In This Issue
Ellie Jurnmann
Ellyse Givens
2
Me, Myself, and I Do
Send My Love
3
ana vissicchio 6 7
Sean Toomey
5
alaire kanes
Indigo Mudbhary 4
Slouch Couch
Allowing Space Rippling to "Flounder"
It's Okay to Love Multiple People Tiffany Kuo 8
Solo Traveling Advice for the Wandering Soul
postCover by Sol Heo
NOV 2
VOL 32
— ISSUE 6
FEATURE
Send My Love on closeness from afar By Ellyse Givens illustrated by Emily Saxl
everyone else seemed to have. I wanted proximity and not
correspondence, in 1845. Jeff Hancock, a communication
our FaceTtime calls that glitch as they bridge the 305.5 miles
professor at Stanford University, describes letters as a means of
between our two colleges; I wanted your tapping right leg and
conveying “powerful emotions and intimacy.” He says, “all you
my fidgeting fingers—body language that can’t be sensed over
have is each other’s words, so you can really imagine the other
screen. Your brown eyes I could see but not feel.
person in the best possible light.”
One night in Providence you reluctantly agreed to watch
I remember thinking of you as I watched Hamilton, as
Bachelor in Paradise with me, and we huddled together on my
Alexander wrote letters to his distanced lover, Eliza, who
suite’s couch. I draped my arm over your shoulders and you
describes Hamilton’s writing as something that “built [her]
leaned into me, your knees to your chest, grinning with just your
palaces out of paragraphs.” And I think that’s what we have
lips.
learned to do for each other, not with letters, but with virtual
Nearly all seventeen species of penguins are intensely
We didn’t end up watching much. Instead, our conversation
gestures: the morning texts and the pictures you send to me,
colonial, gathering in “great teeming masses” to court one
jumped from thing to thing like a grasshopper. We were giddy
the voice recordings; the FaceTtime calls when we are both
another. To win a female’s affection, males swing their heads side
and lost as we spoke of the Encinitas BJ’s and the Rubio’s and
a little drunk, but I just want to see your face. Indeed, email,
to side or raise their flippers or throw their beaks to the sky to
the Baked Bear—our childhoods that both took place along the
instant messaging, and video chatting made it finally feasible for
carol their best trills and squawks. Some gentoo penguins even
Pacific, but somehow never overlapped; the Rancho Santa Fe
couples to exchange even the most “mundane information” that
scoop up pebbles with their mouthsfaces and present them to
avenues that we drove during the same April afternoons, in
often “gets lost…in [the] letters of the past,” according to Jason
their prospective partner—a gift that, if deemed sufficient by the
opposite directions. Sometimes I forget how much you feel like
Farman, a media scholar at the University of Maryland.
female, may be used to make a nest for the pair.
home.
I try to remember conversations, because I don’t feel like
In sixth grade, I drew hearts with pencils in my books,
I decided to make an apple pie that night, and kept
we get enough of them. But I am starting to think that I will
sometimes so eagerly that I would break through the page. I
returning to the couch to cup your cheeks with my palms as it
never get enough, that perhaps even with no distance, I would
stayed up at night to read about the brushing fingertips in the
cooked. By the time I took it out, the curvy edges of the pie crust
never get enough of you smiling at me when you wake up in
Room of Requirement and the first kisses in the alleys of Adarlan
were burnt brown, and the apples tinted a dark yellow. You still
the morning, or your embrace, or what it feels like to make you
and the awkward first glances across rugged church basements.
ate it with me.
laugh, or dancing together, or brushing your hair back to kiss
I still remember the drive to The Observatory. I wore blue
Though unconventional, long-distance relationships are
floral and sneakers—nice but not-caring at the same time. I had
on the rise, with a 2017 census showing a 44% increase in couples
your forehead, or the flowers you give to me, that I press and preserve between glass.
only just met you two days prior. I still remember the guitar
living apart since 2000. A survey of more than 600 people found
I love our mundane.
strings and the bent legs in the back of the car, that balcony and
couples spanning distances of more than 12,000 miles—in one
When the female penguins return to the colony, it is
those heels I wore to dinner, imagesthings I wanted to fold up
case, one partner lived in Santiago, Chile, and the other in Xi’an,
October, nearly six months since the couple last saw each other.
like book pages and store in my pockets. A love story, finally mine.
China. Research has shown that long-distance couples tend
But among all 20 penguins studied by Thiebot, each pair came
We walk along the lake’s circumference and its green is
to have the same or more satisfaction in their relationships
back together again, recognizing each other by their distinctive
something I want to inject into my hippocampus and remember,
than couples who are geographically close, and higher levels
calls—within a crowd of over a thousand other penguins. I saw
too. I reach for your hand hesitantly, as I am still afraid of
of dedication to their relationships and less feelings of being
a video of penguin couples reuniting on the beach of Patagonia,
being too forward, even after more than a year of knowing
trapped.
and watched as each pair faced each other and shook their beaks
your calluses. We don’t get much practice with this shameless
Written correspondence is how lovers have historically
expression of affection. We watch as two Syracuse students
found meaning in distance. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and
jump into the green, grinning.
Robert Browning are classics of this genre, elegantly revealing
The day we met, we sat in your car in a parking garage.
their minds and hearts in the love letters that floated between
You said you wanted to show me a song, one that you were sure
them. “[A]ll-so into me has it gone, and part of me has it
I would like. I can still hear the guitar, its intricacies that made
become, this great living poetry of yours, not a flower of which
the hair on my arms stand up, although we don’t listen to it much
but took root and grew,” Robert wrote in the first letter of their
anymore. The song is called “Penguins.”
Dear Readers,
pockets of warmth. In Feature, our writer has learned
winter coats. And if there’s one thing to look forward
to cherish the unconventionality of her long-distance
to in these ever shorter days, it's the promise of spring,
Maybe it is the Florida girl in me, but I can’t help
relationship, holding love letters close and mundan-
which you can find in the spring weekend–themed
ity even closer. Meanwhile, in Narrative, our writers
crossword!
“What if we went in?” I joke. I’m in pink shorts and running shoes. “You really want to?” you ask, although you know I do but struggle with assertiveness.
back and forth, in joy. The two parents remain mates for life, so long as they can find each other.
And then we find an inlet and I am barefoot on soil. I really wasn’t eager for a swim but for a memory, a whiff of spontaneity to savor as one, for once. I am chest-deep in my shorts, and want to taste the blues and the soft seaweed shrubbing that tickles the bottoms of my toes. Your slimy hands in mine, we tread water together, sipping in small bits of air. Once a female penguin lays her egg, the two stare at it for an hour, trembling. But in late May, female penguins leave the colony to hunt, while the males stay behind to incubate the egg with their feet. Researcher Jean-Baptiste Thiebot tracked the activity of ten penguin couples in 2015, which revealed the hundreds of kilometers that distanced each pair for the majority of the year. I used to think our unconventionality was wrong. I wanted the dorm room sleepovers and the friends in common, what
Letter from the Editor but notice that a chill has descended over campus, one that has me digging out my puffer for the first time all semester. It seems the last Last Warm Day has come and gone and the post-Halloweekend blues are palpable. As winter creeps up on us and that bright red foliage we’ve been so spoiled with begins to fall in earnest, it becomes harder to remember what there is to look forward to other than that second round of midterms and the first snowfall. But, dear Reader, though that easy warmth we’ve taken so for granted might be a little harder to find these days, let me remind you that there is still so much of it to be found. Our writers this week help us find sweet, strange
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explore the breadth of what love can be—one writer
I hope you all find your own bits of warmth this
explores polyamory, and the other falls into perhaps
week: a cup of Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Rooibos tea
the most important kind of all, self-love. Our A&C writ-
perhaps, or maybe a hand clutched tightly in your
ers are swimming through sentimental waters, with
own, tucked safely into your coat pocket. As I retreat
one reflecting on swans and home, and the other delv-
indoors, swapping days sprawled on the Main Green
ing into an album surrounding the uncertainty of life
for ones snuggled deep in bed, I am grateful for the
and where it will take you. Last but never, ever least,
promise of warmth that every Wednesday night brings,
our Lifestyle writers are both on quests for another
no matter the season.
kind of warmth, with one writer giving us solo traveling advice to flee chilly Providence and the other giving us (much needed) fashion advice on how to get that wide ’90s look and to remain fashionable under bulky
More treating than tricking,
Klara Davidson-Schmich Feature Managing Editor
NARRATIVE
M
self, a nd I y M D e, ls marry themselv es hot gir
o
by ellie jurmann Illustrated by Emily Saxl I am single, and I am married. While seemingly paradoxical, both of these things are true. There is no husband, nor a spouse to whom I am married. I alone comprise the happy couple. If this sounds psychotic to you, I totally understand. I originally meant all of this as a joke. I teased that I would pull a Sue Sylvester from Glee and marry myself, because I deserve my own hand like no other. Maybe it’s because I commit to a bit like no other, but a silly gag about a self-engagement ring turned into wedding dress shopping at Savers, invitation crafting, and a bridal photoshoot in my apartment. I baked my own wedding cake (boxed mix, but still), handpicked each flower of my bouquet at the local florist, selected the music to which I would walk down the aisle, and wrote out my vows with love and intention. By my wedding day, there was not an ounce of irony in my celebration—my friends leaned into it equally, if not more than I did. I have never been more grateful for my shamelessness, and to have a group of people who are always ready to back me up no matter how outlandish the idea. I planned for a celebration of self-love with a gathering of the people who have loved me through all the highs, lows, and in-betweens of life. I was not prepared, though, for the showering of love I would receive from my chosen family, which was beyond my wildest expectations. It was pure magic to see just how supportive people were of my journey in loving myself, and I had not really considered how inspiring they may find it
1. Smol 2. Vanilla 3. Vegetarian Refried 4. Clitoria (butterfly pea) 5. Chilling 6. Jelly 7. -ie BABIES 8. The big reflective one in Chicago 9. …there, done that 10. Cannellini
to see me so confident in, so comfortable with, and so committed to myself. When I was telling my friend’s mom about my big day, her initial question was: “Does a boy have something to do with all this?” I thought about it for a second, unsure what to say. A boy did have something to do with it, back when it was just a joke and I was still trying to cope with the sharp pain of a broken heart. But I grew larger than my pain, and my love for myself scabbed over the wounds. My scars became tattoos of the growth and healing I have endured, and my wedding became so much bigger than him. I was choosing myself, not out of spite or desperation or as any sort of placeholder love. My relationship with myself is the one I treasure most; it makes me a better friend and a happier person. The last piece I wrote for post- was about the very breakup I now reference so casually. I do not want to harp on it too much, but it has propelled me on to the adventure of a lifetime. I have learned that growing and healing means ceasing to stuff my hurting into a closet full of past ailments I want to forget. Instead, I take the lessons I have learned and carry them with me in my backpack. I befriend them, so that I can love me in all the ways others have fallen short. As I proclaimed to myself in my vows, While being angry about my pain felt good in the moment, being fully content and at peace with myself brings me much more ease as I fall asleep at night. I love me, I love my resilience, and I love
all the ways I show up for myself and make sure I feel good and cared for. I am the love I have been waiting for. I cannot stress how much I have learned from all this intentional and growth-driven alone time. Life is not only more fun as a “Jew Sylvester,” as my friend has dubbed me, but also so much more stable. I often feel like I have cracked the code to a happy life by discovering how to properly take care of myself. I sometimes feel like I am too young to know so much about myself; I always thought choosing to stay in on a Friday night was for women in their thirties and not a twenty-oneyear-old. Who would have thought I would be going to bed by 10 p.m. most nights and getting up by 7 a.m.?! Once I know what makes me feel my best, it is nearly impossible to convince myself to do otherwise—so long as I maintain my beloved social life. I have found that the hardest trials and tribulations can lead to the greatest personal rewards, so long as I can find the strength to fully embrace the pain to become a stronger version of myself. As it turns out, my most recent trial has led me to become not just stronger, but in love with my life and the person I am today. As I sit and reflect on being a newlywed, my heart feels so full. I am so happy to be at a point in my life where my brain gets quiet. And not a bad quiet—I still have so much to say, but I don’t have to speak to prevent myself from being alone with my thoughts. In fact, I love being alone with my thoughts nowadays. I find myself in perfect company anytime it is just me, myself, and I. The love I have for myself is unlike my love for a man, and it surely will last far longer. Unlike a few months ago, before further expanding my self-love, self-respect, and selfappreciation, I am not closed off to the idea of falling in love with another human again. Right now, I cannot see how that would serve me when I am already so full of love, but I have decided I do not need to circumscribe my future because I have been hurt in the past. I do know that if someone really wants to win me over, he will need to beg on his hands and knees to be with me, bring me surprise lattes, and write me letters of appreciation all throughout the day, because he will need to outdo me in loving me. My life is so great, so unless he is actively making it better than it was before, I don’t want him. After all, I am a married woman. I promise myself a lifetime of joy and self-love, because life is so beautiful when you are your own biggest fan, best friend, and primary source of happiness. To myself I forever say I do.
“I always wanted to be colorblind as a kid so I couldn’t be drafted.” “I bet pacifier cigarettes would really calm a baby down.”
November 2, 2023
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NARRATIVE
It's Okay to Love Multiple People on coming out to myself a second time by indigo mudbhary Illustrated by Ella Buchanan In nearly all the fairy tales of my childhood, the beautiful princess was always forced to choose between the princes, and the story could only end when she had chosen. When I grew up and graduated to young adult novels, the plucky heroine now had to choose between two boys with jawlines so sharp you could slice bread with them. Peeta or Gale, Edward or Jacob, these series could not reach their baby-filled epilogues until Katniss or Bella made the right decision. As I grew up, I began to realize that maybe I didn’t just want a prince or a bad-boy-werewolf. I found the princess just as beautiful as the prince, Katniss’s bravery just as lovely as Peeta's kindness. On a foggy November afternoon in the Starbucks near my middle school, my hand shaking like a San Francisco earthquake, I typed into the Google search bar: “am i bisexual.” I had learned about the term in my seventh grade health class, where it was briefly mentioned as something some people are. Our teacher quickly changed the subject, moving on to menstruation. While everyone was laughing at Mr. Yo explaining the basics of getting a period—the term “Diva Cup” is pretty funny, I’ll concede—I sat in the corner, holding my knees to my chest, wondering if I was one of those bisexuals he just brought up. From a young age, I had found everyone beautiful and assumed that was the default until I learned that girls weren’t supposed to like girls. At the ballroom dancing classes my mom made me take in the fifth grade, I liked the way a tie sits on a guy’s throat just as much as the way a white glove delicately clings to a girl’s hand. I enjoyed waltzing with the guys, but I also found myself secretly excited when there were too many girls and we’d have to dance with each other instead. After taking several “Are You Bisexual” quizzes on the World Wide Web, and concluding that maybe, just maybe, I was, I told a friend who decided to tell her friend who then told every member of our allgirl school who would listen that Indigo was a gay homosexual lesbian dyke that liked to stare up girls’ 4
post–
skirts. Though I was upset at being outed, I was also annoyed at the misrepresentation of my sexuality—even the implications of the word bisexual annoyed me. I just thought everyone was beautiful, okay? Years later, thousands of miles across the country, at a tiny college on top of a big hill, I found myself and a nowex-boyfriend talking about past lovers on a leather couch in his dorm basement. At this point, I used pansexual or queer to describe myself rather than bisexual because I didn’t like the gender binary contained within “bi.” I told him about my first girlfriend, whom I’d been with in high school for five months. “We were open,” I explained. His eyebrows furrowed. “What does that mean?” “Sometimes she’d make out with her friends, sometimes I’d make out with mine, but we told each other about it and were very in love with each other for a while,” I clarified. The now-ex-boyfriend laughed and rolled his darkbrown eyes. “Yeah, well, that’s not a real relationship,” he said. I remember feeling confused because it had been real, almost painfully so. When she had told me she loved me, it had felt like every star, every atom, every dust mite had aligned right then and there for us to be in that moment, saying we loved each other on her creaky twin bed. How was that not, as the ex-boyfriend so eloquently put it, “a real relationship”? After that conversation, I began to think about monogamy and commitment. The relationship fell apart for other reasons (he needed a therapist and I didn’t want to be one), which gave me time to consider for the first time in my 19 years on this earth that I could be non-monogamous. This is how I found myself, hands shaking like a windblown tree on the Main Green losing its leaves, typing into the Google search bar: “am i poly?” That year, as the snow melted and winter bled into spring, I gradually began to realize that the answer to that question was yes, tentatively. It would explain a lot— why I felt like a fraud in every relationship I’d been in,
why I gravitated toward hookups and one-night stands, why I had cringed at the utterance of “I love you” every time a monogamous partner had said it to me, and why I had banned forehead kisses from everyone. Over the course of many showers (is there anywhere better to think?), I began to realize that maybe it wasn’t love or intimacy I hated but the performance of pretending to only feel it for one person. The first time I said I was polyamorous was on a first date with a guy from my floor in Jameson-Mead this summer. In a dimly lit restaurant in Boston where candles flickered in skull-shaped containers, I mentioned it casually, like it was something I had figured out for a while. When I said it, the word fit like an old sweater or a favorite T-shirt. As I come out to myself and the people in my life for a second time, I find myself feeling more like me. The more I say it, the more I confirm that it feels right, the two syllables rolling off my tongue, smoother than the marble bodies of the statues in the RISD Museum. As I’ve been talking about this with the people in my life, many have misconstrued polyamory and nonmonogamy as a choice, which I don’t think it is. Some people are born to love one person forever—I just wasn’t wired that way. That doesn’t make me any more of a free spirit or forward thinker than somebody who wants to only be with one person. It’s just that when whoever lives above us humans was making me, they made someone loyal, loving, and, as I said that night in Boston, poly. I realized that if Gale and Peeta agreed, I’d love them both and burn down the Capitol with the two of them. Why can’t I kiss both princes as long as we communicate and consent? In the midst of this season of self-discovery, love arrived, quietly, letting itself in through the back door. I currently cherish someone very deeply and am cherished by them in my entirety. Just when I was least expecting it, love snuck up on me, like a tiger in the night, terrifying but beautiful. As the leaves fall, so do I.
ARTS & CULTURE
Allowing Space To “Flounder”
a retelling about saltwater, microabrasions, and porous sponges by alaire kanes Illustrated by emilie guan Insta: @emilieguan42 We used to waltz into the water as kids, even when it was too cold for comfort. Our pre-pubescent squealing made the jerky movements of our limbs seem like a choreographed routine. The whooshing of the wind and crashing of the waves hastened our accelerating dances into the sea, the ocean, the Long Island Sound— whatever body of water we found ourselves in on that day of that particular summer. I remember hearing about the healing power of salt water. My mom always said to wash out all wounds with salt water. “The ocean can heal anything,” she told us. It stung the random scratches on the bottom of my feet badly, probably from the tiny shells near the shore, but eventually my small scrapes would feel better. I’d wonder if the sea could fix more than my external wounds. Sometimes the smell of the beach would invigorate me for weeks to come. Now, however, my question has changed: I wonder if, like the bite of salt water on a raw wound, one must first experience pain to achieve eventual relief. As I’ve gotten older, my miniscule, inadvertent calluses and scrapes have transformed into more serious injuries. I’ve developed scars on my ankles from haphazardly shaving my legs in a rush to impress boys at the beach, and raw, red flesh chafing between the supple skin on my upper thighs (always more painful than anticipated, physically and symbolically). I’ve developed metaphorical wounds, too; these wounds are in the pit of my stomach, in my head, in my heart. The sea and its salt may cause microscopic abrasions on
rocks and sand and shells and little girls’ dancing feet, but how does one explain the microscopic wear and tear of living life as a woman in your early twenties? Of living life, at all? Of living and loving and failing and falling? Maybe an answer to my call is an aquatic-themed album, written by, of course, a woman in her early twenties: quinnie’s 2022 debut album, flounder. I didn’t let the fear of heavy-handed ocean imagery stop me from listening. Instead, I dove right in. — Twenty-one-year-old quinnie found her moment in the spotlight with “touch tank” in spring 2022. I remember hearing a snippet of the chorus for the first time on TikTok, instantly falling in love with quinnie’s dreamy, airy vocals and tender vulnerability. The clip went viral, with tens of thousands of instant fans begging to hear the full song. As I desperately waited for “touch tank” to be released, I concurrently, desperately waited to fall in love. I had been feeling quite lonely and was looking for, hoping for, dreaming of, companionship. Soon enough, I would find it. (Coincidentally with someone named Quinn; the world has a real sense of humor!) We’d sing “touch tank” to each other in the car sometimes. It was our song. The relationship was joyful and oh-so-sweet, until it wasn’t. Soon enough, I fell victim to the “touch tank curse,” (a seemingly collective experience shared by women on the internet). My year-long relationship ended, not by any nefarious, disastrous, extreme means, but because of the strain of long distance. The microabrasions, the wear and tear, added up to something too difficult to maintain. We walked away both needing some of the ocean’s healing powers, I think. I hope he’s found some. I felt split wide open, even more vulnerable to the world’s weathering. I did a lot of thinking, humming, listening. I listened to flounder almost daily, quinnie’s siren-like voice a cool salve to what felt like cracks in my heart and soul. quinnie investigates and interrogates what it means to exist as a woman—in all our complex,
confusing glory—during a time of overwhelming online content and harmful feminine standards and impositions. In naming her album flounder, containing songs such as “man,” “ribbons,” “itch,” and “flutterby,” she celebrates, questions, and verbalizes the liminal space that is existing as a femme-identifying person in a particularly femme-unfriendly world. quinnie’s lyrics delve into hefty topics such as toxic masculinity, grief, climate change, mental health crises, and abusive relationships––while also detailing small, lovely moments of childhood nostalgia, self-growth, wonder, and first loves. Her album fulfills a function of both memoir and cultural critique. She allows for and embraces the in-between moments, the worksin-progress, the feeling of floundering. quinnie is able to reframe life’s more challenging experiences, not by reducing their discomfort, but by acknowledging her own, and womanhood’s, expansive capacities to contain multitudinal potential. quinnie’s music has challenged me to imagine brighter days, brighter futures, brighter loves. In “flounder,” a song with a momentous, sparkling acoustic introduction, quinnie’s lyrics are a patchwork assemblage of observations, lists, and visual experiences. The song’s layered instrumentals–– guitars and bells and percussion––are reminiscent of the scattered yet vibrant experiences of growing up in an age of quickly transforming digital landscapes. Quinnie dually engages with reshaping memories of intimate moments ("I'm trapped inside my frame of sight / so much wonder that I cannot see”) while also involving collective, cultural experiences by using the second person “you.” (“Now sugar babies, Mickey Mouse / digitize your parents’ house / turns into the world we choose to see.”) “fade,” released as a flounder bonus track, has proven to be the most transformative song on the album within my life. The opening beats thrum, and I dive in. Immediately, I am taken to a place of safety, understanding, and visibility. What if this feeling really never is gonna fade? The song is cinematic, important,
November 2, 2023
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ARTS & CULTURE and validating in its musical composition and lyrics. In addition, the song’s percussion is sonically reminiscent of waves crashing against the shore. quinnie’s voice envelops me in a feeling of recognition, like the sensation of a close friend cupping your cheek, wrapping you in a warm blanket, and reminding you that this too shall pass. — Sometimes I feel like I’m being worn down by the world, slowly but surely. Feelings of depression and heartbreak and self-doubt, like sandpaper, scrape away at all my softness, leaving brittle bone, bitter thoughts, behind. Sometimes I think I just can’t handle any sort of erosion anymore.
But quinnie makes me pause and wonder: perhaps this erosion, this wear and tear of life, can be reframed, repositioned in my mind. Not as damaging or destructive, but as a molding of sorts. In the same way a potter crafts a piece of pottery with gentle hands, a curious mind, and a thousand soft touches, every moment, experience, and person I’ve interacted with has shaped me too. Maybe the salt water is not creating abrasions after all; maybe the water is simply rushing through porous openings, like those of a sponge. quinnie’s music enables me to feel ready to soak up new life, new love, new moments. Perhaps in the shuffling of the world, in heartbreak, in failure, in rejection, in regret, these microscopic channels are creating even
more space for life to move through my body. Perhaps that makes me even more full: full of love and wonder and potential. I’ve always been drawn to the ocean. My impressive imagination as a young girl would often convince me I could see a mermaid’s fin, somewhere out there in the distance. I’ve cultivated a specific relationship to the ocean, to water, a relationship drenched in both fear and desire, in pain and pleasure, in past and future versions of myself. In the ocean, and in quinnie’s music, I can finally envision a world in which microabrasions––from the salty sea, and from life’s heartbreaks––can coexist with spongy, soft porousness. I can flounder in the in-between after all.
Rippling
trumpeters will retreat to, and I think about all the places I call home. – The yellow and red leaves cascade across the view of the quad from my dorm room three stories high. It is still warm enough for my windows to be open. I watch the thinnest of cirrus clouds ripple across the surface of a cornflower sky. It has been the most perfect September, tucked away at school with my friends and my lovely roommate and my fantastic view. Yet, something is still missing. I nudge open my window a bit more, yearning to feel the misty air of an autumn afternoon. A squirrel rustles by, moving as swiftly as a hummingbird. I can see his paws moving, stretching toward the earth and grabbing acorns buried underneath the fading leaves. I am
holds less weight than the memories I have in my mind of these places—the pond, my three-storyhigh dorm room, my bedroom. They are stitched together patch by patch, huts constructed by echoey recollections. I visit these places often. My childhood home has roots that spiral and dig into the earth. Somehow, these roots don’t prevent me from planting other flowers within the garden of my mind. Like a bee, I visit each one and take and give what I need, always keeping just enough to remember. – The swans exit the pond after a long day. They shake off the droplets from their webbed feet, and the man runs out of bread. He stands up, stretching his arms above his head in exhaustion. I don’t know where he goes when he leaves the pond. Even though I might be a little curious, I don’t want to know all that badly. Belonging engulfs me when I visit the pond. I know exactly who, what, and when everything will be there. Sitting by the shore and watching the waves gently tiptoe across the surface, I imagine myself floating with a trumpeter swan and singing with an arrogant wasp. Going outside on a misty autumn afternoon and walking headfirst into a cobweb. Blurring the lines between whose home is whose and what lives where. I can smell the mildew of a rotting beaver dam and I can taste the sweetness of a honeycomb if I squint hard enough. – “I climb, I backtrack. I float,” Mary Oliver wrote. “I ramble my way home.” Art has brought me home. Books, stories, music. A long, decompressing phone call. Turning off my alarm every morning that still rings at the same time it had all throughout high school. I don’t have to stay in one place forever. I don’t need to. I have everything I need with me. Buttoned up into the pockets of my memory. I’ll reach in there when I feel cold, stretching past rooms and gardens. I tuck in my second-year dorm a little bit deeper each time I gaze out my window. My childhood home lays underneath it all, a silk slip. I’ll come back to the pond when I feel lonely. I’ll peek out at the swans. Watch the water ripple back and forth, cattails as they sway in the breeze, pollen as it dances on my cheeks. I head back home. When I wake up, I’ll walk side by side with tomorrow, and go wherever she takes me.
the transient nature of home by ana vissicchio Illustrated by Emily Saxl The trumpeter swan pokes his nose through the water’s surface. Staring back at him, a wavering mirror radiates from his small, pointed beak. As he takes one step in, ripples ricochet from his thin legs to the tip of the shore. He delicately situates himself on top of the surface, admiring the dancing waves of water that will be his home all afternoon. A man perches on the rocks along the shore at three o’clock. He gently breaks off pieces of bread and tosses the morsels into the water, scattering them about, feeding each bird. The bevy of swans and the man live together in a certain harmony. Seeking refuge in an abode a stone’s throw away from either of their own homes, the pond is a space they inhabit in what seems like harmony. The pond is open and welcoming, with its lapping blue water reaching the shore, luring every passerby to the coast like a siren. The trumpeters bring their children with them on their excursions. These cygnets trail behind their mothers, learning to bob along the waters like pieces of driftwood. The man, accompanying the birds like a patient friend, brings nothing but bread and tranquility. The cygnets first home was in a nest offshore constructed atop an old beaver dam. There was a time when they did not know the water, did not treat the pond like a long-lost brother. There will be times where they must migrate, relocate, and leave the nest forever. But for now, at the end of the day, they still return to the nest, burrowing their feet into their branchy abode. In the end, do they still call that “home?” I am now the one perched on the pond’s edge, with my toes in the water and my palms sinking into the earth behind me. Silence engulfs the littoral zone, whispering laps of water the only noises to be heard. Memories flit across my brain, scattering across my temporal lobe like a flat rock dancing across water. I wonder where the
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gazing out, three stories high, among the branches of the tallest oak in the yard. I am shocked by the closeness of the squirrel's life to my own. It is easy to notice a rabbit as she whizzes by me on the grassy pathway or a slender wasp as he sings loudly in my ear while I am trying to study, but I often find it difficult to fully absorb what sits right in front of my nose. Who I am simply existing with. Whose homes overlap with mine. I don’t ever thank the long-legged spiders who eat the pesky mosquitoes, or the bumbling bees collecting and distributing pollen and nectar wherever they go. They offer their home to me, ever so graciously. I express my gratitude by simply living in quiet harmony with them. – I like to visit the pond, as do the birds. Though I may just dip my toes into the shimmering surface as the swans submerge and spend their whole day bobbing about, we both dwell long enough to be considered domestic. A brick-and-mortar home
LIFEST YLE
Slouch Couch
a guide to those wide ’90s fits by Sean Toomey Illustrated by Jasmin Lin Insta: sasha_art_0201 As we once again approach the great ouroboros of pant width and shoulder padding— the kids are trending wide—I am beginning to notice an aesthetic rumbling up from the edge of retrospective fashion: Everyone is dressing like it's the ’90s. Call it fashion, call it Instagram mood board accounts full of ’90s GQ, wide is back. And unless your Halloween costume is a 2010 skinny jeans throwback, you need to know how to rock this new old look for yourself. From Seinfeld to Armani Fall/Winter ’91, let us dive into some fall fits. The ’90s is a little harder to nail down to certain aesthetic pieces than, say, the 1930s, due to the fact that fashion has been pretty diffuse in style since the explosion of the casual in the late sixties and early seventies. That being said, there are some distinguishing factors that carry through the ’90s style that we can break down, such as loose and baggy silhouettes, cool textures, and monochromatic experiments that appear in the clothing of the day. The suits of the ’90s were inescapably under the control of the unstructured, exaggerated, and elongated silhouette pioneered by Giorgio Armani at the beginning of the 1980s. The Armani look was one that harkened back to the relaxed formality of the 1930s with big patterns, casual fabric, and varying texture, but with a more rakish and fashionable look. Instead
of a conservatively-cut glen plaid suit, an Armani suit would have extended yet soft shoulders (following the natural line of the shoulder) with a dropped buttoning point and lowered lapel gorge to extend the figure. For this look, the pattern would be exploded to its maximum size. All in all, it creates a more casual and cosmopolitan look than a standard suit would. When you wear Armani of this period, you feel like a rich count waltzing around Europe and the Riviera, the only pressing appointment for the day being your morning espresso and your afternoon aperol spritz. Imagine late night parties and solitary walks in the streetlight, your only companion the Armani jacket draped around your shoulders. The same philosophy applies to shirts, pants, sweaters, and pretty much anything else that was trending during the decade. Roomy and baggy high-rise pants to go with your roomy shirt to go with your textured roomy sweater: all in all a nice and cozy aesthetic. This style is easy to get a hold of due to the glut of ’80s and ’90s wear scattered around Goodwill and thrift stores. History lesson aside, we can now focus on the particular pieces of this style one can work into their fall and winter wardrobe. Starting with suits and jackets, lean toward the more textured and tweedy side, as it will pair better with separates rather than looking like a suit jacket missing its pant-partner. These will not only fit the bundled up fall and winter vibes fast approaching—78degree weekends aside—but add the visual interest to your outfit a plain worsted would not. Think of the monochrome stylings of the decade as a little challenge: How do I spice up my outfits with similar base colors? Texture and pattern will work wonders here. On the similar topic of overcoats, I would follow the general lines of this trend and go for something big and roomy. A tweed raglan sleeved coat, more reminiscent of a
blanket than outerwear, will go well with the relaxed and louche lines of this look. In terms of shirts, I would look for either vintage or roomier modern versions that retain the boxy and relaxed shape that Polo Ralph Lauren and Brooks Brothers had back in the day. For business shirts, go for multi-stripes of white and blue and muted hues like mauve while also working in earth tones and gray for the European monochrome look. For more casual and country shirts, you should aim for plaids and flannel tartans that go with more traditional American styles— think of your dad’s flannels and wide chinos with penny loafers and dock sneakers. A style icon for the more informal side of this aesthetic is George Costanza of Seinfeld fame, not only for wearing a litany of tasteful Ralph Lauren plaids but also for rocking some very nice business fits with brown tweed sports jackets and navy blazers. The American-trad look has always been in the realm of elevated casual, much like the more cosmopolitan Armani look. I find they go very well together for such reasons. There are fewer exact guidelines for pants, but I would say: Stick to interesting patterns and textures as well as plain mid-gray and charcoal flannels, as they will go with everything else in your wardrobe. Keep in mind that they should be wide enough through the leg to hang cleanly and not catch anywhere; pleats are optional, but I prefer them to flat front pants. High-rise light-wash jeans, a trending piece right now, are a good option here as well. I hope this small rundown of some ’90s hallmarks coming back into style is helpful for your fall wardrobes. Remember to shop smart, wear your fun jackets, and look into an old GQ magazine every now and then… just not at the prices.
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LIFESTLYE
Solo Traveling Advice for the Wandering Soul a guide to an organized adventure by Tiffany Kuo Illustrated by Lulu Cavicchi Insta: @lulu_cavicchi Traveling alone is so over-romanticized. Instagram travel bloggers tell stories about the charming men they meet in Italy, the wondrous views from the mountains of Peru, and the endless adventures to be found in the streets of New York—not about the pickpocket in the Milan metro who stole your phone, not about the hours spent searching for a bathroom in the public park, holding your pee in, and definitely not about the man who threatened to kill you with a gun in Grand Central. And while I’ve never been to Italy or Peru, that occurrence in Grand Central did, in fact, happen to me on my first solo trip to New York. Having grown up in Shanghai, China, I was not afforded the quintessential freedoms many American teens experience. No car to drive wherever I want, whenever I want, no late nights spent hanging out with my friends at the local strip mall (is that what American teens do?). I had my location tracked and a curfew set at 9 p.m., even on weekends. There were many nights at the club, of course, and sunrises by the skyline, but I still wonder what it would have been like to have a car, to go on road trips with friends, and to experience total and complete freedom. Now that I’m in America, that’s exactly what I’ve chosen to do. During my first year, I decided that I would travel alone. I’d see the renowned Empire State Building, party at Duke frats, and sunbathe on the beaches in Miami. Who was stopping me? I had two jobs, a passport, and friends all across the country. So I did: I saw the stunning purple trees in the Berkshires, tanned (and talked to promoters) on the beaches in Miami, gasped at the adorable pastel houses lining the streets of Georgetown, took in the putrid stench of the subway in New York, and walked around the bright green parks of Boston. Whenever I had the chance, my pink carry-on and I were whisked away by some plane, train, or bus to experience something new, somewhere new. So, if you are longing to get out and travel, here is some advice from me, an intermediate solo traveler, on how to have the best weekend getaway. 1 . Never say no to a last-minute trip. Never speak in extremes, they say. Well, I’m here to 8
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prove them wrong: Always say yes to a new trip. One of my biggest regrets over the past few weeks was deciding to stay on campus over the long weekend instead of taking a trip to Cape Cod with a Brown organization. So when your friend asks you if you want to take a drive down to the alpaca farm, to go see RISD Beach, or to visit her friend at Tufts for the weekend, always say yes, even if you have homework. Think about it in these terms: In three years are you going to remember the grade you got on your English paper during freshman year, or your sunset trip to Newport beach with your friends? 2. Have a packing list ready. I don’t know about you, but I love to be organized. Whenever I plan on traveling, I start sketching out my outfits and my packing list days in advance. A quick trick I have is to already have a basic packing list on your phone notes app with the necessities and toiletries that you need, such as deodorant, chargers, socks, and a toothbrush. Then, you can easily adjust the packing list by the length of your trip and your destination. Having this list can help you avoid any last-minute disasters (I forgot my contacts! or I didn’t bring enough socks!) when you forget something important. 3. Be calm at the airport. The airport gives me immense anxiety. In fact, simply thinking about the idea of stepping into the bustling, stressful atmosphere of an airport makes me break into a sweat. There are so many possible airport disasters. Exhibit A: forgetting to clear out your water bottle. Happens to me every time. Unless you want to chug the whole thing and pee on the plane, don’t even enter the airport with anything in your bottle. Exhibit B: being separated from your carry-on as you board the plane. I forget how small the planes are here, and keeping my carry-on is never an option when I board. My laptop, my iPad—my entire life basically—are separated from me for the longest two hours of my life. Keep your laptop in your backpack and buy an AirTag to place in your carry-on suitcase if you are a worrier like me.
4. Search for free (or cheap) Brown opportunities! There is nothing in the world I like more than free stuff. If it’s free, I want it. And a free trip, well, that sounds like a dream. This is definitely achievable if you dig into some of Brown’s resources. The Guiliano Fellowship, for example, has funds for Brown students to take an international expedition related to their academic coursework or personal research. It’s a long application process, but who wouldn’t like to travel to their ancestral homeland to study traditional music? Brown clubs also usually organize fun trips. Participate in your cultural organization’s ski trip to New Hampshire or long weekend getaway to Maine. Sign up for the Brown Outing Club’s hiking or backpacking trip. Follow the Global Brown Center’s newsletter for impromptu weekend trips to neighboring towns. Meet new people and make the memories of a lifetime (and perhaps meet your future partner!). 5. Have thick skin. Lastly, have thick skin and do not be afraid to ask for a favor. A few weekends ago, I reached out to a friend who goes to college in Boston to ask if I could stay over at her dorm. We are good friends, but we haven’t been that close since ninth grade, so I didn’t expect her to say yes. Surprisingly, she agreed, and I had so much fun connecting with her and her roommates! If you want to go to a new city or have a local guide, don’t be afraid to reach out—the worst thing that could happen is that they say no. But you will most likely get a positive answer. Think of it this way: If an acquaintance told you that they were coming to Providence and would love to get a Brown tour for a weekend afternoon, would you say no unless you had prior plans? With thick skin and a friendly ask, you could have so many cool experiences and build new (or rekindle old) friendships! I hope these tips were helpful for you if you are thinking about traveling this semester or during winter break. I am yet to be an advanced solo traveler, but I feel like I learn so much each time. So even if you are a homebody, I highly recommend you buy a ticket and go somewhere new!
LIFEST YLE
Spring Weekend post- mini crossword 12 by Will Hassett
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Down
Across
1 Smell, stench, or stink
1 Mammal nicknamed 'zebra giraffe'
5 Zoom predecessor
who performed at Brown in 2 Bob 1964 and 1997
theatre form usually 3 Musical involving an orchestra 4 Laze, lounge, or loll
with 'of the Jedi' or 'from the crypt,' 6 TV shows 7 Alone, aside, or away (from)
5 RBI, xG, or FG%
8 Turner who performed at Brown in 1972
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kimberly Liu
“I am but a freckle on a leaf, burdened to evergreen beneath the flaming sun. Freckle in the face of life, power in the face of oblivion. I don’t know why I am or, rather, why I keep trying to be.” —Nélari Figueroa-Torres, “Raising Monarchs” 10.28.22
“Then, when we made acquaintance with the art that materialized before us, that beckoned us into the mysterious basement halls and seated us next to strangers, we lacked any other excuse for meeting, we became adamant about the community of seeing.” — Madeline Canfield, “The Art of Reopening” 10.29.21
Section Editors Emily Tom Anaya Mukerji
FEATURE Managing Editor Klara Davidson-Schmich
LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Tabitha Lynn
Section Editors Addie Marin Lilliana Greyf
Section Editors Jack Cobey Daniella Coyle
ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Joe Maffa
HEAD ILLUSTRATORS Emily Saxl Ella Buchanan
Section Editors Elijah Puente Rachel Metzger
COPY CHIEF Eleanor Peters
NARRATIVE Managing Editor Katheryne Gonzalez
Copy Editors Indigo Mudhbary Emilie Guan Christine Tsu
SOCIAL MEDIA HEAD EDITORS Kelsey Cooper Tabitha Grandolfo Kaitlyn Lucas LAYOUT CHIEF Gray Martens Layout Designers Amber Zhao Alexa Gay STAFF WRITERS Dorrit Corwin Lily Seltz Alexandra Herrera Liza Kolbasov Marin Warshay Gabrielle Yuan Elena Jiang
Aalia Jagwani AJ Wu Nélari Figueroa Torres Daniel Hu Mack Ford Olivia Cohen Ellie Jurmann Sean Toomey Sarah Frank Emily Tom Ingrid Ren Evan Gardner Lauren Cho Laura Tomayo Sylvia Atwood Audrey Wijono Jeanine Kim Ellyse Givens Sydney Pearson Samira Lakhiani Cat Gao
Want to be involved? Email: mingyue_liu@brown.edu!
November 2, 2023
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