As my mom reads off every name, my sister and I try our hardest to commit them to memory. We are six and eight years old, excitedly staring at the family tree in front of us. It is astonishing and extensive, with some very familiar names and others that I have only heard of as characters from my parents’ childhood stories. Mom explains that most of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents live all over the world and that someday, I will meet them all.
Having a massive family dispersed all over the world was exciting, but as a kid I often longed for more proximity. Seeing friends’ grandparents pick them up every day in elementary school often sparked envy. At that point, I had only met my grandparents two or three times. Over half of Americans live within an hour of extended family members, according to the Pew Research Center, with Asian Americans being the least likely to have extended family nearby. Especially during my childhood, the distance from my extended family created some sadness, but my feelings of detachment faded with time. The prevalence of social media certainly helped bridge this gap. And as I grew older, I was able to travel more to see my extended family and tend to the relationships I had always wanted to.
This past December, my maternal grandmother’s side, mostly from India and Australia, reunited in Vietnam. I was
Dear Readers,
Happy Leap Year Day! To all those born on February 29, your patience in aging is admirable. Happy birthday! Even if you aren’t a leap year baby, I hope you will all take advantage of this additional day. Maybe you’ll use it to rest. Maybe you’ll use it to lock in at the Rock. Whatever you decide is worthy of your gracious extra day, hopefully it is something enjoyable. Unfortunately, my GCal is full from 10 a.m.10 p.m., but at least I don’t have an exam. I wonder what leaps we may take this year: over a puddle, frog, a tattoo or piercing, hair dye. The possibilities are endless. This week I took a leap and got a tattoo of two cats cuddling in the shape of a heart. It was definitely worth the pain. I also learned that most of the post- editors want to take a leap and shave their
thrilled that we achieved full attendance; it had been eight years since I had last seen most of them at a wedding. Our headcount was 40, a hodgepodge of different stages of life: first words, retirement, parents new and old, and a group of us in our 20s.
The prospect of being an adult for the first time on a big family trip and seeing a new country evoked a slew of emotions. Our group chat of cousins buzzed with articles and videos about sightseeing, street food, nightlife, and nature. But enveloped in this excitement and anticipation were small shards of fear. With a group this size comes a widespread variety in age, upbringing, values, and opinions. Arguments, awkwardness, and disharmony were inevitable.
A few weeks before the trip, I was listening to a podcast in the car. A series of anecdotes from people all over the country came on, talking about tarnished relationships as a result of political discord. I knew that my political views were misaligned with some of my traditional family members. While I felt it was possible to avoid political conversations for 10 days, I knew our relatives from India and Australia kept up with the U.S. political scene and would ask my other American cousins and me about it. While I am usually happy to openly share my views, I feel a mental hitch to share potentially contradicting opinions with people I have such limited time
heads. If you suddenly see a group of really cool-looking people walking around with shaved heads, stop and say hello!
This week in post-, our writers are taking leaps through nostalgia, remembering family, childhoods, and friends. In Feature, the writer reflects on a recent family vacation with extended family where she had to navigate generational political differences. In Narrative, our managing editors reflect on a day they would love to re-live with their extra day this year, and our writer shares her opinions on the seasons through a series of vignettes and talks about how she evolves with them. In A&C, one writer discusses feeling connection to spirituality through music, and the other reflects on his personal relationship with language and how he observed it changing with new phases of relationships and age. In Lifestyle,
with. No part of me wants to spend the few-and-far-between moments I have with my relatives getting into an argument. But at the same time, reserving my emotions about topics I feel strongly about doesn’t feel quite right, either. On top of these conflicting thoughts, there is an added aspect of cultural complexity that crosses my mind.
A principal tenet deeply ingrained in many South Asian cultures is respect for those who are older. While I certainly appreciate this precept and feel it has shaped me in a lot of ways, its unconditional nature has bred hesitation, coupled with an inclination towards being more agreeable than I should be among members of my family. One of my favorite books, These Impossible Things by Salma El-Wardany, discusses this at length. It follows three South Asian women as they navigate disconnection among their family members. It is common for more progressive topics to wreak havoc among South Asian families, which leads to dishonesty and a lack of transparency between children and their parents and relatives. El-Wardany elucidates well through each of the women’s stories how it often feels like this guiding principle means one has to tiptoe around elders as a sign of respect, which, quite frankly, feels wrong.
As expected, at some point after the joyous hellos, heartfelt hugs, and general small talk on the trip, there was
one writer discusses the history of tweed fabric and provides an overview of its significance. The other writer, a mid-year transfer student, gives advice on how to make new friends. Last, but certainly not least, we have a Nikki-themed mini-crossword. Nicki who you may ask. Try it and find out!
I look forward to the remainder of this leap year and what leaps I may take. I hope to make small leaps each day. Leaps are what help push us out of our comfort zone and push us into a place of growth. Be bold, take a leap, and commit to reading post- every week. I can assure that it will help you grow.
Taking a leap of faith,
a bit of political discourse. The discussion, which pertained to gender equality and discrimination, started off generally even-tempered. The healthy nature of the debate didn’t last long, though, promptly escalating to an abrasive spat between a conservative uncle and liberal cousin, with sporadic interjections from other relatives. I acted as more of an audience member, and was quite angry at myself for doing so. There was a tug-of-war occurring in my mind—it was so deeply rooted within me to not contest family, but my opinions on the matters at hand were dying to be voiced. It was a lose-lose situation—either I feel guilty about expanding an already-existing rift, or I feel guilty about not speaking my mind at a critical moment. My reluctance to contribute ultimately prevailed.
Feeling quite disheartened by the lack of peace after that conversation, I wondered if there was a way to achieve harmony among a group with such a variety of backgrounds—it felt like blood was our only connection at certain points. I spent the next couple of days primarily with the group of us in our 20s, where I could relate the most. But I did feel a need to connect with everyone, especially the oldest generation. They weren’t doing much sightseeing and activities with the rest of the group, so I wasn’t spending as much time with them as I had hoped. When I did get the chance to chat with them, it was challenging to have meaningful conversations when our commonalities were so rare. But, after eventually getting by the less exciting “How’s school?” conversations, I asked more questions about their upbringing and they asked more about mine. Comparing my sleepy Rhode Island hometown to their spirited, restless Mumbai was striking. They were fascinated by the American college system, and I longed to hear more about living in a joint-family-style home. I realized our differences could be a way to connect, too.
Games were a small way that our entire group could connect. We would play all sorts of card games and board games in small groups. In the middle of the trip, though, there was one day where all 40 of us were told to meet in the afternoon for a game of Housie, a game similar to Bingo. We all gathered together in a living room playing a game simple enough that everyone could participate. The little ones would call out numbers or team up with a parent or cousin, and there was a cacophony of triumphant cheers and displeased yelling that, while unpleasant to my ears, brought me immense joy. Maybe it was a superficial way to feel connected, but there was no tug-of-war in my mind and I was thankful for that. The formidable truth is, though, that I may always feel hesitation towards both speaking up and staying quiet during the controversial conversations. And there will undoubtedly be more difficult situations in the future. But I will always appreciate the good moments with everyone together, from all different parts of the world, with all different perspectives on life, in one room doing one thing together as a family.
My brother graduated high school on June 1, 2018. Like all good family memories, photos from the day are immortalized around the house—plastered on Shutterfly mugs and clipped to the refrigerator by aging, but still vibrantly colored, magnets. Every day I’m at home, these photos confront me as if to remind me of a time of unfettered joy and pride—the lasting legacy of my nuclear family, one which only drifts farther apart as the days wind on.
I look back on this day and feel a tugging in my heart. As a freshman in high school, I looked on from the side of the field, lazily motioning the drags and rolls of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” on the snare drum for an hour as the senior class processed. I remember off-handed remarks that only fifteenyear-olds would trade as the band director glared in our direction, sweating through my button-up and khakis under the wavy heat, dozing off through the speeches of the graduates’ next chapters and new beginnings. It takes on a summery tint in my mind, a time of simplicity and naivety—smiling for the photo, not out of true joy.
I recently saw a graph detailing the time people spend with their family as they age. Since that day, the time we’ve spent together as a family of four has always had a start and an end point. We have reunited, and will continue to, but never in the same simple, continuous way that defined my childhood.
In my mind, I relive that day under this stipulation. I would hug my brother extra hard for the beginning of the next chapter in our book—not his. I would smile with my family, not for my family. The tugging in my heart transforms to a rich fullness of love and happiness, one that will continue to be reignited when we are all together, but will only be reachable at a moment’s notice within memory.
When I miss my parents most—when it seems like Rhode Island and Florida are drifting farther and farther apart from one another—my mind winds back the clock to Halloween of 2015.
It was our first time visiting Chicago and we were
ill-prepared for the rain. After the age-old “preteen disagrees with mom over what to wear” spat, I accepted that my Pinterest-inspired combat boots and slouchy beanie would be covered by a red disposable poncho from the CVS around the corner from our hotel.
We spent the first day hitting most of the classic tourist spots: the Bean, Sears Tower, the Chicago Riverwalk. Each was enjoyable in its own right, but I most fondly remember the in-between places—the coffee shops, storefront awnings, and train stops we sought refuge in as we trekked from one attraction to the next.
Although proud of our resilience in the face of inclement weather, our adventure culminated in an Uber ride to Navy Pier on the day of Halloween. Call it childlike naivety or sheer delusion, but I genuinely believed that the pier would be fully operational, seeing as the storm had tapered off into an icy drizzle. When we arrived, we joined the cluster of other disappointed tourists inside the main indoor area. After an hour of circling around aimlessly, my dad asked if I wanted to walk around the pier. Thinking that this was another one of his sarcastic remarks to make light of the situation, I played along and said yes. What I didn’t expect was for him to take my hand and pull me outside. In that moment, time froze. We ran around the pier, kicking and splashing puddles of water as the rain pricked at our skin like ice-cold needles. The skyline was obscured by a misty haze, but we stood there alone, numbed hand in hand, looking out at the lakefront.
I’ve found that most of the memories I cherish dearly become more special over time, as though I need to let them marinate and reinterpret them with insights that only come with age. However, that moment on the pier is the only time in my life where I’ve thought, “I’m going to look back on this forever,” as it was happening. Maybe it’s because we were breaking the rules for once, or because my mom always reminds us that we could’ve gotten hypothermia, but that was the most appreciative I’ve ever felt for simply living . I relive that memory every day to preserve the details from fading over time, and to hold my parents close to my heart regardless of the distance.
“I wish we had tails so we could wag them.”
“I’ve decided to microdose happiness with a little bit of Dr. Pepper.”
stay positive, test negative <3
by Tabitha LynnIn May 2020, I saw my friends for the first time in two months. We had planned the rendezvous of all rendezvouses, desperate for any excuse to leave the house. I laid out my outfit the night before, meticulously packing my bag as if I were in elementary school, daydreaming about the big field trip the next day.
An orange halter, a pair of ripped jeans, a blanket to sit on, and of course, a mask.
We sat 10 feet apart in a park, the excitement of being close (close enough), making us giddy to the point of delirium. As I lay in the grass with my eyes closed, the sun burning holes into my jeans, the sounds of my friends bubbling around me, it was almost like nothing had changed. Despite all the months apart, here was the sun and the birds and the daffodils—summer threatening to burst through at any moment. Like clockwork, the humidity of D.C. summer was setting in, the air so heavy that I could almost taste it, but for once, I didn’t care. I was reminded of just how much I had to be grateful for.
It would be more than a year after that meetup before my life would fully begin to pick up again, but that day, for the first time in too long, I felt light.
lana del slay
by Elijah PuenteMy feet ached. I was tired of returning every night to a home that was not mine, trying to cleanse myself of the musk from the person compacted
beside me on the train. I was ready for it to be over. But the main attraction was right around the corner: Lana Del Rey.
Last summer, I attended Lollapalooza (or “Lanapalooza,” as I liked to call it). I liked many artists on the lineup, but I was especially looking forward to Lana’s Sunday-night performance. I had seen her once before as a pre-teen with my dad, the original Lana stan. At that time, I had not listened to her as much, and I was excited to experience her show when I was more familiar with her music (she is now my top artist on Spotify).
After three days of continuous concerts, Sunday finally came. I saved my lacy green petite women’s top for this day. My Instagram caption was planned: “Summertime sadness now that Lanapalooza is over.” After an upbeat performance from A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, I raced to one of the two main stages in an attempt to beat the hoards of fans. I was quickly met with disappointment to see my pace was slower than I thought. However, my height ensured I always had a view. The stage was draped with lacy fabric and flowery vines.
Lights began to glow and the crowd screamed. The bridge to the chorus of “A&W” faded into the air. Lana came on stage and I thought my eardrums would burst from the shrills surrounding me. She sat elegantly on a wooden swing with vines wrapped around the ropes suspending it. Her entire performance was ethereal. My voice was hoarse by the end.
It’s something I hope I’ll be able to experience again, but it will never be the same as that day. Maybe next time I’ll be the first to use my carefully crafted Instagram caption.
Sundays have a bad reputation; the end of the weekend, the beginning of the school or work week, they are a day to reflect on the mistakes made that weekend, the time wasted, and the work that is left to be done. It’s easy to understand why the “Sunday Scaries” exist.
As the weekend wanes, I stumble into Andrews on a Sunday morning, waiting an obscenely long time for a burrito bowl and staring down a long afternoon that will almost certainly be spent at the Hay. I can’t help feeling a sense of deja vu. Pick a Sunday, any Sunday from the past three years, and this is exactly where I’d be, reliving the same day I seem to have found myself living for the past few semesters, if not years.
It’s a habit formed accidentally, though perhaps born by design by the limited options offered by Brown Dining on the weekend, it’s one I find myself continuing now, stubbornly, doggedly. Out of laziness, or maybe out of habit, I never seem to manage to get there early enough to beat the line, and I never learn to just get a granola bowl instead.
But despite the line, the struggle to find a table, and the time there were mushrooms and green beans instead of peppers and onions, there’s a reason why I find myself there every weekend. There’s something comforting about constancy, about stability. I’ve had bad days that I wished would end, and I’ve had bad weeks that I couldn’t see the other side of, but I’ve never had a bad Andrews burrito bowl.
Fall is the most delicate season. The way the leaves crinkle, changing color so romantically, falling for us to step through like clouds, shortlived and fleeting. The breeze tickling us each time we walk outside without a jacket serves as a reminder of what is to come. The desire to grab something warm—a pumpkin spiced drink or a red scarf belonging to a lover—places us in a time capsule, built not only to capture memories of exploring what is suddenly new, but also to hibernate, nestle into the heaters, blow on warm Thai and Indian dishes, and fall into a restful sleep.
During autumn, I am the most hopeful and wholesome version of myself. There’s something stronger guiding me to write the mundane activities in my life into an adventure. When I do decide to slide on my headphones, I listen to a mix of Noah Kahan, Yellow House and Cavetown—a beautiful and tantalizing mix of pining for the bareness of nature, but also remaining in this fixture of colorful perfection. The euphoria of being outdoors, resting with my head on the leg of another, holding up my readings above my head to block out the rising sun, reminds me to behold the not-so-subtle beauty of this season. I choose to remember how delicate the weather is, how raw it is to meet so many new people at once. To me, fall signifies the beginning of and longing for something better, peeling away the stiff layers of before and revealing a bubbly, smiley child once again.
Winter
Winter holds a fragile beauty to it, but not in the way that ice breaks when we step on it in the streets, or the vigor needed to shovel away layers of snow, enveloped in a coat of shivers and sniffles.
Instead, I listen for the silence that echoes. Every time it’s not in season, I picture winter
the way actors walk in slow-motion in silent films. I can’t help but remember the season by the pains of shoveling away at the ice or the incessant pulling of tissues from my pockets— the immobility of trying to navigate fun outings without bundling up.
And yet, when winter inevitably falls upon us again, year after year without fail, I am reminded of the grace and beauty.
Listen to the soft falling of snow, watch as it lands on her—the way she dances among the snowflakes as if she herself is an angel. She looks back at me with a soft and lazy gaze, as if daring me to chase after her and fall lightly into snow, which covers us gently, warm as a fitted glove.
As I lay with her, noses red, eyes watering from the brisk wind, I thank all the good and bad parts of winter for bringing her to me. Her, dressed in black from head to toe, laced with hints of color through her jewelry that I love to play with or the buttons on her jacket that look so frayed and loved, while I’m dressed in a cardigan in her favorite color, in hopes that she’ll notice when she looks at me like that, with such warmth in her eyes, everything in winter melts away. The only phrase I can think of to say as I stare in awe is that with her, the snow suddenly feels entirely new: caressing and soothing against my goosebumped skin.
When the flowers begin to bloom, it’s a reminder that it’s my turn to look around and notice the signs that everything around me is changing. It’s still brisk outside from the remnants of winter, but the light, so full and bright, reflects bravely down onto me.
When I wake in the morning, I immediately find natural light and to me, that’s enough to make my day better. Looking through my closet, the endless possibilities of clothing are once again offered to me. The variations of skirts, from flowy and white to straight cutoff denim, pique my interest, and the sweaters, their own form of a jacket, are enough to get me through the day until noon, when the weather, the fresh air is so strong that I can’t help but stop in place and inhale the offerings from the grass, trees, and flowers.
During this time, I even welcome the scattered downpour of rain. My Sperry boots, the ones I told my mother I would never wear here, are the ones I put on every chance I get because when I splash in the puddles, I feel like a child again, washing away every worry I’ve had—mundane and insignificant in comparison to the feel of the rain on my cheeks. No longer are my tears wet from stress or being tired without reason, but instead, it cleanses me of any doubt
I’ve had that vibrant shades of red, pink, and purple won’t return to campus, or the varying auras of emerald, jade, and robin egg green won’t fill my vision once more.
April is the month when I turn a year older, placed right in the middle of spring, bringing forth good and solid change that I didn’t know I needed. Every year during this time, I hope that I’ll find something that sticks (writing is the recurring theme), and find blissful love for someone else who brings me bouquets of flowers without me asking. I wish to watch my mother again take long walks at sunset, cheering happily that it’s finally warm enough to not have to bundle up incessantly with each neighborhood walk she takes.
Spring also brings sad showers. It’s a reminder that something so innocent and new is coming to an end. It’s time to look forward to what the next season will bring, which is hopefully something productive in the months without classes, or new connections in the world I’ll soon call my own, swapping out my pretty floral skirts and plain monochrome sweaters for something more form-fitting and serious. When I look in the mirror, I see a trial of my life I’m not ready for, but spring has brought her to me and for that, I must embrace her with open arms.
Bold brave sun, bold brave heart. Burning under the heat of its gaze makes me tired yet so full of feverish joy, yet I find myself begging for any other season to come back. Summer is the season I look forward to the least, as it buffers the moments I cherish most, while lacking the most structure. While most look forward to the relaxing and wandering nature of June, July, and August, I prefer to have a schedule made compatible with my time, no longer being so loose and malleable.
However, the outfits that I craft in the summer, and the string of music reserved solely for this time, make it so much sweeter. Flowy short bottoms with tight tank tops, decorated with crocheted flowers or beaded jewelry—it’s the time to experiment with my style. I watch as my skin tans under the sun—taking a cold shower after being in the sun all day feels like being reborn, shedding off the layers I choose and keeping the ones that make me better.
Walking down the stairs, feeling the cool tiles against my burnt feet, I rummage through the fridge to find the bountiful harvest of fruit waiting for me: watermelon, honeydew, sumo oranges, cherries, and apricots. My mouth salivates at the sweet stain of red that the berries leave on my lips—a natural shade of lipstick I can appreciate. In the background, I inhale the barbecue ribs that my dad grills in the backyard or the lamb skewers my mom coats in citrusy, spicy rub.
Later, I’ll sneak off towards the fireworks or the depths of my backyard near the woods, where I’ll run to my car with the top down, scream the lyrics to my favorite summertime songs, or just listen quietly to the lullabies of Japanese House with my eyes closed, breathing in the unknown of tomorrow that I had been so scared of before.
Just like the seasons, I am constantly evolving. With time comes change, comes uncertainty. But, slowly, I am learning to embrace the way that maybe the things around me aren’t changing, but I’m forming into someone new, who’s ready to take in all that nature has to offer. Nothing stays the same, and for that, I am forever grateful.
My Sunday school teacher used to tell me that God hears all our prayers. She said that sometimes God even responds to you, and in these instances, you can feel his presence in your body or hear his voice in your head. So every Sunday, when Father Fox gave us a few minutes to pray silently, I would do my best to talk to God:
Dear God, thank you for the roof over my head and thank you for the food that I get to eat today. And thank you for Mom and Dad and my brother and my dog Jupiter and please make sure nothing bad happens to them. And please protect Granny and Grandpa and Aunt Marsha in Heaven and anyone else I forgot about. And also please give me boobs as big as Juliette Shenton's by the end of fifth grade. Amen.
For some reason, God never responded. I waited a few seconds, straining my ears to see if he had any words of reassurance for me. I relaxed my muscles so that he could at least send a shiver down my spine. I felt nothing. Ultimately, I decided that my prayers must not be important enough for him, and that he must be listening to other people who were asking for more important things. I felt like this let me off the hook. If he wasn't paying that much attention to 10-year-old Olivia Cohen from Denver, Colorado, then I didn't have to pay that much attention to him either.
This attitude made going to church a much more fun experience for me (if not for those around me trying to pay attention). My brother, my dad, and I would each fill our pockets with little trinkets—a keychain, a Lego man, a set of ten-sided dice—and when the service got slow, one of us would extract an item from our pockets to pass down the pew for the next person to play with.
What I remember most about our church was the music. When it was time to play a hymn—"Holy, Holy, Holy," a weekly staple—the whole congregation stood and the head singer would start to croon. She sang an octave higher than the rest of the choir, with a vibrato that oscillated violently, like a rogue bobblehead: Holy,
holy, hooooooly! Lord God Almiiiighty! My brother and I failed to stifle our laughter and our mom hissed at us to be quiet. On our way home after the service, we practiced our falsettos on "All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name": And crown him lord of aaaalllll.
Although the community was welcoming, I never felt at home in the Catholic church. I never knew when to stand or sit or kneel, I didn't know the tunes to the songs, and I didn't know the Biblical stories our priest referred to in his sermons. Plus, my dad was Jewish. Although he sat in service with us, he didn't pay much attention either, which made the whole thing feel much less serious. I never understood why he didn't take communion (which my brother and I described as "the part where we eat the cracker") with us. We assured him he wasn't missing much: Wine doesn't taste as good when its cup has touched a hundred lipsticked mouths.
When I was twelve, we started going to synagogue twice a year to commemorate the deaths of my grandparents at services called yahrzeits. The first time I went, I didn't bring any toys in my pockets. I wore my favorite hand-me-down blue-and-brown dress, vowing to be on my best behavior. I thought maybe I had just been engaging with the wrong religious community, that this new experience might help me finally access my spirituality.
If I expected this service to be any easier to understand than the Catholic Masses I was used to, I was sorely mistaken. Here, I didn't know the language in which half the service was conducted. I opened the song book to its first page to find, to my surprise, that I was on the last page. The cantor seemed to be skipping from page to page randomly. How did everyone else know where we were supposed to be looking? I eventually stopped trying to follow along and instead spent these services with my eyes closed and my head against my dad's shoulder. The cantor played an acoustic guitar, and she had a
beautiful voice—a far cry from the shrillness I was used to in my church—so I listened quietly.
Mi she-bei-rach a-vo-tei-nu, M'kor ha-bra-cha l'i-mo-tei-nu: May the Source of strength who blessed the ones before us, help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing. And let us say, Amen.
Most of the other people in the services were elderly, and they seemed to know all the words by heart, singing at varying paces and with varying levels of hoarseness, a symphony of humanity that was at once comforting and foreign.
At this point, I had one foot in each of my parents' religious worlds. In both those settings, it felt as though there was a choreographed dance happening all around me, but I had failed to learn any of the moves, so I was left frantically trying to follow along. My sense of spirituality was at an all-time low. I no longer felt carefree about it. Is there something wrong with me? Isn’t having a connection to a higher power a part of being human? How does everyone else seem to hold this connection but me? Had I done something wrong to sever the link between me and God?
Then one Christmas, my family and I went to Episcopalian church with family friends. It was the environment I was familiar with: clouds of incense hanging low in the air, stained glass windows casting kaleidoscopic patterns of red and gold onto the wooden pews. The whole sermon was in Latin, and my brother and I were starting to feel fidgety—I had already pulled a mini flashlight out of my pocket— when, from behind me, I heard voices.
A hundred people, dressed identically in floorlength robes, walked in pairs down the aisle toward the altar. People of all ages, men, women, and children, sang “O Holy Night”: Fall on your knees; O hear the Angel voices. O night divine. The sound echoed off the stone walls and seemed to pour in from all directions. The highest voices harmonized with the lowest, and every voice in between was rich and resonant. Suddenly I felt it: the shiver down my spine, the hair raising on my arms. The feeling I'd been chasing: My God, this is beautiful.
In that moment, I wasn't connecting to any higher power. When the whole world fell away except for those angelic voices, I was connecting to myself, to my own spirituality. The music offered me a reminder of the beauty that humanity can create, and I felt connected to that beauty in a way I never had been before.
Since my childhood, I've realized that I'll likely never feel at home in a religious service. But I believe spirituality looks different to everyone. For some, it's saying a prayer and feeling the energy and love of all the congregation members around them. For some, it's hiking up a mountain and marveling at the splendor of nature from above the treeline. For me, spirituality is often something I find in music: letting it wash over me, turning off my conscious thought and letting the sound fill up my empty spaces, if only for a moment. Yielding to that feeling—that pure gratitude for the world and its creations, that my God, this is beautiful—to me, that's religion.
Since my childhood, I've realized that I'll likely never feel at home in a religious service. But I believe spirituality looks different to everyone. For some, it's saying a prayer and feeling the energy and love of all the congregation members around them. For some, it's hiking up a mountain and marveling at the splendor of nature from above the treeline. For me, spirituality is often something I find in music: letting it wash over me, turning off my conscious thought and letting the sound fill up my empty spaces, if only for a moment. Yielding to that feeling—that pure gratitude for the world and its creations, that my God, this is beautiful—to me, that's religion.
After coming to Providence, my cosmic "I" turned atomic. It happened when I started to say goodbye to my grandmother and when my younger brother went on his first date. My life started to look like a page of words I couldn't read.
My grandmother got sick the summer before I came to college. Her illness isolates her; her thoughts are shared by no one. She used to be a person who always knew what to say, but since I've had to begin my goodbye to her, she has not known how to respond. She has forgotten her words. So I have kept my mouth open to hold these two parting syllables indefinitely. I breathe them out beside her, shaking the flame above her melting head. It is a long, searing goodbye—I sustain it loudly and close my eyes, and I wish for her to hear me.
Yet that sound, which has turned from a swallow to a moan to a but—it protests for her life, and I hold onto it. Though I manage to communicate with her, I am hollowed out in translation. I am losing parts of my grammar and have to speak for far longer than ever before to convey my smallest thoughts.
While I'm away from her, I read Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking—but only several pages per sitting. Didion is a grief-stricken woman, misty-eyed, head in the clouds. The cold, quiet delirium of mourning drowns her every word. It is the book you must read to know what you'll leave behind, everyone says. But I think it is the opposite. I read it to preview the feverish solitude felt by the one left to live.
Then there is my brother. He says so little to me. I used to know him best this way, but something has changed. What was once our unspoken understanding has become a silent disavowal. It’s funny, really. He has gone out to a restaurant I haven't heard of with a girl I
haven't met, and I am in Providence. He said things on that date that I would not have been able to understand coming from him. He is growing. I rack my brain for a memory of him saying this would happen, but it seems I have missed it. He has forgotten to speak slow in translation for me. So it seems I am just as far from him as I am from our grandmother.
But my mouth still hangs open like a ripped rag left out to dry. I am folded and creased by my brother's shadow. What had tied me to the world before is now what unravels it all.
I no longer understand everything. My "I" has shrunk to a shallow signifier of a person that does not know grammar but only words, and who cannot say any of them but one. This person talks to himself, walks by himself, but never understands himself because the "I" is not him but a person he has turned into.
***
The last time I saw my grandmother, I found her in bed, awake with her eyes closed. My brother had already arrived. I smiled at him, but I don't think he saw. I watched him watch her. He seemed hot, like he was watching the sun set from where it drops off the earth and the beaming rays had undone him. But he stayed afloat in the hazy mess of our grandmother's bedroom.
Her hand, the flame of a burning candle, she held it to her cheek, so we could see her rippling, waxy face that melted for us, then hardened into an apology that we should come so far to see the sun set on a life and a language we had barely shared. I feel these words are all I can say to hold my ties fast to the earth. Even if they do not describe what really happens, they are true.
Witnessing the burning out of our grandmother sent my brother and me to the next phases of our lives, in which real loss was as common as forgetting little things. In a way, this passage made us both closer to her. We saw this in our silence. And in our silence, we grew closer too. My brother joined me as I slipped further into a crumbling vocabulary that took more space the further it fell.
My mouth has closed; I have said the last of my goodbye. For so long, my one hope has been that she would hear it, so now that I believe she has, I can hardly
remember how not to make a sound. I focus on what is left, not a feeling but a face—my brother’s. For a while, he and our grandmother had been standing on either side of me, facing me from opposite directions. But now all I see is him, and only he faces me. The goodbye has become a hum in her absence, and my brother hears it.
How his date went, I do not know. What he is doing today, how old he is, how he liked that restaurant—I'm not sure if I care anymore. Since our grandmother's been gone, I've only hoped that we could sit in silence together again. And we do. That silence in the wake of a loss is the best thing for one who cannot understand the whirl of the world around them. Even when the hum sings on. ***
The river through Providence never has boats, but the geese and ducks swim together like they’re one and the same. The other day, once the sun went down, I swam with them and several friends. In the dark, I could not see my reflection. I came out with my jaw wide open, spitting river water and shivering.
I woke two days later with a cold—the next day, with body aches and chills—I was back in the dark and boatless river. I had not stopped humming, but in my fever-induced delirium, I began to hear it inside my head.
I returned to Didion. I had never finished it. Now I read through glassy eyes. The few words I could see reminded me how I had been left. I knew these words. I lived these words. But I was not alone.
I answered my brother's call from bed. I could hardly hear his voice over the hum, but there was something distinct about the way he sounded—a feeling of figuring it all out that I have grown past. He is who I was before. But I've jumped in the river and gotten sick, so I now learn the rules of this new way of living that my grandmother knew so well, trying for the life of me to figure myself out. I hear my brother blowing through the phone, making a wish, hoping to put out my flame. He will call again.
My cold stays with me a few days more. It passes. Yet the hum I will hear forever. It is the boats in the river, the geese and ducks; it is the hot, cosmic glow at the end of life we all have seen. It is what comes after. It is my grandmother's, my brother's, and mine.
Did you transfer here midyear and feel so utterly alone? Do you hang out with people that you enjoy, but at the same time feel that nobody truly knows you? There’s a difference between meeting and knowing people. Every day, you introduce yourself and go through the list: name, year, pronouns, and the dreaded fun fact that no one ever remembers. At this point, it has become a part of your daily routine, yet it’s still a daunting process because you want to make a good impression and are trying to find your niche. As a result, I present a guide on the best ways to meet new people––not to be confused with knowing people––from one socially awkward girlie to another.
1. DM friends of friends prior to arrival.
It seems like everyone’s high school best friend goes here, so you followed a lot of new people on Instagram in December. As January rolled around, you slid into DMs harder than when you fell on black ice during the orientation campus tour. Unfortunately, since most of these conversations took place online before getting to campus, they never got deeper than “Where are you living?” It never hurts to network, but saying “we should grab a meal” is like saying you’re doing well when someone asks how you are doing. It’s reflexive, hollow––polite.
2. Once classes start, change spots everyday in your lecture.
During shopping period, you didn’t even try to talk to your neighbor, because the odds of both of you staying in the class were low. As you settle into your schedule, you have to juggle seeing the board and having a swift exit strategy to make it to your next class. By trying every spot in the room, you check out the options, and every day you get to sit next to someone new. This should mean that you get to meet everyone, but in reality, it ensures that no one will remember who you are. The class is large, and if
you do not have an established spot in the room, you are less memorable to the people around you. Bonus points if you immediately scurry out of the room while looking at your phone when the bell rings.
3. Join more clubs than you could possibly reasonably manage.
One perk of being a transfer student is the opportunity to try something new. At your old school, there were numerous clorgs (clubs and organizations) that you thought about joining but never got around to. Good thing Brown's list of 500+ clorgs has equivalents to those and more. While most organizations say they welcome new members throughout the year, joining in the spring semester is less than ideal. Everyone is as friendly as they can be, but they already have established a flow and made memories from the fall semester that make the social circle feel impenetrable. It doesn’t help that you don’t seem to be particularly memorable. You also haven’t settled on a concentration yet, so instead of being Zoe that studies Architecture and writes for post-, you’re just the girl in the back in a black coat. After going to meeting after meeting, the people you meet start to blur. You know that your evenings are oversubscribed, but you keep showing up because you haven’t decided what you want to commit to, and you don’t know what to commit to because you don’t know who you vibe with, and you won’t know until you commit. It's quite the vicious cycle.
4. Sit with someone completely random in the Ratty. Perhaps joining too many clubs has its perks, because someone you recognize from multiple different clubs—who also happens to live on your floor—is eating breakfast alone at the Ratty. In the seven years of living at school, you have noticed that your best friends are the ones you have breakfast with. It is secretly the most intimate meal of the day because of the combination of low energy and sparse attendance. It is an affirmation that you enjoy each other’s company, so why not continue the trend here? Establish one brekkie buddy and soon enough, everyone else will know you and before you know it, friends! Huzzah! However, this plan only works if you properly identify the person who you thought you were sitting with. Their doppelgänger does not count. Now you’ve just disturbed a stranger’s breakfast and the sound of chewing yogurt has never been so deafening.
4. Share a table at a coffee shop.
Ok, so maybe the dining hall is not the ideal place to meet people, but an off-campus coffee shop might be. To recover from the Ratty fiasco, take yourself out to get a matchreat (matcha treat). Everybody loves a good portmanteau, and I guess Ceremony too. By the mercy of god, find a table to pull out your laptop and RBF. Maybe someone with a monogrammed Brown backpack will ask to join since you are hogging an entire table. Take this opportunity to meet someone new who also took themselves out to get a matchreat. After a minute or two of chatting, you learn he’s actually a grad student who knows what it’s like to feel so, so alone. He recommends another coffee shop and you both get a productive hour or so of work done. He says goodbye, and that’s when you realize you never got his name, what he’s studying, and that coffee shop he recommended is in Federal Hill. Maybe one day you’ll run into him again sipping a matcha, but for now, he’s just an anecdote to tell over the phone.
5. Simply run away from your problems.
Everyone these days likes to talk about wellness, so this is my wellness tip. Go on runs. Recharge your social battery by draining the physical one. There’s nothing quite like running 5.5 miles out on the East Bay Bike Path only to remember you have to run that distance back. On top of that, your running playlist is all about female rage, which makes you want to scream, kick, cry, throw up, roll around––behaviors that everyone looks for in a friend.
I knew that transferring would be tough. Integrating in the dead of winter is isolating, but I know eventually you and I will get to know people. As I keep hearing, this campus is small. There is one tip I left out because it is simultaneously the key to everything and the absolute worst thing to hear if you are actually exceptionally lonely, but here it is: time bears connection and love. I hate it when people tell me that in time, I’ll find my place because it’s stating the obvious. However, for the sake of publishing a comprehensive guide, I thought I should add it unofficially. Ultimately the goal is to have friends, but it’s worth noting that alone can mean loneliness or independence, which can be liberating. When it’s just you, there is no one holding back your agenda. You can go on little excursions whenever you want and soon enough, the people around you will want to join in on the fun.
If one had to summarize all of menswear—its ups and downs, bell bottoms, shin huggers, and oxford bags—into an essential fabric, it would have to be tweed. Hailing from the frosty and unforgiving weather of Northern Europe, tweed has become and remains the most versatile, nostalgic fabric one can wear from September to April. But some of you might be asking: “Sean, what is tweed? How do I wear it? Why are your outfits so amazing?” Well, dear reader, today I’ll be taking you on a brief tour through the rugged land of tweed.
It would be prudent to start off with a brief explanation of what tweed is, where it came from, and how it established itself as the dominant fabric within men’s fashion. Broadly speaking, tweeds are heavy, hard-wearing woolen fabrics that are often fuzzier and more textured in appearance than a regular worsted wool or the smooth finely woven suit fabrics one might find at the mall. Tweeds got their start in the wintery climates of Scotland and Ireland, where their aforementioned qualities made them well suited—pun intended—to both the weather and labor of the workers. Eventually the posh Englishmen of the south began buying leisurely estates in Scotland and took a liking to the fabric. The London-centered machine of men’s fashion picked up on tweed and ran wild with it, with encouragement from the massively influential royal dandies Edward VI and Edward VII. As fashion moved towards more relaxed
silhouettes and attitudes in the twenties and thirties, many found tweed to be the perfect fabric to exude the casual and sporty nature of the interwar period.
A cursory glance at the first few editions of Esquire will show tweed suits and sport jackets galore. And while tweed suits may be hard to come by nowadays, a tweed sports jacket with odd trousers has remained a menswear staple and—in an increasingly casual world—the go-to uniform of those in need of a fancy getup on the fly.
The most brilliant thing about tweed is its variety. There are many different types of tweed, varying in wave, pattern, and region—each giving your outfit a different look and meaning. You can embrace the sweater-like sponginess of an old, rough, Harris tweed, or the expression of the colorful and vibrant flecks of a Donegal. You could go for an old school look, with a suit of hard-wearing and cheviot, or, for the complete opposite, a soft and casual Shetland. Even if you’re stumped and frozen with indecision facing a bloated closet, tweed will always have your back. Just throw on a patterned tweed jacket, some gray flannels, and a vintage button down and you’re off to the races.
Moving beyond the varieties of the loom, tweed is great for its universality and versatility, allowing a wearer to travel to many different eras. You can go for a more modern look with a softly cut Neapolitan jacket in a subtle check or windowpane pattern. Or
you could go back to the sixties and take full advantage of the Ivy League look on an Ivy League campus and wear a Glenn check sack jacket with a pair of khakis and loafers. If you want to go even further back to the heyday of upper crust clothing you could turn to the thirties and wear a soft tweed suit made from Shetland, Harris, or Cheviot. You could even go for the Hollywood look of the era: big broad shoulders, nipped waists, and dropped belt loops made from heavy tweed fabric in a loud and explosive pattern.
Tweed speaks to me on a personal level, not just as a throwback to the vintage styles that inspire me, but also as a reminder of the old standards for fabric. Now, the quality of fabric is getting worse and worse, yet the fashion industry tries to sell it as an improvement, equating softness and lightness with luxury. These new, flimsy, synthetic, and blended fabrics fall apart after a few wears and lack the life of a high quality loom that keeps bringing you back to it. In the menswear industry, this manifests in an arms race toward lighter fabrics, like extremely finely woven Super 100s wool. While these fabrics certainly have their place and can be high-quality, to me, there is nothing like wearing a heavy tweed coat, the weight of the fabric draping down beautifully. Maybe I’m just an old fogey or horribly out of touch. Still, I hope this rundown of my favorite fabric—nostalgic, wonderful tweed—will inspire you to wear it, and to think about how you view luxury in clothes.
February 29, 2024 9
Starships
post- mini crossword
1 3
Down
1 5 7
Pedi's Partner
Preps onions, perhaps
Outdo 6
Nikki; presidential canditate
“But the sameness can also be relieving. As I listen to white noise, even if I’m lying awake, I remember that my sleeplessness has persisted within me since my infant days, and—in a way—that is comforting.”
— Sophie Pollack-Milgate, “White Noise” 2.24.23
“I want to melt down every moment, keep them in a heart-shaped locket around my neck. But time is like water between my fingers. The scene always ends, and a new one arrives, burning just as brightly.”
Joe Maffa
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