back from Mrs. Hartwell some two days after my interview offering me the job. My experiences at Trinity and abroad in Argentina armed me with the tools to NOT retreat when in white spaces. I pushed through and blocked out the distraction so that my inner black boy magic would shine through. The point I want to make of this anecdote is that coming to GFA did not change the color of my skin or my reality but instead reminded me of the strong person that the color of my skin has made me. I’ve navigated white spaces since the age of 18, almost half as long as my students of color have been alive, and the task does not get easier. No, we just become better adjusted to our current realities. Yes, we have progressed as a country, we’ve elected the nation’s first black president and now our first Black and South-Asian female Vice President and in the midst of celebrating these accomplishments, we also witnessed the Black Lives Matter movement and the whirlwind of hashtags: #handsupdontshout, #sayhername, #imatter, all calling for an end to systemic racism and the unjust treatment of blacks, an end to police brutality, and an end to the murder of black and brown bodies. I CAN’T BREATHE… WE JUST WANT TO BREATHE! All these too are part of my reality each and every day I wake up and make my way to this school, and I am confident that the black and brown persons at GFA share this reality. We never let the suffocating pains we feel deep down inside show. We show up to the doors of GFA, full of hope for a better future, longing to feel seen and heard, to be treated justly and to have our concerns be validated by the people we consider to be friends, classmates ,and colleagues here at GFA. To my black and brown students, my students of color, I SEE you, and I understand the struggle. I walk these halls every day as one of the few faculty of color in the upper school and as one of two black male teachers in the classroom. I understand what it means to be BLACK in

your hood over your head and the need to make yourself look ‘non-threatening’. I feel the fear that some of you carry or will face when pulled over by the cops, not knowing whether you’ll make it out alive. I live this reality with you. You are NOT alone! My advice to you is this: you cannot and should not allow your reality to dictate the opportunity that you have here at this institution, to discover your passion and to seek out new experiences. At GFA, you have a wealth of resources at your disposal, resources I wish I had available to me when I was in high school, and I encourage you all to just look beyond, find your best ‘stroke’ for navigating these white seas, and capitalize on the resources made available to you. SPEAK UP! Say what you NEED to thrive and be your best selves in this community. You’re asked for your best, but the institution MUST ensure that it is providing you with the BEST environment that will facilitate your growth. Mrs. Lythcott-Haims wasn’t incapable of the rigor at Stanford University, she just needed the support to be able to thrive just as each of you do in whatever area or capacity it may be. Make your voices heard. I know it gets tiring always being the one to have to “push through”, to reach out, to make the first move, but remember, you’re doing this because creating the BEST experience for YOURSELF in spite of, is your number one priority. To my white students, you should NEVER feel guilt or shame for being YOU. While you did NOT choose the color of your skin and the inherent privileges that it provides, you ought to RECOGNIZE and ACKNOWLEDGE the privileges you have and the obligation to use said privileges to make this school, your communities, our country, and the world a safer, more just and equitable space for people of color. You will never truly understand what it is to walk in the shoes of a black classmate, you will never have to endure “the talk”, you will never carry the burden of fearing for your life and wondering whether you’d make it home alive after being pulled over by the cops. You may listen to this address and feel ‘just over-it’ having to talk about race, race, race all the time, BUT I say this to you: your white privilege affords you all of these passes in your life. Having these privileges do not make you a bad person but NOT acknowledging them, after having been told about it time and time again, DOES put your character into question. Hell, it puts your humanity into question. Our speaker, at the end of her talk, asked two important questions: “Do you see black and brown people as WHOLE - and what makes them whole?” She then asked, “what can you do to make your inner circle (family, friends and community) more kind?” Forgive me if I’m being presumptuous, and I am by no means trying to speak for the entire black and persons of color community, but I am confident that many students and faculty of color would agree that having YOU, white students and colleagues initiating and engaging in these very difficult conversations with us, would be greatly appreciated. Don’t always look to the black student in the classroom when issues around race and discrimination arise. Don’t wait for the Asian or Indian student to come sit at your table. Don’t let the black students always sit alone. Insert yourselves into these spaces and welcome others into yours. Don’t only speak to the Latinos/as when you need help saying something on your Spanish paper. We’ve always had to reach out, because our world is structured in such a way that having white allies/friends has ALWAYS been part of our recipe for success. Again, white privilege has afforded you the opportunity to not have to contemplate needing to befriend a black person or a person of color to better your experience. Here at GFA, we strive to be an inclusive community and a family, however, there is a lot of superficiality roaming our hallways. I under

fooling ourselves, masking our reality. So this is what I’ll do: I’m taking off my mask, and I’m making myself totally vulnerable to this entire community, all formalities aside. I’m no longer Señor or Mr. John at this moment. I’m Ronaldo or Naldo as I’m called by family. My friends and some colleagues have given me nicknames over the years: Naldz or Ronathon. I am a BLACK man living in the United States. My experiences growing up may have been different from my African American brothers and sisters, my privilege of being Trinidadian makes me less of a ‘threat’ to white Americans, nevertheless, I have similarly endured microaggressions, overt racism, and the trials of navigating white spaces. I had to learn about the experience of African Americans and people of color in the US as a means to better sympathize with their struggle for equality, equity, and justice. In my twenty-something even years on this planet, I’ve had to break many barriers to connect in an effort to make the best experience for MYSELF, and today, I stand before you all, my colleagues, and you, my students that I am fond of, sharing some of my deepest emotions and my innermost fears hoping that I will inspire you all to embark upon this journey with me, to remove yourself from your comfort zone, to embrace the feeling of discomfort, and to use it as a stepping stone to engage in thoughtful conversations with your classmates, friends and colleagues, black and white alike. Embark on this crossing with me… because as I near the end of this address, I have opened up to you a lot more than I intended, but that’s okay! Now you all get to KNOW me a whole lot better. You get to SEE me. Always remember, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!

The Click

CAROLINE SMITH

My name is Caroline Smith, I’m seventeen years old, and here are some of my secrets. I’m terrified of rejection. I still don’t know how to work my calculator. Sometimes I don’t call my friends back even when I remember to. I am a procrastinator. I’ve overshared to my advisor in all of our meetings. I read too much Kurt Vonnegut for my own good, and I think modulation is a cheap trick that composers use to create variance when they lack ideas. I fall in love with people and things too easily. I scribble poems on the back of the CVS receipts that litter the floor of my car. I forget a lot of birthdays. Everybody in my life—friends, cousins, mailmen, randos—would describe me as prodigiously Type-A. I tend to spiral when I make mistakes, I’m stressed out all the time, and I’m so self-critical that it borders on chronic condemnation in the eyes of the God I don’t believe in. At least two times a week, I convince myself that all my friends hate me, which means that three times a week (twice to manage my crises and once preventatively), Kavya has to talk me down from my baseless pedestal. I know how lucky I am to have someone like her in my life who is quick to yell me out of being ridiculous and quicker to hug me when I’m freaking out anyway. I am immedicably a control freak. I walked the same route to Chapin every day, I always eat the same thing for breakfast, I journal religiously, but it has to be in a graph-ruled black Moleskine. I am the “lonely and resistant rearranger of things” that Didion talks about in “On Keeping a Notebook.” My calendar is so color-coordinated. I dislike discontinuity and having my plans derailed by things I can’t control… so… suffice to say, my life has been rather anarchic in the past year and change. On March 11th of 2020, my family drove out of Manhattan for what I assumed would be a few-week-long refuge from the pubescent Covid bubble that was New York. My parents had had the foresight to have us pack up all of our things the week before (a request I’d deemed ridiculous because there was no way this virus would have me stuck in Connecticut for more than a month), and as I loaded all of my stuff into the trunk of the chunky SUV my parents wouldn’t let me drive yet, I bade goodbye to my school and 79th Street and all of the wrinkled normalcy I’d managed to collect in the absolute maelstrom that was sophomore year. March became spring break, became April, became distance learning, and before I knew it, I’d spent two months in this unfamiliar town. Westport had quickly turned into backaches, headaches, heartaches, and woe. I had nobody to wake me up from whatever cyclical bad dream I was trapped in, and all of these questions I didn’t know the answers to. Would I be home soon? Would we close out the year in person? Would I watch my girlfriend graduate? Would I still spend junior year at SYA Spain? I word streamed my worries in sporadic texts to my best friend Kiera, who at a spry fifteen was owed at least an edible arrangement for talking me out of my pandemic-induced grief spirals. I felt royally screwed over by the universe. It seemed like things had just started going my way. After two years at my new school, I finally felt like I’d settled in. I had real friends, good relationships with my teachers, leads in the plays, a band I performed with—I’d gotten the hang

of high school (albeit once it was halfway over). And enter coronavirus. These places, these nooks I’d found at last, the first communities I felt like I belonged in, were… gone? Postponed? I didn’t even know. The worst part of this emptying, existential monotony was that I was starting to lose any and all aim. New York seemed irreparably damaged. Trump was a maniac, De Blasio was a dunce--hell, I don’t even think Anderson Cooper knew what to do. I gave up my last shred of hope of performing at spring coffee house, of seeing Annie Hall at Film Forum, of Commencement, and the six train, and pre-show coffee runs. When was I going to turn in my Suez Canal paper? Would I ever get my driver’s license? Why did I buy a dress for senior prom in April? There was no prom, there was no Commencement, and I turned that paper in three weeks late. On the last day of school, I went to the two-hour-long special assembly dedicated to the seniors (a poor placebo for missing their hard-earned traditions because all it managed to do was make everyone’s lower back pain worse), and I couldn’t tell if I was going to laugh or cry. Here I was, at the desk in a room I didn’t really live in, watching my girlfriend graduate on the dumpster fire that was the Institution of Zoom, texting my mom to see if today was the day we’d finally make our maiden voyage into Walgreens, and for the first time, I felt like I saw my circumstances from an elevated perspective. The world was in chaos! My life was upended! I just wanted to go back to New York and my friends and my band and the really nice man at the deli around the corner who sometimes gave me my orange juice for free. I descended into total freakout mode, and in this fit of stress, I finally heard “the click.” “The click” is an audible moment of revelation in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater that completely inverts the outlook of whoever hears it. The click, which sounds like when you hit the return key on a typewriter, is only perceptible to he who is having the revelation. It has virtually no effect on circumstance or external characters—it’s purely about a shift in perspective, an internal reversal. In the book, the young Eliot Rosewater hears his first click and makes the decision to abandon his status, his senator father, and New York City to travel through small random American towns in hopes of finding his own humanity. At last, he settles in Indiana and moves into the attic of an old fire station. Rosewater disregards hygiene, answers calls half-naked in the middle of the night from distraught townsfolk, assuages these people’s troubles and woe by offering them “unlimited amounts of love” and writing them out-of-pocket checks over the phone. This click enables him to develop a conscience. He discovers meaning. He discovers compassion. Now, I’m not a totally insensitive thirty-year-old alcoholic man with a statusy politician for a dad, and I had already left New York, so my click was a little different. It came in the form of the realization that, yes, things were kind of awful. Yes, I was upset. Yes, I wanted to go home. But. I had been doing what I could to stay afloat. It wasn’t like there was some magic cure to all of my Covid-caused afflictions, no foreign country to run away to, no smuggler with shady vaccines I could use my parents’ wedding china to pay for, no magic spell to wish my life back to normal. I’d been trying so, so hard, and I couldn’t just resign myself now. Still, I was stuck in a lot of places, and unlike Rosewater, I didn’t have $87 million at my disposal on my journey to self-fulfillment. So like most non-senatorial-heiress sixteen-year-olds, I’d have to find fulfillment elsewhere. I had to keep trying. I would get out of bed, I would call my friends more, I would fight to make my life more normal again. I’d go through the motions until the motions turned into routine, until routine turned into progress, until progress made me stable enough to pursue a sense of purpose while I waited for things to go back to normal. And this was all I could really ask of myself. 120

Epiphany and assembly both over, I went downstairs to make a cup of coffee to remedy the dull, tired ache in the back of my skull. I poured the milk into my Breakfast of Champions mug, and my parents, who were lingering by the kitchen table, told me to come sit down for a talk. They had news for me, and they made it explicitly clear that I wasn’t to tell my siblings yet--after all, they weren’t yet sure whether we were definitely leaving New York. I knew that my parents had liked spending the spring in the suburbs. Having the ability to get out of the city when Covid got bad was an immense privilege. But I never thought we’d stay here for good. This was supposed to be temporary. This was a temporary thing. After the taste of freedom and outdoor dining and closet space, I guess they didn’t like the idea of going back into the city. We’d be inside all day, we’d have three kids Zooming into school while my dad worked from home in our non-house-sized apartment, we’d have to get in an elevator we shared with half a hundred people if we wanted to go anywhere—but Westport provided an opposite lifestyle. Still, I countered, wouldn’t Covid get better by the fall? No, they said. No, quite the opposite. I was suspicious of their proclamations of doom, virtual learning, a second wave, but I didn’t push them on it. Instead, I pretty much disregarded the news. “We’re considering the possibility of leaving New York pending the three of you receiving acceptance to Greens Farms Academy,” they had said. What I chose to hear was, “Here’s this thing that probably won’t happen, but you’ll have to write an essay for it and fill out some forms, but it’s probably not legit, and you probably won’t end up getting in, and if you do get in you might not even go, so basically the best assumption here is that you’re NOT moving because that would be ridiculous for a number of reasons.” Needless to say, I was off the mark. So I complied. I filled out the application. I wrote a personal essay about music that was probably one of the better pieces I’ve written in my life. I had an interview with Ms. Miller, informed my Chapin advisor that I’d need a copy of my transcript, and filed into the back left closet of my brain this secret possibility that I was either really excited about or really detested (I didn’t know which). On top of being hesitant to unpack my feelings about this process (because as it seems to go with depression and bank heists, it’s usually just easier to tell nobody), I was also hesitant to embrace living here, even if only temporarily. Covid was the reason I was like this in the first place--friendless, alone, apathetic in Connecticut. At first, I was overwrought with sadness. Heart-striking, chest-heaving, all-consuming sadness that rendered me pretty much unable to get anything done for a month. But because I was and probably will always be uncomfortable with feeling my feelings, I buried that sadness deeper in my chest. And then a new feeling emerged, one that felt safer and more actionable than this incapacitating despair. I started to feel angry. I was angry at life, angry at the world, angry at my parents for making us stay here and politicians for not doing enough and anti-maskers for being the geniuses prolonging this whole ordeal. The anger made me feel safe and in control. The anger was not an effective coping strategy. I spent the rest of June resolving to get out of the house more than I did because it’s pretty easy to wallow when you’ve been stuck inside for three months in a place where you know nobody, and the most exciting part of your week is stepping foot in a Stop and Shop. Truthfully, I probably spent more hours sitting at my desk deleting and rerecording the same eight bars of my song than going outside, but I did manage to get out of the house enough to solidify my sock tan. And yeah, the sun and the warmth and New York Times Crossword did help lift my mood, but only marginally. The anger hadn’t subsided, and I started to feel as though it was controlling me more than I was controlling it.

After spending all of the Fourth of July weekend reading at the beach, me becoming gradually darker and my tan lines becoming comparatively paler, my parents received confirmation that my siblings and I were accepted to GFA. This phone call, (or email, or pigeon with a scroll taped to its leg, or however they send acceptance letters these days) confirmed that I, Caroline Smith, bornand-raised city slicker, would be relocating to Westport, Connecticut. Full. Time. Oh jeez. Oh man. I’d known this was a possibility, but I hadn’t actually clocked it as “possible.” For months I’d refused to acknowledge the very real chance that my already-upside-down life would pick up and move to Westport. I didn’t want it to happen, so I pretended that it wouldn’t. But now it was real, and even if I buried myself in music and writing and season 14 of Criminal Minds, I couldn’t ignore my inevitable fate. Not even Matthew Gray Gubler could save me from the fact that I would not return to Chapin in the fall, I would not do another play, I would not get a class ring, I would not walk out of 583 Park Avenue with a diploma and cigar my senior spring. In two months, I would be at school in the suburbs (which I imagined would be like some sort of Perks of Being a Wallflower meets High School Musical meets Contagion--you know, the Jude Law movie that’s like our pandemic but with a better soundtrack). But I had nothing to do about any of this! Once again, life was just THRUST upon me. Oh, Caroline. You poor, short-haired, liberal idiot. This must be cosmic retribution for eating your brother’s Halloween candy. This must be karma for your habit of routinely paying for your coffee with the quarters floating around your backpack. If only the cashiers of Manhattan’s finest corner stores could see you now. How they would laugh. So I sat in my room for three days feeling all kinds of weird about what was coming next, going back and forth between catastrophizing and idealizing this move. I’d have to start over at a new school, which would probably be difficult both for me personally and whoever was going to have to read my multi-school mess of a common app. I’d have to make new friends again, which I guess I could handle because I’m a pretty social person. I’d be severely out of my element, but I was an avid summer camper back in my heyday, so I could deal with the bugs. At the same time, though, this was not what I’d envisioned the rest of high school would look like. I started to realize how many things I’d been looking forward to that would just never happen. I started mourning losses left and right. Every hour I had a new realization--no more running lines over breakfast in the Gordon Room! No more hopping the M79 without paying the bus fare! No more Friday 7am chorus rehearsals that I always hated going to, or being a peer leader my senior year, or moving in with my host family in Zaragoza. So much excitement, so much possibility with this change--and so many things I would lose. I walked around numbed out, detached, stressed, confused for the rest of that week. And then one night, I was sitting on the floor of my room drawing butterflies on my legs with a sharpie, and I heard something. I heard a second, newer click. It was less patient than the first one and had substantially worse people skills. Frankly, it was more of an avalanche than a click. It kicked the door off its hinges and yelled, “HEY DORK. GET UP. WE’VE GOT SOME THINGS TO ADDRESS.” And I, being as unassertive as possible in all situations unrelated to -phobias or -isms, threw on my shoes and went for a VERY pensive walk. I don’t know if you can tell yet, but I tend to overanalyze things. And I’ve known that for a long time, and on this walk--well, it wasn’t really a walk, it was more me pacing in circles around the pool while my dog looked at me like I’d popped one of his doggy Xanax and started having a conversation with God--but I was outside at 11pm, drowning in thoughts, aware and oblivious all at once. I saw my summer flash by like one of those montages they do at the beginning of TV 122

shows because they assume you’re not binging the whole show all at once. But I’d spent months in agonizing anticipation of what was to come, letting fear gnaw at my body from the inside out. It clearly had not been serving me well because I was still here freaking out three months later, wasting all of my mental energy on things I just wouldn’t be able to know yet. So I made a choice. Again. But this time I wasn’t only shifting my behavior, I was shifting my thinking pattern. Westport and GFA would no longer be a good or a bad thing until I started living my new life. For the next four weeks, I’d do my best to remain completely neutral on the matter--cautiously optimistic, even. No more assumptions, no more snap judgments. And NO stalking the school Instagram page. I would let myself grieve what I was losing by coming here and be curious about the future, but I would not be reduced to the sum of my sadness. After the first day of school, I came home and cried to my parents on the kitchen floor. But it was good crying. It was the best crying. I was blissed out, beyond relieved, beyond elated. In just four hours I was so impressed by the people here. I don’t know if you all feel this way, I’m not sure if this is what the rest of the world is like and everywhere I’ve been is an outlier, but from an outsider’s perspective, the kindness in this community is palpable. On the first day, it was little things that I noticed--people going out of their way to interact with me and make me feel welcome. My teachers sending me lovely emails to make personal introductions. A little kid held the door for me! It was precious! The third graders at my old school would have just stomped on your toes. But right off the bat, this place felt like a breath of fresh air, and it only got better. I was having a hard time in the fall--there was like this span of two days when I broke up with the girl I dated for a year, and my therapist moved so I had to stop seeing her, and then my FISH DIED– it was awful. I was so sad! And everyone was so kind to me. I had a completely unwarranted breakdown to like two of my teachers, and by the end of it, I was crying more because they gave me such good pep talks. The people here are just kind. I don’t know if I’ve ever been embraced so quickly and so radically before.

New York is a different speed. When you’re trying to find your success on an island with one and a half million people, compassion gets put on the back burner. There’s a reason we have so many stereotypes. If you follow the Overheard New York Instagram account, I can assure you that that was my New York on the daily. When I came here, I realized how many sharp elbows there were back home. And I realized that my elbows were probably pretty sharp, too. But I was getting softer. I was getting softer, I was getting calmer, I was getting happier. My name is Caroline Smith, I am a junior at Greens Farms Academy, and here are some of my secrets. I am very bad at small talk. I make a dogma out of letter writing. I got cyberbullied in the eighth grade, I put up posters on the walls in my room to remind myself that this is home now. My parents went to grade school together. My favorite form of prose is the confrontational email. I have synesthesia. My middle name is Elizabeth. I love the show Pretty Little Liars, and you can bully me all you want for it. I didn’t know my friends’ names for the first three weeks of school. I’m bad at writing happy songs, my beverage of choice is a dirty chai, I still have my New York driver’s license even though I’m pretty sure I’m technically supposed to change that. I am a very different Caroline than the one I was last April--more indecisive, more introspective, equally unproductive. I’m half an inch taller. I released a song. I have real producers. I’ve 123

witnessed death. Thirteen months ago, I thought none of these things possible, and it’s rattled me and my convictions to our core. For the first time in my life, there is not a SINGLE thing I am sure about. Not one. And as someone who needs to be at the helm of All Things Always, that’s horrifying for me. But I have learned this. In uncertainty, in disaster, in conflict, in life, the key to making the bad things less bad is embracing them, in all their suckish, agonizing, aleatory glory. It takes more than accepting our circumstances to open ourselves up to genuine happiness. For almost two decades, I’ve been walking around this silly blue marble with worries pounding the back of my eyeballs. The only constant in my life has been catatonic stress. Maybe it’s the way my brain works, maybe it’s that my last high school was a total pressure-cooker, maybe it’s because I grew up in a place where people don’t wait and hold the door for you so I had to learn The Hustle when I was, like, nine. If I knew why I was always a ball of nerves, my sister wouldn’t have to do breathing exercises with me before calc quizzes, Dr. Jump wouldn’t have to put up with my repeated existential crises that make our meetings run an hour over, and my dog would consider me substantially less needy. But I just am the way I am. And I can’t change that, the cortisol and shaky palms, and I don’t even know if I’d want to. I think the nerves made me a better person in the sense that I am always living such a raw human experience. I’m swimming in my own biology. I am embracing the anxiety, the fear, the worrying about my future, the panicking over my history paper. It’s not fun. It’s not easy. But I’ve come to see that it is a skill to be comfortable with discomfort, and if you’re anything like me, I am extending my hand and inviting you into terrible, miserable, beautiful uncertainty with me. Control is an illusion, and the longer we cling to it, the more we depend on it, and the more we depend on it, the worse things get when our agency dissolves. I took a lot for granted before Covid. The standby presence of my friends. The Q train always running on time. Normalcy. It boggles me sometimes that this is where I am and who I am and who I have become, and it boggles me that I just had the hardest year of my life and we’re still in a global pandemic, and I know thirty people at my new school, and I am standing up in front of I don’t know how many strangers spilling my guts, and I’m still the happiest I’ve ever been. It is okay to be scared and welcome something good. It is okay to miss something old and embrace something new. I didn’t anticipate loving here. Any of this. Connecticut, school, my stupid friends, the most wonderful people I know. Six months ago, I wrote in my journal, “I will never have roots in Westport. This is no more than a pitstop for me. I have a year and a half before I graduate, I have one foot out the door. This will not become my home, but that is okay. I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. What could possibly be the harm in that?” And, man, I always hate having to say this, but I was so wrong. I am no oak tree flowering out of the Connecticut soil, but something has started tethering me here, and that’s a hard feeling to get when you know that everything is transient, especially when things have been transient for so long. But GFA embraced me. GFA embraced me when I was at my most sensitive, my most fragile, my least assured. The small kindnesses people have shown me– they don’t go unnoticed. I did not come here looking for a love like this, but I found it. I am pleasantly surprised that I found it so soon, for now, I can relish it even longer. I do not offer this speech to you as a hello. I do not offer it as a goodbye. I offer it as a “see you around.” As a “thank you.” As an “I’ve spent seventeen years looking for a tree to rest beneath and somehow you gave me shade and diet coke in six short months.” So my poetry borders on prose, my body is reliant on caffeine, and my home is Owenoke Park. And on this April 9th at this covid-proofed podium, I would not have it any other way. 124

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Acknowledgments

First, we would like to express our gratitude to the writers and artists who submitted their work for the 44th annual issue of Penumbra. Every submission was read blind and selected solely on its merit. Next, we recognize the many people behind the scenes who make Penumbra possible every year. Ms. Waldstein and Mr. Baykal-Rollins nurture talented artists and their work. Ms. Moore expertly and patiently guides us through InDesign. Mr. Jones enthusiastically supports the production of the book with Camp Penumbra. Ms. Sullivan enriches our community with her lovingly tended library. Our printer of 20 years, Furbush-Roberts Printing in Maine, brings Penumbra to life. Caitlin Roberts Sullivan, in particular, shares her expertise and graciously and patiently leads us through the publication process. Mrs. Orefice, Mrs. Furegno, and Mrs. Gibb help us with mailing. As always, thank you to the English Department for encouraging students to write and share their work in Penumbra. Your passion for the written word and dedication to teaching inspires writers year after year. Finally, the editors and staff cannot thank Ms. Greiner enough for her devotion to the book and endless creativity. Thank you to everyone who made this year’s issue of Penumbra exceptional. Keep creating!

THE EDITORS

A Note on the Typeface

This year’s edition of Penumbra incorporates two separate fonts, Plantin and Kepler, along with the special inclusion of our own handwritten font for the cover to emphasize our more individualistic take on the literary magazine, and to make the statement that our publication encourages freedom of expression, diversity, and creativity. Plantin has its roots in a font originally created by the French type-designer Robert Granjon during the 1540s-1590s. It was eventually re-invigorated or re-imagined in its modern form as Plantin, named after the famous sixteenth-century printer, Christophe Plantin, in 1913, by Frank Hinman Pierpoint and Fritz Max Stelzer. Plantin as a typeface is renowned for its elegant, classical, but strong and impactful appearance, harkening back to its historical French roots. In the case of Kepler, named after the 17th-century revolutionary German astronomer, Johannes Kepler, its inception was much more recent, being designed by Robert Slimbach in 2003. While it may be a contemporary font, it emulates classic, modern typefaces from the 18th century, keeping a subdued, refined, classical appearance, while conceptually being rooted in ideas of modernity and progression, hence its name.1

Paper. The text is printed on 100% post-consumer recycled 70 pound Rolland Enviro100 Print

Inspiration...

Write about a time when you felt truly alive.

What’s one thing beyond your control that you would change if you could?

What’s one thing you would never change, even if you could?

Write everything you can remember about a person you miss.

Write everything you can remember about a place you miss.

Describe a framed photograph in your house in as much detail as possible.

Write a story about a family secret.

What about you is most misunderstood?

Write a story from the perspective of the polar-opposite of yourself.

Write about a strange/exciting/scary/recurring dream you’ve had.

Write about a time you got in trouble as a little kid. What happened?

What do you strongly believe in?