loveaches on knowing and hurting
by Ellyse Givens Illustrated by Ava Buccino @ava.buccino
For the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a mother’s body produces a hormone called progesterone to keep the embryo healthy before the placenta, a temporary organ made of cells from both the mother and the fetus, takes over. It attaches to the mother’s uterine wall to provide nutrients and oxygen, remove waste and carbon dioxide, produce hormones, and pass immunity to the baby via the umbilical cord. The placenta is about 10 inches long and acts as a baby’s lungs, kidney, and liver until birth. Cells may migrate through it, perhaps finding home in the baby’s thyroid or muscles. As a mother gets closer to delivery, the placenta gives antibodies to the baby to jumpstart its immunity, which stocks them for the first several months of their life. *
When I was little, I just wanted to play with cups. When I try really hard, I remember their green plastic, the ones filled almost to the brim with tap water, that I would pour from one into the other, and back into the other again. My mother allowed me to play with my cups for as long as I wanted.
There is a picture of me around this age standing in a shopping cart. It was back when my favorite grocery store was called “Henry’s” instead of “Sprout’s,” although the shelves were still wooden and they still sold those Red Mill oats, gluten-free. In the photo, I wore a green dress and my mother’s hair was blonder than it is now. Standing in the shopping cart, I was tall enough to lean my head on her chest.
Now, the picture lives in the People Magazine archives under the headline “No Wheat, No Worries.” The article started like this:
Sitting in a hospital room, Sarah toggled between tears and sighs of relief.
Finally, a diagnosis:
Her 3-year-old daughter Ellyse had Celiac Disease, a disorder triggered by the girl’s diet
That explained her severe anemia, her skinny arms, and tiny feet—
And a belly distended like a balloon.
Celiac is a digestive condition that damages the small intestine and prevents nutrient absorption from food. People with Celiac cannot tolerate a protein called gluten, found in wheat, rye, and barley.
Before I stopped eating gluten, the speech and gross motor skills that should have developed were stunted
Letter from the Editor
Dear Readers,
It’s fitting that after the highest of Brown highs this weekend, I am so deeply lost in the proverbial sauce of the week—a hump day that feels humpier than most. There’s always that first week in the semester when the assignments start to pile up, and the sleep starts to pile down (I propose we adopt this as a new turn of phrase), and somehow, smack-dab in the middle of that week, I always find myself writing the editor’s note. But there’s a light at the end of that tunnel, the due dates will come as they always do, and then I have much to look forward to this weekend—dinner at Jahunger, apple picking, a visit from my parents. What a cliché: overworked college student, chugging coffee by day, still making time for fun by night. And another cliché, a verbose rambler pointing out this juxtaposition, an appreciation for the two sides of all coins.
by the malabsorption. I was filled up like my cups but without a modality to express what needed to spill out. It was only my mother who could communicate with me during those first two muted years, holding my hand in speech therapy as I learned to sound out my very first “R.” Now she says, “I always knew Ellyse was in there.” We improvised with signals—the rubbing of the chest, the patting of the head—our homemade vernacular. Sometimes, I still feel like she is the only person who understands me.
I watch my mother as she tells my Celiac story to other people and I shrug my shoulders, unable to remember anything from this period of my life except the green cups. I can try to imagine my grandfather's blood leaking through a needle into my small arm, but it hurts more to imagine my mother, sobbing over my hospital bed, into my dad’s shoulder. Motherhood still so fresh, and suddenly, so tenuous.
*
It was the summer before my mother’s senior year of college when she was knocked unconscious by a broomstick. The broomstick held up a stuffed clown, the type of toy they give Brahman rodeo bulls to fetch. The bull charged into the toy, making the broomstick ricochet into the ground and fly into the right side of my mother’s
This week in post-, that dichotomy is as strong as ever. In Feature, our writer unpacks the bond she shares with her mother through pain. In Narrative, we have another story of generational pain which explores the gut wrenching feeling of powerlessness following a harrowing diagnosis. Similarly, one Arts & Culture writer reflects on Pachinko, which inspired him to learn more about his ancestors. Here’s where that dichotomy comes in: On a brighter note, our other A&C writer recounts her trip to the All Things Go music festival. In Lifestyle, our writers are talking about two sides of campus life: in one piece, a guide on where to eat with that campus friend crush, and in the other, the deep spite of running into that campus enemy. We’ve got a crossword too about this past weekend’s football clash. And for the first time ever, a piece that interrogates the concept of juxtaposition to christen our brand new post-pourri section!
face. There were 2000 people in the rodeo crowd and nobody else was injured.
As the doctor operated on the part of her jaw hit by the broomstick, he nicked a nerve. I wonder if he realized it immediately, if it still haunts him. My mother is crosslegged on her bed on a Sunday and bent over, her head in her hands, for the pain in her jaw that—because of him—throbs in her temple, too. I imagine nerve endings like tree branches being dragged on concrete, although I know I can’t understand it. I linger in her doorway and watch her body rise and fall, then walk away.
I don’t know how to think about my mother’s chronic pain. I usually just get angry—at the doctors, at the world, at her self-proclaimed “accident prone” body. I remember when my mother sliced her palm open during the pandemic, the blood dripping in the trash can. I remember frowning and speaking harshly, as if she was a child with a paper cut. The anger dilutes the empathy, making it hurt a little less.
This summer, we moved from one house to another for the first time. On the second day of it, my mother came down with a terrible headache. I have never experienced a headache that paralyzes; mine are fingers that tap the inside of my forehead. Perhaps my mother’s are fists. She flinches suddenly, stopping in the middle of her new
I’m so excited to debut this new section of post- to the world tonight. I want to end with a special shoutout to our managing editor Rachel Metzger for helping raise this section from just a mere idea. Spoiler alert, another cliché, but I think often about the ways that post- has evolved over the years, and I like to think that this week will go down as a signpost(-) in the ever-growing journey of the magazine. One thing that will never be a cliché: my love for this publication and everyone who breathes life into it. I hope you celebrate them with me by picking up a copy this week!
Of two minds,
Joe Maffa Editor-in-Chief
bedroom’s dark wooden floors.
“Does it hurt?” I ask, quietly.
“I took a really gnarly pain medication,” she says. “It’s not helping.”
I wonder if she is ever numb to the pain, or if it is always surprising.
When several pain control methods fail, doctors have the option to perform a nerve ablation, a procedure that destroys nerves to treat chronic pain in the neck, back, and other areas of the body. A small needle with an electrode on top is inserted into the nerve, which sends radio waves to the place that is causing pain. The heat causes a lesion that prevents the nerve from sending pain signals back to the brain.
My mother told me that her body “freaked out” during her last nerve ablation procedure. As if her body suddenly realized what was happening to it—that there was a needle piercing its injury. Her stomach rose to her chest and she squirmed, beads of sweat stinging her corneas. Matter seized mind. The doctors now know to give her an extra pain medication to calm her down. *
“Did you cut your hair?” my mother asked, mortified. My hair was pulled into a high ponytail for volleyball practice, but there was an extra, shorter tail of hair resting on the back of my neck, not long enough to fit into the rubber band. I had forgotten to bobby-pin it up. I had just gotten into the car, finally old enough to sit in the front seat.
I don’t remember how the conversation went, except that I thought my mother was going to cry. I had been pulling my hair, I told her. Twirling it into knots so big that I pulled them from the back side of my scalp. I remember storing the knots in the pockets of my jeggings or the waistband of my volleyball spandex. I liked saving the dark wads of hair, bundling my feelings into something I could hold between my fingertips, and shove away in my desk drawers.
My mother hugged me too tight, and I realized for the first time what it felt like for her to worry about me. I hated it.
*
After the rodeo incident, my mother found a lawyer through a college friend. In court, the defense brought up her history of depression. They leveraged her record of mental health struggles to discredit the pain that she experienced after the rodeo tragedy and probably what she said in court altogether. The rodeo company did not end up paying for any of her medical bills. After graduating from college, she immediately went to business school so that she could remain a student and on her father’s medical insurance.
I was visiting New York last summer when my sister called to tell me that my mother was in the hospital for seizure-like symptoms. She had forgotten to bring a certain medication on a trip, and was experiencing the side
effects that come with an abrupt stop in dosage. When the doctor performed a scan, he found a blockage in her right side carotid artery, unrelated to what she went to the ER for funnily enough. I cried to my boyfriend and asked why some people are more unlucky than others.
*
My mother’s male doctor tells her to do cardio in the morning and strength training at night. I wonder if he knows about her Hashimoto's diagnosis, an autoimmune disease that causes her immune system to attack the thyroid gland, which leads to persisting fatigue and unpredictable hormonal fluctuations. Does he know about the nerve damage? That sometimes she can’t move her neck? I want him to have needles in his nerves and know what it feels like when several strong medications mix together inside of him. And then, I want him to do cardio in the morning and strength training at night.
Chronic pain, as a stress state, is one of the critical factors for determining depression. In a study conducted by the University of Arizona, adults with chronic pain were approximately five times more likely to report anxiety or depression symptoms compared with those without chronic pain. On top of that, although 70% of chronic pain sufferers are women, 80% of pain studies are conducted on male mice or human men. One of the few studies to research gender differences in the experience of pain found that women tend to feel it more of the time and more intensely than men.
I have always picked my toenails off. When I was young, it was usually my pinky toe. Upending the nail with my fingers and pulling, I felt in control of my own feeling. I placed the tiny toenail on the shelf beside my bed in triumph. I remember wrapping tissues around my toe and watching scarlet swell on white. I swaddled another tissue around so I didn’t stain my sheets.
At 21, it’s the bottoms of my feet or the ingrown parts of my big toenail that are my addictions. Sometimes I wonder if I do it for the artfulness. But then I am there again and I don’t remember how I began, and the sharp part of the cuticle cutters is dug into the bottom corner where my big toenail meets skin. I suck up the blood with my lips and I can finally see the rawness that’s almost pink, the way the small ridges in your skin are the same, even layers deep. Later this summer, I ask my mother to hide the tweezers and the cuticle cutters. For a moment, I believe in myself. The next day, I find my sister’s nail kit in the top drawer of her bedside table. I lick the blood off her tweezers before I put them back, smearing over my footprints with dirt.
I know my mother feels something when she sees bandaids on my big toes. It is just like I feel something when I walk past her room and her head is in her hands. I hate it when she worries about me, but I reckon that she must hate it when I worry for her, too. Neither of us want
Reasons you left Harvard v. Brown early
7. Fell in a hole covered with leaves
8. Sneaky link
9. Dog ate my homework
10. Drank too much!
our pain to intensify what the other already feels.
Some people have said that my mother and I are enmeshed. Enmeshment is a psychological concept introduced by Salvador Minuchin. To him, enmeshment within a family unit causes personal boundaries to be diffused. Over-concern for others leads to a “loss of autonomous development.” As if you hug someone so tight that your insides start leaking into theirs.
I am confused how one avoids enmeshment. After all, we are most related to our mothers. According to Dr. Jennifer Cohen of Duke University, the DNA in our mitochondria, the “powerhouse of the cell,” comes from our biological mothers, not fathers. “The mitochondrial DNA comes through the egg, not the sperm,” she says on a podcast for NPR. “All people, women and men, are more genetically related to their maternal line, I would say, not just their mother but their whole matrilineal line, essentially - so their mother, their maternal grandmother and so on and so forth.”
Inversely, fetal cells migrate into the mother during pregnancy through the placenta. Fetomaternal Microchimerism, according to Cell Adhesion & Migration, probably occurs in every pregnancy. The fetal cells can be found in maternal blood, bone marrow, skin, and liver, and can persist for decades. In mice, fetal cells were even found in the brain. She is inside of me, just as I am inside of her. How can we not feel for and with and instead of one another?
*
My ex-boyfriend thought it was weird that I fear motherhood. “You’ll be a great mom; what are you talking about?”
I don’t doubt that. After all, I learned from the best. The buns gelled so tight that I thought I may actually be a princess. The letters from the North Pole typed in red and green cursive whose edges rolled back toward one another when I opened them, like those of real medieval scrolls do. I believed in magic for too long because I couldn’t help it. I now know that parents can create this magic if they try.
My mother sent me a graphic that quoted “moms can push all their kids’ buttons because they installed them.” I think this is what I fear—the knowing and the loving, how intensely it will all hurt. The way my mother can feel what I feel from thousands of miles away, knowing even over the phone that I’ve been crying, and no, that I’m not just congested.
This summer I dreamt of a photo. My daughter wore a beaded white dress and held flowers. Purple, like the ones my mother had on the tables of her 2001 wedding, where she also wore a beaded bodice. My mother and I stand on either side of her. Everything is blurry except the three sets of crow’s feet, lines splaying out from the corners of each of our eyes like tiny sunrays. Wrinkles from smiling, like my mother always tells me.
“I want my abortion done by a nun.”
“My Canvas post really pushes the boundaries of coherence.”
Laundry timer went off
hands ready to catch
reflecting on family, distance, and the silence of illness
by Helen Xie
Illustrated by Rosa Zha @zhaguangzhao1216
“Helen, you should call yéye more often.” My father says this one afternoon as he loads the dishwasher, in a tone so normal it’s as if it is an afterthought.
I look up from a book I have already read a thousand times. “Why? Is he okay?”
It is then that my father tells me about the diagnosis. About the mass growing in yéye’s lungs—already weak from decades of toil at high elevations. About the doctor in Chengdu, informing yéye and n ǎ inai—my father’s parents— that a biopsy and resection would not be possible without severe complications. About the phone calls home, tucked away in our basement in the early hours of the morning, concluding that nothing could be done.
“But don’t mention the cancer when you call. yéye and n ǎ inai can’t know that you know. The stress will be bad for their hearts.”
In Chinese culture, there is a deep-rooted tendency toward secrecy, particularly when it comes to bad news. Often, we withhold distressing information from our loved ones, believing that this will protect them from pain. What we fail to realize is that such secrecy can cause harm in ways we don’t fully understand. A study from 1999 explored this phenomenon through indepth interviews with 15 Chinese families in Singapore, examining their adaptation to a child's chronic illness diagnosis. The study revealed that the disclosure of distressing information was selective, governed by the instinct to protect the family unit. Secrets, it seemed, were kept between parents and children, between spouses, between the family and the community—driven by a collectivist cultural inclination to maintain harmony.
There are layers to this secrecy. My father kept the news from me and my brother for weeks, making sure we only learned about it when absolutely necessary. And now, he expects us to keep it from yéye and n ǎ inai, as if adding another secret will somehow lighten the burden. Instead, it multiplies the weight. We’re all hiding from each other, pretending that everything is fine, when the truth is that we’re all hurting. What if yéye senses the unspoken tension between us? What if, in trying to protect him, we’re only isolating him further and cutting him off from the reality that might allow him to process what’s happening?
I wonder if—in this tangled web of secrets— we are inadvertently keeping ourselves from fully
grieving, from fully connecting. The weight of this silence is suffocating and I can’t help but feel that it’s pushing us further apart when we need each other the most. In keeping the truth from yéye, I feel the weight of the silence between us as though there’s an invisible wall that prevents me from expressing the depth of my concern. What hurts most is knowing that I can’t offer him the comfort or support he deserves—not truly, not openly.
Later that evening, we are clustered around the kitchen table, the four of us: my father at the table’s head, me next to my little brother Evan, my mother across from us. The remnants of dinner have been cleared away to make room for my father’s ancient Dell laptop, on which plays a video titled “Evan_Helen_2009.mov.” It is not often that we all inhabit this house at the same time these days, rarely even together for mealtimes; it is approaching my fourth year away from home and the final summer before Evan embarks on the same exodus. I take a moment to appreciate this snapshot before me—one that will become increasingly rare as time passes.
In the video, I am learning to ride a bike without training wheels. It is a summer day not unlike this one, and my hair is pulled into pigtails, pink sneakers jammed down onto the pedals as I pedal furiously around the cul-de-sac of our old neighborhood. A toddler-sized Evan rides a plastic tractor likely bought from the Toys ‘R’ Us by the Somerville Circle—the store a relic that has been out of business for years now. My mother stands behind the camera, narrating the scene with a voice that’s both familiar and softened by the years, as if time itself has gently dusted off over a decade of memories.
yéye is there, dressed in his oversized buttondown shirt, trailing close behind me. I recall yéye’s evening strolls, how he’d lumber down the sidewalk with his hands folded behind him. But in this video, instead of supporting his stooped back, they hover just above my little girl’s shoulders, poised to catch me at the slightest hint of a wobble as if anticipating any fall that might come my way. At one point in the video, Evan abandons his tractor to attack me with tiny fists of fury before running back to our mother. I retaliate, riding my bike straight into his tractor while simultaneously crying out in outrage. yéye gently scolds us both, though he looks more amused than stern. Our attention quickly shifts, and we move on.
Back in the present, we are in hysterics over the juvenile shenanigans of our childhood selves. Even Evan, having long outgrown his days of violence and transitioned into a regal stoicism, can’t help but chuckle at our antics. “yéye will love this,” I say, now sober, shaking off the remnant of the careless past. The image of my grandfather’s hands, always ready to catch me, persists. There is a reason why we are here watching old home videos, all together for once despite the flurry of our adult lives. We hope to send these videos to him and my n ǎ inai ahead of our trip back to China in December. The thought “in case December is too late” is unspoken but palpable among us. At least yéye can see us this way, we tell ourselves. It’s so very human, in the face of looming catastrophe and an uncertain future, to reach back toward the past for comfort.
I spend that summer working at Memorial Sloan Kettering, one of the most prestigious cancer hospitals in the world, conducting research on a disease I’ve been studying since freshman
year of college. Cancer has always felt like a puzzle to solve, an opportunity to rewrite the stories of patients and families who endure the unimaginable. I’ve explored new ways to bridge the gap between research and care, uncovering hidden narratives within patient genomes to inform novel treatments.
I have a plan: four years of medical school in New York City, continuing my research at MSK, followed by another six years in residency and fellowship, all culminating in a specialization in pediatric oncology. Throughout college, I’ve followed this path with deep conviction in its purpose. I tell anyone who asks that I am confident, secure in my future helping families navigate the heartbreak of childhood cancer. But when cancer burrows its way into my own family, the distance between research and reality becomes painfully clear.
An ocean separates yéye and me, but it isn’t just the 7000 miles of physical distance between New Jersey and Chengdu—it’s a chasm of knowledge I hold that he doesn’t. I know about treatments, emerging therapies, and the possibilities that exist in the oncology community. But even with this foundation, I grasp at fragments of understanding; I am too inexperienced to make a real difference. At the end of the day, I am still just a college student, far from being able to help in any real way.
I think of Dr. Gormally, the thoracic oncology fellow I am collaborating with on a clinical trial to develop personalized T-cell therapies for lung cancer patients. During lab meetings, our work seems so cutting-edge and promising. But yéye and n ǎ inai, alone in another country, cannot even figure out how to make a copy of the DVD with yéye’s imaging results. They fight for five minutes of the oncologist’s time when they seek a second opinion. An unreasonable anger swells within me toward fate for placing this burden on us now instead of in 10 years, when I can do so much more. Maybe if I possessed a white coat and a stethoscope and the title of “Doctor,” yéye would see me as more than just his granddaughter—that little girl with pigtails and pink sneakers—and listen if I told him not to give up.
Just give us more time , I scream at the universe.
A week after we unearth “Evan_Helen_2009. mov,” I am staring at yéye again—this time through the dim glow of a WeChat call. I sit propped up against my headboard while my grandfather appears on the screen. As always, he holds the phone too close, so that the top half of his face is cut out. But I see that he is seated on a couch in his nursing home, and I notice the tubes running from his nostrils, supplying much-needed oxygen to his failing lungs.
yéye’s greeting brings a rush of familiarity, and yet I can’t stop thinking about the version of him in the home video—how he stood with his hands out, ready to catch me if I tipped over. He has always been there, whether it was walking miles in the summer heat to buy Evan an ice cream bar or waiting at the corner of our cul-de-sac every afternoon for the two of us to tumble out of the yellow bus, hands folded behind his back. But now, staring at him through the pixelated screen, I realize we are separated by more than just distance; we are also separated by time. I long to be the one holding out my hands to protect him, the way he has always done for me. Instead, I pretend I don’t see the oxygen tubes, ask yéye about his day, and say nothing about the cancer.
yéye and n ǎ inai can’t know that you know.
the (seemingly)
unreachable ghost stories
on walking back up family trees and Min Jin Lee’s “Pachinko”
by Ishan Khurana
Illustrated by Eliot Geer @eliotgeer
“…and once again she shuddered with the evidence that time was not passing, as she had just admitted, but that it was turning in a circle. ”― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
When I was younger, my mom’s dad, my nana, would take me to a park 20 minutes away to play baseball, a sport he didn’t know much about from a place he didn’t know much about. He’d be smiling the entire time as though he was watching me grow up. Leaves fell around us as the ball flew back and forth, connecting us, and we didn’t say much.
My mom’s mom, my nani , has had bad vision for as long as I can remember, but the kindest eyes of anyone. She’d sit patiently with me while I invented games with dice, chalk, or playing cards, following my voice along fantastical stories. She’d laugh with her whole face—her eyebrows would tilt upwards while the thin lines on her cheeks seemed to dance.
Now, Nana and Nani come down from Toronto once or twice a year, and we visit them just as often. I haven’t seen my dad’s parents in at least six years; I can’t remember exactly how long it’s been. I hardly know anything about my greatgrandparents, and I don’t know anything beyond them. And yet, I am who I am because of who they were.
This summer, I read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, a work of historical fiction which follows a family across 79 years, including their immigration from Korea to Japan. The novel spans five generations of struggle, curiosity, and beauty. Each character in the family is deeply connected to one another; the story is not one of an individual’s growth, but rather of everyone, collectively and simultaneously.
For example, Pachinko starts with a fisherman
and his wife who take lodgers into their home for extra money in the town of Yeongdo, Korea. It ends with the life of their great-great-grandson Solomon, a businessman who grows up in Japan and attends university in the United States. Despite their extremely different lives, their stories center around the same hope, motivation, and loyalty to those around them. Solomon’s decision to return to Japan to be a part of his father’s business, a chain of Pachinko parlors (a Japanese game somewhat similar to Western pinball and slots), echoes the same unwavering love that the fisherman and his wife had for their son, Hooni—Solomon’s great-grandfather. I imagine that the two would’ve been impressed by each other if they’d somehow been able to meet.
Since finishing the book, I’ve found myself wanting, more than ever, to know more: I want to trace out my own family tree. I want to define my story with the stories of those who came before me, collectively and simultaneously. I don’t mean this in a traditional AncestryDNA /23andMe sense though. While knowing where my ancestors were from, and possibly some of their names, is a start, it isn’t an answer to who they were. In a way similar to the omniscient narration in the novel, I want to know what they did, who they loved, and who they wanted to be.
Pachinko also explores themes of language transition, loss, and the strong connection between cultural and linguistic identities. Though it begins with a Korean-speaking family, Solomon speaks primarily Japanese and English. Despite his Korean heritage, he ties his identity much more strongly to Japan. Solomon’s greatuncle, Noa, also studies English in an attempt to escape his culture and become someone else. He eventually separates from his family, breaking contact with them and pretending to be of
Japanese descent for the rest of his life.
The best way, I think, for me to gather the stories of those who came before me is by asking as many of them as I can. However, doing so raises questions and conflicts within my own cultural and linguistic identities. Now more than ever, I feel disconnected from my grandparents—not just because of distance, but also and especially because of my lack of language.
It’s easier to learn a language when you are younger because you lack shame. There’s no perceivable downside to conversing with a family member when you don’t fear appearing detached from a culture. I find myself afraid to speak my parents’ native language because, though I completely understand it, I lack the confidence to try to improve. I, like Noa, find myself stuck in a frustrated middle ground between two versions of myself.
So, I find myself hesitant to approach my own history—not out of embarrassment, but because of the barriers of words that take time and practice to overcome. I fear being unable to pass down my culture and a language I grew up speaking to those who come after me. I fear losing the stories of those who came before me. I fear losing my own story.
Perhaps because of this fear though, and perhaps out of a desperation to understand myself, I can’t give up on this.
When asked in an interview about the omniscient perspective she writes from and the timeline of her characters, Min Jin Lee responded, “I want to write community novels, and the interconnections of themes and multiple characters are far more important to me than one character.” Maybe this is why I can’t surrender this idea: the unshakeable interconnectedness of my community, family, and culture. The way I have grown up and continue to grow up is based on these (seemingly) unreachable stories, held away from me by time and space. And yet, I can feel my connection to them.
So, even if I can’t reach these stories, I want to write them into existence, to turn stories of ghosts into stories of the people they were born from, and to connect them all together. I am who I am because of who they were.
I already know how much Nana loves London, that he used to smoke, and that his hearing loss comes from years of work in cold warehouses in Brockville. I know that he loves small, nice things, like engraved pens. When I see him this winter, I’ll ask him about his immigration to Canada, about the things he has seen and the places he has gone. I’ll ask him about the places he dreamed of going when he, too, was 20, and I have a feeling that his answers will be similar to mine. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
I called my Nani today, and in my unconfident but stable words, asked her to tell me more about her family and where they came from. She said she doesn’t have many stories, but is happy to share the ones she does. She recalled names, places, and people as they came to her mind, and I heard the lines of her mouth move into a smile as she spoke. I’m grateful to be able to listen to her after she has given so much of her time patiently listening to me. We’ll talk more this weekend.
I’ll see them soon too, hopefully—perhaps this winter. I’ll listen and write while they speak, and I know I’ll feel an unshakeable sense of familiarity. I’ll be remembering stories I wasn’t born in time to experience myself. And I will become who I will become because of who they are.
a reflection and
all things considered
some advice
on All
Things Go from a first time music festival-goer
by Elaina Bayard
Illustrated by Emilie Guan
Dear loyal post- readers, I write to you now from the passenger seat of a Toyota Corolla Zipcar going up the New Jersey Turnpike, on the second hour of our early morning journey. Beside me, my roommate Dylan is bravely driving, listening to an eclectic playlist of all our favorite songs. Behind me, my friends Josh and Dean alternate between homework and sleep. I’m writing this in hopes of ignoring all the readings that have piled up over this weekend.
The adventure to get to this point began last spring, when All Things Go released their ridiculously stacked line-up. Over Andrews’ bowls, Dylan and I debated what to do. It was a once-in-a-lifetime festival. It was also 7 hours away…in Maryland. We decided to give it a night and see if we were still haunted by it the next morning. As I slept, I tossed and turned, visions of super graphic ultra modern girls dancing in my head. Needless to say, we really wanted to give it a shot.
Somehow, we managed to get tickets. Somehow, we made a plan over the summer. Somehow, we drove eight hours without hurting each other or giving up on the trip entirely.
I have never been to a music festival before. In fact, I only started getting into live music about a year ago, when I saw Hozier in Boston. I’m a pretty introverted person. I don’t enjoy standing, smushed together, in a sweaty crowd with music so loud I’m worried it will shake my toenails off. It’s overwhelming.
I may never be the girl who wakes up at dawn to fight for a good spot in the pit. But, ever since that concert, I’ve been chasing music, looking for convenient shows that won’t absolutely break my wallet. There’s something intoxicating about standing in a crowd, joined only by your love of the same artist. I often glance around, wondering what has drawn all of us together. What’s their favorite song? How long have they been a fan? What song will they scream the loudest?
While my eardrums may disagree, the sound
isn’t overwhelming—it’s encompassing. It fills your bones and pounds like a second heart in your chest. You can sink into the sensation, knowing that everyone around you is beating to the same rhythm.
You’re safe in knowing that you’ll never see these people again, that you can scream as loud as you want, that you can dance stupidly, that you can cry without judgment. Connection and community without the claustrophobia.
I arrived at All Things Go armed with common sense and TikTok videos, but no actual idea of what to expect. I’d say that, overall, we did alright. There were a few hiccups, of course. But the good news is that you can skip these mistakes with my newly acquired (and only once-tested) tips and tricks!
1. Be flexible . As I’m sure you heard, Chappell Roan pulled out of All Things Go, both NYC and DC, just a day before she was meant to perform. The announcement was accompanied by many people selling their tickets, upset that their one reason for going had dropped. I bet they were kicking themselves when MUNA replaced her. Now, I’m not going to say I wasn’t a little disappointed, especially since I’ve been a fan of Chappell since before The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess was released. But above all, I’m sympathetic. Fame is a hungry beast, especially in the age of social media. I’d much rather Chappell miss a performance or two than disappear forever, scared away from music by the demanding parasociality of many fans. All this to say, don’t go to a festival just for one artist. Festivals are quite clear that lineups are subject to change. And besides, festival sets are short. Unless your favorite artist is the headliner, they aren’t going to play for longer than an hour.
2. Bring friends! I am a strong proponent of attending concerts by yourself. Not to say it isn’t fun to go with your friends, but it’s equally worth it to let yourself have that one-on-one moment with your favorite artist. Nothing else besides you and the music. However, at festivals, you want at
least one other person, ideally three or four others, partly because there will be a lot of downtime. Bringing card games and gossip is a necessity. But also for strategic purposes. Forget all the fluffy rainbows of friendship, this is serious business. You want to bring friends, and ideally friends with varied music tastes, because once you’ve claimed a spot you don’t want to leave it. You need someone to stay seated while you run off for food or bathroom breaks. Additionally, if you’ve got varied music tastes, you may have someone willing to guard your blanket while the rest of you run off to see the artists on the smaller stages—shout out Dean for saving our spot while the rest of us rushed to see Conan before Hozier came on!
3. Don’t arrive too late. I wouldn’t recommend getting to a festival right before the headliners start. All the good seats will be taken at that point and you’ll be missing half the fun. One of the best parts of festivals is discovering new artists. I’d never heard of Flipturn before, but they’ve been on repeat for this drive back. However, there’s no need to arrive right when gates open, unless you really want to be as close as possible. If you’re alright with just a decent view, arrive about an hour or two into the concert. You won’t get stuck in long entrance lines, you’ll limit the amount of time in the sun, and you’ll still have a chance at a nice spot. It won’t be right upfront, but it should have a good view of a screen and, hopefully, will have only a little…
4. Mud. There will be mud. This is inevitable. Doesn’t matter if it hasn’t rained in days. The mud will appear. You need to prepare accordingly. I know you want to wear that one outfit you’ve been planning for weeks. You still can! You just need to accept it will get muddy. Additionally, bring multiple blankets. You either want one that is thick and waterresistant enough to block the mud, or you want to layer a couple and accept that the bottom ones will be sacrificed. We, unfortunately, only had one thin little blanket and had to run to the merch stand for another. You do not want to pay merch prices for a blanket.
Above all, pace yourself. Music festivals can be 12 hours of standing and screaming while you avoid eating and drinking, either out of fear of losing your spot or fear of festival prices. After all the money and time you spent, you don’t want to faint before you can really enjoy yourself. I only went to one day of All Things Go and I feel like I need to sleep for a day. I can’t imagine doing that for multiple days in a row.
Not every festival is going to be as insane All Things Go—Conan? MUNA? Reneé? Hozier?—but that’s okay. If there’s a few artists you love, all you need is a willingness to jam out to those you don’t. It may also benefit you to have the capacity to stand and scream for hours on end or a stomach able to handle fries that are simultaneously stale and oily— but it’s mainly the attitude. With that, you’ll have an experience like no other. I may be sleep deprived and dehydrated, but I’m still buzzing.
I need to go. We’re at the rest stop, and now it’s my turn to drive.
I hope someday we get to be two strangers screaming in the same crowd,
Elaina Bayard
Good Eats
let the food do the talking
by Gabi Yuan
Illustrated by lulu cavicchi @lulu_cavicchi
At what point do you take a look at your new friend (the one you met in class just a couple of weeks ago) and say: “Want to grab a meal?”
At what point do you both collectively move past the occasional lunch at Andrews, or dinner Ivy Room for something deeper? Even beyond that onceoccuring, late night-run to Jo’s after finishing a p-set?
Is this a romantic connection? Perhaps purely platonic? Questions like these can only be answered through trial and error. It takes practice to casually meander to the right restaurants—ordering, eating, and sharing with the enticing possibility of concluding the night with a kiss on the cheek or a half-wave goodbye— knowing that the friendship may never make it past a meal off college hill.
It might be a friendship, it might be something more. Whatever the nature of your relationship, I've got a restaurant for you. College Hill, both on the hill and below, has varying cuisines to explore. Hopefully, you’re not a picky eater at the ripe age of adulthood, and if you are, it's sexy to try new foods.
Tallulah’s Taqueria
Tallulah’s is not too far from the heart of campus, further than the scattered options of Thayer, but enough distance for a warm-up walk-with-conversation. You can begin to delve (briefly) into personal topics, but you don’t have enough time to run out of things to say before arriving at the restaurant.
With both indoor and outdoor seating, the lighting at Tallulah’s makes for a picturesque dinner that could be in a suburban neighborhood backyard. The menu offers a wide variety of options, and the tacos are definitely shareable. The meat, seafood, and vegetables selections are incredibly encompassing to diverse taste palettes and even more, the prices are reasonable. During the initial dinner, it’s important to understand how far you’re willing to go to test the friendship. So, if the bill can’t be split, that split-second moment to decide who will pay
for the meal and who will maybe, most likely, Venmo the other half, won’t be too heart-wrenching.
Tizzy K’s Cereal Ice Cream
Meandering down the river, you’ll spot a cute little truck labeled Tizzy K’s. Placed right across from Plant City, there are several benches to the right to sit and talk. But, if the conversation runs dry, you’ll have the opportunity to grab your ice cream to-go and be back on campus within ten minutes.
More importantly, the ice cream flavors themselves will generate great conversation. Imagine the allure of sweet, buttery, cream heavily entangled with the tantalizing flavors of cinnamon toast crunch and fruity pebbles. With reasonably large portions, if the chemistry is still there, the benches provide a wonderfully intimate, yet friendly atmosphere for prolonged conversations. Later, perhaps during a walk along the bridge, the sight of PVDonuts and Trader Joe’s on the way home will allow for another trip to be planned naturally.
Same time next week?
And yet, and yet, the exciting recommendations are here! The following spots are for chemistry that could be deniable, but also too tempting to not explore. The factors to consider: atmosphere, shareability of the food, the bill… Should the price of the meal be reasonable enough to split or be covered by one party? Hopefully, my recommendations will be enough to keep the fire kindled.
Champa Thai + Lao
This is a trusted restaurant. Take my word when I say more than one of my friends has this restaurant marked as a must-go first date atmosphere on Beli. Not only known for its intimate seating and setting, the portions are so very agreeable and shareable. Just a five minute walk from the south-side of campus, it’s marked by the frenzy of students coming in, transforming into regulars. Wouldn’t this be a memorable spot to come
back to?
There are so many options on the menu: mango curry, seafood tom-yum drunken noodles, basil fried rice, and plenty more. The mango sticky rice, presented with a lime-like tint of green, is a show-stopper. The cushions themselves push you closer, its red-cracked seats concaving together at any sudden movement.
When the food comes out, steaming hot by the touch, no conversation is needed to enjoy each other’s company. The intricate flavors, the changes in expression at the exceptional spices speaks volumes itself. The company is simply another pairing of the little restaurant.
Pizza Marvin’s Soft-Serve
Oh, this soft serve is a must-have. The unique flavors rotate every month, so if you happen to catch feelings with more than one person, trust that the ice cream will bring excitement every time. Given to you in an adorable cup, the flavors range from concord grape x grape nut to corn x peach soft serve. Upon entering the restaurant on the corner of Wickenden, you’re taken back in time to an old but tasteful diner. In the corner of the menu on the wall, the soft-serve of the month is offered.
While you’re both rating the potentiality and likeability of sweet, savory, tart, flavors of the soft-serve, it’s exciting to learn and push past the known boundaries of conversation. Feelings can’t help but come in rushes with each bite. Before you know it, the ice cream is gone. Quick, make a move.
Whatever the occasion, whoever the person, whether or not the love is present, there’s a spot for every occasion. Some restaurants are made for when you begin hand-holding (Den-Den), made for your first kiss (Brickway on Wickenden), made for making it official (Mokban), and maybe even after months and months of dating (Palos), things will all be ok. Come back to this article. Find the advice. Let the recommendations come to you. Give love freely and find the words of wisdom through cuisine.
ghouls that haunt
oh no, it's the opps!
by Daphne Cao
Illustrated by Anna Nichamoff @mossmilkshake
Nobody likes to be blissfully enjoying a weekend Ratty lunch only to be met with the sight of someone with whom they have less than pleasant memories. More times than I’m willing to admit, I’ve cursed this school for being too small and side-eyed my friend when we passed a few select people. The emotions I experience vary for different opps—ranging from slight embarrassment and awkwardness to lingering anger and resentment.
My friends and I have started calling these people ghouls—a fitting name for people of the past that continue to pop up in our lives, much to our displeasure. “It’s a ghoul of the past,” we murmur, elbowing each other and giggling quietly. It was always a funny image to me, imagining our opps as ghouls that disturbed the peace of our daily lives in petty ways—pushing vases off of desks, making lights flicker.
On a cool, cloudy morning while walking to class, I was struck with a realization: I am, also, my opps’ opp. It was obvious in hindsight; why wouldn’t a mutual, unresolved conflict between two people result in bitter and awkward feelings from both parties? At the end of the day, I’m as much of an unpleasant, brief intersection in their lives as they are in mine.
At first, I wondered how many times I had been pointed out at a dining hall, whispered
about in a group. But, as I thought about the actual drama that happened and tried to discern what kind of things they would say about me, the memories of what we even did to each other were fuzzy at best. Hold on, what did they say that annoyed me? What did they do that made me sigh and roll my eyes when one of my friends told me about it? Do they even remember enough about me to be talking behind my back, still? At the time, the drama had seemingly consumed my whole life, but now I could hardly remember the nitty gritty details. In two, ten, fifty years time, I won’t even remember that one of these “ghouls” made a petty comment, and I’ll only have a vague idea of what that big fight was about.
Even though I’m only a sophomore, freshman year feels like it was a lifetime ago, and the memories of why I fell out with one of my old friends are already hazy. I still feel awkward when I inevitably pass them on Thayer, at the Campus Center, or any of the unavoidable spots at Brown, but it’s not nearly as bad as when the conflict between us was fresh—when I would purposely take the longest paths to class and my clubs to avoid them.
We always focus on the fear of forgetting, on the pleasant memories slipping past us before we even realize they’re gone. But forgetting also allows us to move on from unresolved conflicts,
to let go of that (sometimes petty, sometimes justified) anger toward someone and pass by them unbothered. A ghoul never haunts one place forever; it has to move on one way or another.
I barely have any recollection of the drama between my elementary school friends—or even my early high school ones, for that matter— and I certainly don’t hold the same ill will I did all those years ago. With time, eventually that sense of peaceful forgetfulness will extend to the seemingly world-shattering drama that happened last year and even the drama happening to me now.
One day, all my opps and I will be looking through the Brown yearbook—maybe across the world from each other, maybe across the street— and all we’ll think is “Oh wow, I forgot about them. Isn’t that crazy?”
Maybe someday soon I’ll see one of my opps and I won’t feel embarrassment or awkwardness or anger—just simple apathy, as if I was passing anyone else on the street.
And just as ghouls eventually fade from the living world, moving onto the afterlife, these people and I will move on from each other, no longer occupying each other’s space physically or emotionally.
POST-POURRI
BEFOR E YOU GO
juxtaposition
New England storms and new beginnings
by Tarini Malhotra
Illustrated by Junyue Ma
From the window, I can see rain pelting down. I like the rain. It is one of those things in life that can make one feel contrasting emotions—joy and distress, optimism and cynicism, rejuvenation and numbness—all in equal measure.
I like contrasts. Juxtaposition and oxymorons are my favorite literary devices. I used them so often that my teachers throughout high school (finally) relented to an endless storm of “blissful pain,” “surreptitious vigor,” and “Herculean triviality” in my essays and stories. So, renewing yet desolate downpours should be my happy place.
Except this is New England. The monsoons in my hometown in India epitomize the revitalizing thunderstorms ambiance I so adore after long, blistering summers. This rain is so cold and miserable. I feel like I have been sweetly gaslit by the glorious weather of Providence’s summer.
Oh well, I think. We move.
Literally though. I am always on the move—from classes to libraries to social events to random walks around campus with friends when I have one million assignments due. Maybe I am to blame for taking four STEM classes in my first semester. But, I thrive on testing the limits of my pain threshold; it is my Desi-perfectionist version of “very demure, very mindful.” Not to mention, being a cheery, slightly crazy, exuberant, lowkey overworked person is a lovely juxtaposition.
Brown itself is replete with oxymorons, and that knowledge brings me indescribable, unadulterated joy. The SciLi—the architectural monstrosity that juts out rudely between beautifully constructed edifices—is
unironically my favorite building on campus. Hidden beneath its admittedly ugly exterior, is an immaculate aesthetic and a surprisingly comforting grindset. The most dramatic, thrilling, and animated stories have been told on the (supposedly) Quiet Green as I (very collegecore) sat on the grass with my (kind of) multicultural group of friends. I find my home, Keeney—which the upperclassmen called the “slums”—quaint, cutesy, serene, and altogether very wholesome, even though the basements have a slight proclivity towards flooding.
In fact, they are probably flooding at this very moment. Oops!
Blinking myself out of my momentary stupor, I rise from my chair and leave my room for Arnold Lounge, where people from all the dorms in Keeney gather to take refuge from the horrible, chilly, singularly horrible rains. Arnold Lounge, to its credit, is both cute and filled with endless possibilities for irony. Towering portraits of stern-faced men overlook a boisterous, yet somewhat charming cacophony of students attempting (and failing) to “lock in” together. Large groups of friends, formed only after a skillful bypassing of the traditional formalities (“Hi, I’m ____ from ____ and I’m concentrating in ___”), engage in delightful tomfoolery together, their high intellect, overachieving minds dexterously employed in brain rot. I join one of the groups and am immediately swept up in a wave of captivating chatter.
The rain slows to a drizzle. Pearly, incandescent drops form prisms on the slightly frosted windows. Gloomy showers have, in fact, created something vivid and beautiful. I still prefer the revitalizing showers back home, but Brown is, at the very least, a reflection of a new exquisite world.
by Lily coffman
“Because language is the only thing that has never felt like a waste of time. So you will leap into the ocean—or you will let yourself fall—over and over again, and in the end you will write about it all. You will warp your words, like Pygmalion does his clay, until you convince yourself that your creation is as good as the real thing.”
— Emily Tom, “From Here, You Can See Everything” 10.7.22
Elaina Bayard
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