post- 03/25/2022

In This Issue Julia Vaz

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Mack Ford

Ayoola Fadahunsi

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Laundry Room

Longing Upward

Comb, Part, Braid 5

Lily Seltz 5

Disembodied or Disappointed Joe Maffa 7

Solid Walls of Sound Sarah Frank

Self-Care Diaries 8

postCover by John Gendron

MAR 25

VOL 29 —

ISSUE 6

FEATURE

Comb, Part, Braid black hair and the fight for acceptance

By Ayoola Fadahunsi Illustrated by Lucid Clairvoyant IG: l.u.cid

“Natural Hair is an Exquisite Crown. … A head full of unique, healthy beauty. NATURAL BEAUTY.” – Stephanie Lahart When my sister was five years old, my aunt decided to

and celebrities advertising the newest hair straightening

hair was perceived as messy, unkempt, and savage—a

product that made natural hair easy to manage. She

rhetoric created during the slave trade and upheld today

sought to simplify my sister’s daily hairdressing routine

in the workforce discourse over professionalism and

from bothersome to effortless. To her, natural hair was

presentability. This association between prestige and hair

something that needed to be conquered and managed.

has forced Black people to manipulate their hair in order

forcibly use a chemical relaxer on her hair so that it would be

Internalized hatred for natural, kinky, Afro-textured

to be perceived as beautiful, tame, and employable. Black

“straight and beautiful.” This event was followed by sounds

hair is a deeply rooted mentality that dates back to the

women have had to make themselves digestible, embodying

of torment that rang through the night. Screams filled the

colonization of African tribes and countries. During

Eurocentric features in order to avoid drawing attention to

house as chemical hair relaxer burned through her scalp,

colonization, power, wealth, and innovation were

their otherness. The reinforced image of acceptable beauty

and water was rendered useless against the unrelenting

possessed by Europeans, whose silky straight hair was

curated by colonialism, entertainment, media, and society

heat. At the time, my aunt was enamored by the models

deemed beautiful. In contrast, natural Afro-textured

has instilled shame in many Black women.

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, Campus is abuzz! Folks are taking taxis and catching flights, headed every which way so long as it’s away from Providence. Midterms are wrapping up, supposedly (Mine don’t seem to be). The crocuses are still up and the daffodils are just beginning, and I can tell that the flowering trees will be all pink and wonderful when we return. It’s exciting! It’s all happening! It’s about damn time for a break!

This week, before we all scatter to the winds, our writers are considering some scattered topics of their own. In Narrative, one writer longs for the power of climbing onto elevated surfaces while the other looks back at the beginning of college through the lens of poetry. Our Feature writer discusses her relationship with her natural hair and discusses the history of the fight for Black hair’s acceptance. In A&C, one writer examines the dichotomy between

“hot” girls and “smart” girls in media while the other explores the connection between listening to music and his practice of dream journaling. And finally, our Lifestyle writer provides a list of self-care practices—much needed now, just beyond the midpoint of the semester.

Maybe you’ll flip through the (digital) pages of post- while you sit on the train to Boston, or in a sticky chair at the TF Green Starbucks, or in the back of your friend’s car as you sing your way from here to Maine. Or even as you sit on your bed and procrastinate packing. Wherever you are reading this, I hope your thoughts are provoked and your mind is calmed. And I hope you have a wonderful spring break, post- readers!

Scurrying towards break,

Kyoko Leaman Editor-in-Chief

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Breaks to Take in Spring 1. up with your girlfriend, i’m bored 2. Icebreakers 3. -down 4. Karate chopping a block of wood 5. At a retirement community 6. Japanese Break-fast 7. Kit Kat 8. …a leg!

9. Dance break 10. <3

FEATURE My mother, a professional hair-braider, is a different

figures, and thin lips; I did not have any of those qualities.

who wore their hair in big, large, Afros. Hair became a

story. She has never felt forced to conform to beauty

My teenage insecurities perpetuated my internalized

political statement to empower, as opposed to oppress and

standards by relaxing natural, kinky hair—so you can

narrative that my African features were to blame for my

assimilate. This liberation movement laid the groundwork

imagine her horror and rage when she found out what

relationship status. I decided to change parts of myself

for the Natural Hair Movement, which was propelled in the

happened to my sister. For as long as I can remember, my

that were alterable; my thick lips or curvy body I could not

2000s and 2010s by the increased access to social media

mother was always braiding hair in her shop—combing,

change, but surely I could rectify my curly hair. Thus, my

and the solidarity it spurred within the Black community.

parting, and stitching hair into magnificent one-of-a-kind

hair straightening began, and after a whole year of blowing

Black women identified the harms of chemical relaxers, and

art pieces. From cornrows to Senegalese twists, micro

out my hair on the highest heat, I ended up with damaged

decided that it was time to come as we were. Our kinky, Afro

braids to soft locks, Nubian twists to butterfly braids, there

hair that refused to curl or bounce back. My dead, straight

hair was seen as a symbol of our culture and heritage and

is no reconfiguration of natural hair that my superhuman

hair only brought me shame. How could the daughter of a

of our connection in light of the African diaspora. Like my

mother could not do. My mother braided with ease and

hair braider damage her own hair? How could a hair braider

mother always taught me, our natural hair was beautiful

joy, always encouraging her customers to love their hair

resist their own craft? And for what?

and powerful.

unconditionally. I grew up in the shop, watching and

Looking back now, I wonder if my rejection of

Overwhelmed by the pressures of my high school

learning intently as she transformed not only a woman’s

braiding my hair was a manifestation of my subconscious

environment, I forgot that lesson. But as I considered my

hair, but her confidence and countenance too. It was as

conformity to white beauty standards. All I do know is that

limp, damaged hair and continued to witness firsthand the

if there was an enhancement of the beauty they already

I was unaware of the subconscious self-betrayal until I truly

self-acceptance that others experienced after braiding their

possessed, a catapulting of their sense of self. For 15 years,

looked at the state of my “beautiful hair.” My motivations

natural hair at my mother’s shop, I began to reassess what

I was surrounded by women who loved themselves and

for straightening my hair were based in vanity, but at the

it means to be desired. My desirability was not defined by

especially their hair, taking pride in their natural curls.

time, it seemed like the only way to control how the world

others around me; it was based on my own self-perception

perceived me. At the core of it all, I wanted to be seen.

and confidence. I rebuilt this confidence as I continued

Growing up around African hair braiding, I learned how to braid hair and began working as a professional

Among the first Black millionaires were Garrett A.

braiding hair and began to take a closer look at the history

hair braider at the age of 14. Even before age 14, however,

Morgan and Madame C. J. Walker, the inventors of the

and importance of braids. I realized the privilege I had to

I frequently braided my sisters’, aunts’, and mother’s hair

chemical hair relaxer and the hot comb respectively. Both

wear my hair in any way that I desired; I refused to abide by

as a way to perfect my skill. I always enjoyed exploring the

of their inventions took the African American community

the limitations that barricaded Black women before me. It

versatility of natural hair, and as I became a professional

by storm, creating an era of relaxing and straightening

was time for me to break free of insecurity over my African

craftsman who transformed customers’ natural crowns, I

hair that would not be dismantled until the early 2000s.

features. Instead of rejecting who I was, I began to cultivate

began to feel a sense of ownership over my unique craft.

Morgan’s 1910 invention, an alkaline hair relaxer that

a new ritual for myself: a hair ritual that involved nurturing

The origin of braiding natural hair dates all the way

he discovered while working in his machine repair shop,

and caring for my natural hair, healing the dead and broken

back to 5000 BC, when African women braided their hair

would be marketed as a way for Black women to “manage”

pieces, revitalizing life into my natural curls. Revitalization

as a form of art and self-identification. Women would often

their hair and “beautify” it, setting the standard practice

is what the women before me and my mother have done to

braid their hair based on which tribe they belonged to, and

for Black girls and women for nearly a century to come.

the narrative surrounding Afro-textured hair, and it was

as a way to showcase their status in society. Braids were

Meanwhile, Walker popularized the hot comb, an iron

time for me to join them.

praised and sacred to African women. During the unjustly

comb placed on a heated iron stone that could accomplish

Like any personal growth journey, there are ups and

forced servitude of African slaves, cornrows were used as a

the same straightening results as a comb and blow dryer

downs in my road to self-acceptance. During the summer

map, with directions to freedom. Braids are a pivotal part of

combined. As Morgan and Walker amassed their wealth,

months when most of the Black community is in braids,

Black identity—but at 15, despite my role as a hair braider, I

they were pushing products that enforced a narrative of

I feel pride and joy in following the trend. But during the

struggled to recognize this fact.

Black hair as something savage and in need of taming. Just

winter when straight weaves and wigs are the trends, it

It is funny how history always seems to repeat itself,

as the Black women in the 1900s felt pressured to change

is hard to maintain my love for braids. Even among the

because at age 15, ten years after my sister’s misfortune

their hair to fit the status quo, so too did I as a tenth grader

Black community, I am pulled this way or that, and often

with “hair beautification,” I purposefully burned my scalp,

in the 2010s.

need to remind myself that hair is an individual journey.

hands, and hair every week, blowing my hair out and eagerly

In response to this history, Black people have pushed

Every new hairstyle is my reclamation of the narrative of

straightening away every single natural curl on my head.

to change this culture and embrace their natural hair, as

what I “ought” to look like; every new hairstyle is my own

The deconstruction of my beautiful crown became a sort

seen in the emergence of the Natural Hair Movement in

definition of “acceptable.” Presently, my relationship with

of stripping ritual; the extent of this desecration would

the 2000s and 2010s. The Natural Hair Movement, like

my hair is stronger than it has ever been. It enhances and

not reveal itself until months after the fact. In the tenth

many facets of life, came in waves, evolving from one

empowers me, regardless of if I wear it in twists, braids,

grade, I found myself questioning my sense of self and my

version to the next. Its underpinnings stem from the

locs, Afro, or any other concoction my mother reinvents.

outward desirability to the world. Peers all around me were

Black Liberation Movement, which was a subset of the

I no longer see my hair as a separated, undesirable,

in relationships, going on dates, and broadcasting it all over

Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, that initially sparked

burdensome piece of myself, but as an extension of my

social media. In a predominantly white high school, I linked

the reclamation of Blackness through wearing Afros as

entire being. My hair is me, I am my hair, and together we

my lack of physical appeal to my dissimilar characteristics

a form of protest. Black activists such as Angela Davis,

are an exquisite beauty.

to other white females. My peers had straight hair, small

Maya Angelou, and Elaine Brown were a few of the women

“I just don’t think people who play percussion are that smart.”

“It’s not that the questions are difficult, it’s just that I have no will to live.”

March 25, 2022

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NARRATIVE

Longing Upward girls on elevated surfaces

by Mack Ford Illustrated by Connie Liu ig: the_con_artist It’s a Saturday night, and there’s a drunk girl standing on the bar. Her dark hair, still bearing the remnants of a fading dye job, swings back and forth in time with the plastic beaded necklaces on her chest as she gyrates her hips. She can’t see the boy bouncing below her, waving one fist in the air while his red cup sloshes tepid beer on another girl beside him. She can’t see that girl, wiping the beer out of her carefully tied, trendily braided pigtails that are just starting to frizz.

She can’t see the boy standing behind her and staring, wearing a t-shirt that says something like “To the guy who invented zero, thanks for nothing!” and shifting from foot to foot, just slightly off the beat of the music.

The girl on the table can’t see any of this; she is so high up. Everything is a mosaic: a collage of people who all look a little softer around the edges from above.

I am standing at the edge of the party, just far enough from the speakers that I can hear some guy retching in the bathroom but not far enough that I no longer feel the sticky, slightly damp wall of the basement against my back. The poor bathroom boy bangs open the door and wipes his mouth with his sleeve as he pushes past me. I stumble back in my heels.

The place to be is up there, on the table, where everyone can see just the edge of your purple panties from under your skirt, but they can’t touch you. You can’t even see them. You have risen above it all.

It’s not uncommon to hear someone scoff at one of these parties, “girls and their fucking elevated surfaces.” And it is indeed a common sight. There’s something about being out and drunk and young that makes us want to haul our heels onto the first table in sight. I don’t exempt myself from this group—I love

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the feeling of my heels digging into the bar as much as the next girl. But sometimes, I look down into the fog of beer and swinging high ponytails and wonder just how I found myself up there.

Before it was bars, it was trees. I was one of those kids who was always late for dinner because I was busy watching the sun set through a spiderweb at the very top of a redwood tree. Sycamores called to me with their marbled branches that reached up in all directions—I discovered that they were okay to climb if you could get ahold of that first branch. Maples were pretty good if you could get one with a lot of closetogether branches in the middle because it was easy to reach the next one if you sort of shimmied along the trunk. Redwoods, however, were the true test: easy to climb, but also easy to fall off of. If you grabbed onto the wrong rough, furrowed handhold, it would bend and then snap, brittle under the weight of your young body, which was suddenly as breakable as any branch. When I managed to reach the top, I was Leslie Burke, swinging across the river with a yell: “We rule Terabithia and nothing crushes us!”

To be so high up was like coming up out of the deep end and taking your first breath of chlorine-saturated air. It was looking up at the stars and thinking that if you leaned too far back, you might fall up and into the sky. It was knowing that the power to keep holding on was in your own hands.

When you’re up so high—on a grimy bar as champagne bubbles rise up in your throat, or among the uppermost curving branches of an elm tree— there's a lightness about you. It’s fitting that the Latin root of “elevated” is “levis,” which means light. When you are elevated, you leave behind the fear of all those eyes that might weigh your shoulders down. Up here, you are without weight, without a body: pure, bright, blinding light.

A friend once told me that the more elevated a subject is, the less gravity acts upon it. For example, on the very top of Mount Everest, the force of gravity

is 9.77 meters per second squared, while for the rest of us down at sea level, it’s 9.81 meters per second squared. It’s a minute difference so insignificant that the human body will barely register the gravitational shift from Mount Everest (let alone the top of the sycamore tree two blocks away from my childhood home). Still, my neck stretches farther, and my shoulders stand straighter when I’m at the top of that tree. Even on top of the bar, the 42 inches of elevation change—let’s say 47, if you add the height of my heels—is euphoric. The air isn’t so heavy with the smell of sweat and beer up there. It rushes into my lungs, and I can dance like nothing has ever held me down, like I've always been floating, airy, free. Or maybe that’s just the champagne talking.

Emily Dickinson writes that “Delight is as the flight (...) Flung colored, after Rain.” And maybe that’s all the elevation gives us: sheer delight. Maybe the drunk girl, thrusting her hips and waving her arms on the bar and stumbling a little as she dances, isn’t thinking about her childhood in the trees. Maybe she isn’t thinking about the etymology of the word “elevate” or serendipitous allusions to poems by Emily Dickinson. Most likely, she isn’t thinking very much at all, save don’t throw up in front of all these people. Even so, there must be some long-hidden part of her that longs to be up, bobbing and buoyant with lungs full of fresh air, as there is within me. To pull herself above the rest of the world that looks down on her every day. When we were young, the thought of what people whisper about the girls in too-short skirts didn’t weigh so heavily on our scrawny shoulders. Maybe all she wants is to be back in that tree, suspended at the precipice, intoxicated by the possibility of plunging to the earth. Maybe something about dancing on that bar conjures that weightless feeling of skinned knees and tree-bark calloused palms, hair that used to be in a neat ponytail full of bark and pine needles. The feeling of reaching up and up and up.

NARRATIVE

Disembodied or Disappointed

the gatekeeping of female intelligence on paper and screen

by Lily Seltz Illustrated by Moe Levandoski IG: moelevo

Laundry Room washing, folding, growing

by Julia Vaz Illustrated by Lena He ig: liquidbutterflies adulthood is a punctuation mark: the period that is a washing machine door. and like every mark on paper, it is also a window/an eye, a way of catching my reflection watching myself watch my clothes spinning/riding a carousel, riding a fissure of time/ my bored face. adulthood is me in the laundry room of a freshman dorm using the notes app to write/waiting for the remaining five minutes on the timer to pass because i’m terrified someone will dump my wet underwear on the ground. adulthood happens in the mundane/in the warmth of freshly dried towels. adulthood is the perfect logical piles (party clothes/pajamas/pants) on my bed. but it is also the street below my window, the magic eye through which i observe the blue and green houses blooming side-by-side. it is the bones of the winter trees, almost touching the clouds, their hands open. adulthood is also the ‘waking-up-from-anafternoon-nap-on-the-couch-to-an-empty-house’ type of loneliness. the type that curls around your body like a blanket, the weight of a butterfly on your eyelashes. still, it's also my body/a dune inside an hourglass and it’s soft and it’s quiet. adulthood is a wider white margin/the smell of tide.1 is adulthood my dreams of sunlight caressing wood? or is it the sunset sighing in a foreign sky? is it not precisely the fact that I can only find one pair of unicorn socks? is it the closeness/distance that comes from distance/closeness? i think it might just be the urge to hold on to the air/to silk/to divinity when i see green moss growing on concrete. i am sure it is the waterfalls behind my eyes overflowing with my evanescent consciousness of existence/of infinity. adulthood is my failed attempt at folding a fitted sheet. a collection of all the things i wanted to 1

and time is a constant footnote.

learn but didn’t/all the flaws i won’t bother fixing. it can also be all the details that seem unreal; the postcards from MoMA on my wall, the names of the streets that roll off my tongue, the winter coat hanging by the door. it is life in an unfamiliar texture. seventy percent polyester. right now, adulthood is the urge to reorganize my entire drawer. it is the sound of wood and metal. it is an urge going away. it is the fact that my laziness makes me smile. adulthood is the wish that someone would catch me smiling and ask what’s on my mind. adulthood is the question “what's on your mind?” adulthood is performing/wanting an audience. do i look oh-so-loveable doing laundry? adulthood is not knowing what to do with oh-somuch longing. adulthood is also concrete: a roadmap/checklist/ google calendar. it is the facts: i can vote, i can/but can’t drive, i can’t/but can drink. the responsibilities i keep in my back pocket. adulthood came, i think, because i took a plane. because i wanted the unknown to become one of my dimples. so now adulthood is a brown/beige/ green campus. it is an essay i’m working on. adulthood is being done. there are no more clothes to fold. the music keeps playing on my airpods, and while a part of me wants to dance, it feels sacrilegious to disrupt this moment. a moment i will meet again, though maybe not on such intimate terms. maybe with a tired mind, a distracted/infatuated/daydreaming mind. so now i hold it in a page. adulthood is actually like doing laundry. as long as you have soap in there, and you don’t go crazy with the buttons, everything will end up ok. and finally, adulthood is this: a month later, my roommate telling me to listen to the geese. they are returning, she says. spring is coming.

It must have been seventh grade when my younger sister, my cousin, and I set our minds to making a VideoStar of “The Schuyler Sisters” from Hamilton. It was a warm day right after Christmas, and the basketball court next to my grandparents’ house was covered with moss. I was the oldest, so I got to be Angelica.

I had the whole song memorized already. You want a revolution? I want a revelation! So listen to my declaration. I lined us up facing the basketball hoop, with Eliza (my sister) and Peggy (my cousin) on either side. We flounced forward and stomped back.

We spun around in circles so our matching cotton dresses flew out around our legs like parachutes.

We HOLD these truths to BE self-evident—that all men are creAted EQual—and when I meet Thomas Jefferson (oh!)—Imma compel him to include women in his sequel (work!)

Another Seltz cousin was the camerawoman, and, when the song ended, she let us gather around to watch the final product. I was eager to witness the fruits of my directorial debut. But as our LED bodies flashed across the tiny screen, I remember only the nausea that swept through me. My bony elbows stretched the sleeves of my dress, my belly refused to recede, and my chest hadn’t swelled enough to compensate. I had braces and my hair was frizzy in the damp D.C. weather. I looked nothing like Angelica. *** There were never any Barbies in my apartment growing up. My parents taught me the Bechdel test in the same breath they used to teach me to tie my laces.

They flipped through stacks of canvas cards with words printed on them—for sounding out—and when I got one right, I got hugs and extra dessert. Before I had the words to say it, I knew—it was obvious—that girls were to be valued for what they did with their minds, not what they looked like in their bodies.

Of course I knew that my parents’ view was not the only perspective. No one could shelter me entirely from Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and all the other damsels in distress in the childhood canon, and I knew that their appeal was chiefly aesthetic.

But original-mix fairy tales seemed to be falling out of favor—they were old, they were boring—and that gave me hope.

I liked Annabeth Chase of Percy Jackson, Little Women’s Jo March, and of course Hermione, from Harry Potter, was my favorite. I dressed up like her for Halloween one year, and my sister was Tonks. We made our own wands out of Central Park sticks and pipe cleaners, and we walked around our apartment building armed with the etymological explanations for all but a handful of the spells (Avada Kedavra comes from “cadaver”, you see!). I was no Cinderella in a shiny blue dress; my robes made reference to a “plain” little witch with bushy hair and buck teeth.

But I was met with cheers and smiles of recognition nonetheless. Everyone loves Hermione.

My looks hadn’t mattered that Halloween, but, in general, I did want to be beautiful. Very badly. At home, before the mirror in a blue-flowered tunic when my hair let loose from its typical braids to hang March 25, 2022

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ARTS & CULTURE in damp waves against my shoulder blades, I often believed that I was. But in photographs with my friends—sitting on the monkey bars, lined up at the ice rink in front of the swinging door—it was quickly obvious to me that I’d been wrong.

In those moments, I thought about Hermione and the promise that had been made to me through her. Those days you didn’t have to be pretty—you could be smart instead. I was consoled by this certainty. I’d never seen Emma Watson in the

to inhabiting a certain creative world—to feeling validated by the struggles of its residents, and to seeing its possibilities as your own—are often limited for queer people and people of color.

But it’s easiest for me to think about these ideas and their implications through my own lens. I talk about weight and shape and skinniness because these are the traits that most identifiably distinguish my body from the Hollywood ideal. My Hermione wasn’t Black, because I’m not—but she didn’t look

January, philosopher Kate Manne writes about how our judgments of intellect are woven through with “embodied” language: “We praise arguments for being muscular and compact and criticize prose for being flabby, flowery, and implicitly, feminine.” The acknowledgment of intellectual prowess in some women was a big enough step; add non-whiteness, or fatness, or any other disparaged trait, and it’s too much for the old guard to digest.

For all but the most smashingly, conventionally

movies, so it was the image of Hermione I’d conjured from text that floated before my eyes—an image that looked like me.

I was always a ‘read-before-you-watch’ kind of person growing up, which is probably why I’m writing this article. Books are not like movies. Movies are visual items—they will never escape that imperative.

From the first shot, everything is laid bare to you: streetscapes, storm clouds, bodies.

The author of a book, on the other hand, could go 200 pages without letting you know how your protagonist looks. Of course, that’s rarely done; what’s more common is just a page or two, or maybe 20, where description is left out. And when the character’s physicality is finally revealed, it’s by necessity an ambiguous definition. Maybe the protagonist is tall and thin, but what color are her eyes?

You can’t say it all. So it’s left to the reader to fill in the blanks, and to the extent we can—within the limits of what we’ve been told—we self-insert.

This kind of ambiguity facilitated a fierce debate, a few years back, about whether Hermione was Black (or whether you could cast a Black actress in her role). The absence of explicit racial identification in the text made room for some readers of color to find representation in the character and her world. But some of the more vitriolic elements on the internet made it their cause to defend the white Hermione.

They cloaked their arguments with good intentions: You have to respect the author’s vision! A Black Hermione is simply not accurate! But it’s hard to imagine that their critiques couldn’t have derived from the conviction, however conscious, that a Black Hermione was somehow wrong—that a smart woman couldn’t be Black.

Forget about smart instead of pretty. You start to think that conventional beauty is a universal companion of intelligence; even a prerequisite to it.

Authors and screenwriters establish and reinforce standards of beauty that exclude bodies according to race, gender identity, and sexuality—so the barriers

like Emma Watson, either. Her curly hair and her big teeth differentiated the two of us, but we had the same gentle softness around our stomachs and thighs.

I read myself into every book I owned or borrowed. My reading of Jo March might as well have been me dressed in calico. And from the text of Percy Jackson and the Olympians I drew an Annabeth Chase with a bracketed smile—just gray eyes, instead of green.

In those long years before I could take the subway when my radius of independence only stretched to the corner store, the worlds I inhabited through reading were much broader than the world I really lived in. My little cast of characters—in their hopes and disappointments, their joys and their angsts— defined for me what was possible.

But one by one the characters dropped off.

Hermione, the first time I saw Emma Watson on the red carpet.

Jo March, when they put Saoirse Ronan in the calico.

Annabeth Chase, just a day or two ago, when I googled The Lightning Thief as part of my research for the article. My little sister had already seen the movie, and when I told her I was writing about Annabeth she said: “She’s so pretty it’s scary.”

Why are all the smart girls so skinny? I can think of plenty of reasons—none of them good. One is that, as clever girls took center stage on the screen, they were forced to accommodate to the same standards that have pretty much always been applied to Hollywood stars: that narrowly curated kind of sexy into which whiteness (and skinniness) is encoded. I also think about threat and compromise. You’ve seen those kitschy magnets in indie bookstores: “A well-read woman is a dangerous creature.” There’s probably some truth to that, and so movies and books alike tend to condense that danger into small packages.

Maybe it’s also that we’ve linked intelligence to a certain body for too long: a body that is white, male, and lean. In a New York Times Op-Ed from

gorgeous among us, to consume media is to experience a series of disappointing embodiments.

Sometimes it doesn’t take the pressures of Hollywood hotness to break the spell; it happens within the text itself. A couple of years ago I spent over a hundred pages of Conversations with Friends feeling like Frances was drawing her words right out of my soul, and then she undressed in front of the mirror. All Sally Rooney can write about then is how thin Frances is, how small her breasts are against her bony frame. I’d felt seen. I’d felt validated in thinking everything that Frances thought, and when she found love, I felt comforted to think that I would too in time. But Frances was clearly at least 30 pounds lighter than I was, and boom: The door to that world was shut.

The potential for women to be valued for what they think and feel and create is a world-opening one. But that promise isn’t fulfilled if it only applies to a narrow subset: women already proximate, by virtue of race or size or sexuality, to the historic (white, male) intellectual ideal.

I grew up thinking that I could be whatever I wanted to be—but then I was told that I couldn’t be Hermione. I couldn’t be Angelica, I couldn’t be Annabeth, I couldn’t be Jo, and I couldn’t be Frances.

Someone still holds the keys to the castle, and it’s not girls like me. Our cultural understandings of beauty and intelligence continue to be mediated by a white male gaze that cedes its power incrementally at best. We can all cheer for the nerdy witch, but her Blackness would be too much to handle. Girls are allowed to take up space with their minds or their bodies. But not both.

But I’m not looking for permission. I’m looking for a world—both real and fictional—that we can all enter on our own terms. A world we can inhabit as people—however complex—however hard to digest.

I’m looking for a place where we’re all valued for what we value in ourselves, unconditionally.

I’m looking for a mind at work (work!)

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ARTS & CULTURE

Solid Walls of Sound blocking off and breaking down

by Joe Maffa Illustrated by Lucia Tian

Early last semester, the sound became a little too much to bear. Shuffling back to my room against the jetstream to South Campus where my friends partied on through the night, I passed the cars sauntering down Thayer, trunks bumping along with their hefty subwoofers. For the first few weeks I was in Providence, I appreciated that noise, be it from Thayer or oversized dorm speakers; it reminded me that I was a college student, and in a city too—albeit a small one. But that night, I ran away, my head pounding from the noise and internal dialogue. Closing the door on my room didn’t help; the symphony of adult life modulated into cacophony. So I fought sound with even more sound; that was the first night I put up my own wall of music to fall asleep. *** I should say that it was the first night in a while that I had built this wall. The last time was during my seventh grade stint at sleepaway camp where missed opportunities brought out my most cliché adolescent fears of alienation. My first time alone and away from home promised excitement. The idyllic camp experience in my mind was a summer of stolen glances and middle school daydreams. Unfortunately, all of that crumbled as my expectations were overtaken by homesick, emotional outbursts; for the first time, I found myself bawling for no reason. The week of anticipated firsts brought with it an unexpected one: insomnia. Stifling tears as I tried not to wake up my roommate whom I didn’t even know, my thoughts kept me up. In full existential pre-teen

the lid on my popcorning thoughts. I don’t like to open it because then I’m forced to talk with myself, and that’s when my fears come out. Plus, I haven’t needed to in so long. Throughout high school, I got by with my happy-go-lucky facade—so much so that I forgot what was behind it.

Simply put, I’m not very good at leaving my childhood home—or rather, the emotional comfort it offers. There, the walls are soft hues of cream and taupe. When I’m away, those white tones become drab and depressive. The warm bricks of my home’s long dormant fireplace are replaced by the camp’s cracked, foreboding ones. More than anything, the sound pierces through these unknown walls and into my head. Sure, home was plain, but it offered protection from seeing myself grow up.

Unfortunately, at college, these foreign, cracked walls bore witness to my growth, but I didn’t want to be seen—rather, I didn’t want to see the growth myself. *** Lying awake in my dorm room, in the midst of a new first-away-from home, the minutiae of freshman life took over. You should’ve done more on the train, now you’re behind. Why go out—you’re not having fun. You haven’t talked to your parents in weeks, shouldn’t you call them? And soundtracking the internal monologue, the sounds of the world— the drunken chatter below my window, the amicable laughter echoing down the hall, even the sharp ch-ch-ch of my roommate's Ticonderoga flittering across the page—filtered as if through a megaphone. For the first time in a long time, the

angst, I shuffled 808s and Heartbreak in between free Spotify ads as I drifted off.

The persistent kick drums of “Say You Will” and “Street Lights” built walls around my insecurities, pushing them behind these covers—out of sight and out of mind by the time I awoke. When I got back home, I forgot to tear them down—in fact I forced myself not to, determined to hide that snotty, selfpitying, angry person somewhere he couldn’t come out from again. That whole summer, whenever my insecurities seeped through the cracks, I patched them up, and napped to Kanye’s auto-crooned vocals and reverberated synths.

For the majority of the six years since that first time, I’ve kept those thoughts closed off, covering

noise was getting through.

So I built my walls up again just like I did that summer so long ago, and put my earbuds in—this time with noise cancellation built in.

It quickly became a need. Night after night, I’d put on my playlist and let Phoebe Bridgers take me to the nostalgia-tinted gas stations, arcades, and payphones of Kyoto while flipping off her father. Sometimes Lana Del Rey transported me to California as we reminisced about the grand ol’ American love story. Then I’d be Leaving LA with Father John Misty as he rambled on about something that I truly couldn’t stay awake for.

When I really needed an escape, I’d surf the Andromeda galaxy with Weyes Blood, and reflect

on the stars. All of this trying to put a name to the looking glass self dread that Bo Burnham classifies as That Funny Feeling.

A funny feeling was truly all I could understand.

Every day I turned myself up to a thousand, but I couldn’t shake this nagging questioning voice that poked accusatory holes in my fake persona. So every night took me away to a home where those questions may not have had answers, but at least had sympathizers offering warm hugs and soft pats on the back with their breathy, melancholy stories just outside the bounds of my reality. As I lay listening to them turn their frustrations into subtext, long for movie romance, and wax poetic about issues grander than any of us, I refocused the lens from my issues onto theirs. Floating off into inconsequential dreams and deep sleep, the issues clawing at my inner walls were reeled back in.

At least until the RIPTA’s stop announcement grounded me back in my dorm room. And the noise started again. Unlike that summer that coddled me to keep building walls, every day here brought with it new questions I had to ask myself, and in doing so, issues I had to confront directly. However, after years of running on autopilot by closing myself off to the relationships and habits that bothered me, I’d lost the ability to verbalize how I felt. Instead of letting the monster out and talking to it, I’d overwhelmed it with noise.

There came a point where I couldn’t put the music away, putting in my earbuds before I even stood up to leave class, and not taking them out until I sat down again. To a certain extent, I wasn’t even listening to it, just using the repetitive house beats, or bass heavy trap, or softer plucky guitars to drown out anything I didn’t want to face.

Solid walls of sound helped me cope, but weren’t sustainable; I started closing myself off to others too. Plus, I came to college to meet people, and try new things, and find myself—whatever that means.

To do so, these walls had to come down.

This past week, I’ve worked to turn off my own music and let the noise envelop me. My first and second concerts had me moshing and grooving, two things the voice from earlier would’ve criticized. I learned to eat by myself without fear, taking the chance to pause and think about the little victories and losses of the day. Then I met my friends where they were at their loudest, showcasing their material, vocal, and instrumental talents.

Most importantly, I took out the earbuds in bed, demolishing my nighttime walls and embracing the sounds and firsts that the world threw at me.

Without the walls my dreams toss and turn, but the days offer more rewards and chances to reflect on what I’m beginning. The inner monologue is returning—perhaps that’s a good thing; it’s been so long—too long—since I’ve sat with my thoughts.

Still, I know I can turn to the noise when I need it, but until then, I’ll continue to turn my walls into windows, and reopen the conversation I’ve so long neglected.

March 25, 2022

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LIFESTYLE

Self-Care Diaries

by Sarah Frank Illustrated by Ooviya Sathiyamoorthy

Dear Reader, College can be ruthless. College life demands that we make space in our schedules where there isn’t any, that we push back the clock hands to make more time when there never seems to be enough.

Personally, I’ve found that since there’s barely enough time to take care of my academic responsibilities, I have even less time to take care of myself. I seem to forget that I, too, am one of my responsibilities. In fact, I should be the most important one.

So, with this realization in mind, I tasked myself with a two-part goal: to practice self-care more frequently and to find forms of self-care that work for me. Lately, writing has been my favorite form of self-care. I write prose for an escape, poetry for expression, and journaling for a combination of both. Depending on what I need at that moment, I try to write it into existence.

Another thing that I’ve found to be helpful in improving self-care is clearing time in my day to do the little things. If I put something in my Google Calendar, it's way more likely to happen. Just last night, I practiced some small things that make me feel cared for: I washed my hair, tweezed my eyebrows, painted my nails, used my rose quartz roller, etc. Self-care doesn’t have to be a big event: It can be a combination of little things or even just one. Self-care can be small, it just needs to be.

During my search for effective forms of self-care, I ironically plummeted into a stressful brainstorming

session—though it did result in a list of my ideas. And for clarity, I’ve split the body, the mind, and the spirit into categories. Although they are inherently connected, this way of organizing allows me to evaluate what needs to be looked after and then determine how.

Caring for the body is important because our body is, in a way, our home. Taking care of it allows us to feel better physically, which makes it easier to enjoy life in other ways.

• Caring for your hair • Getting a smoothie • Doing yoga/stretching • Exercising • Drinking tea • Resting • Going for a walk • Staying hydrated Caring for the mind is like watering a flower: It helps sustain your mind and helps it grow. Longevity through present care is something we all need but frequently undervalue.

• Journaling • Meditating • Reading (not for class!)

• Coloring • Unplugging from social media • Decluttering social media • Cleaning your room

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kyoko Leaman

“I remember rising to the smell of rich coffee grounds, eyelids tugged open by the soft spitting and sputtering of the pot.”

—Danielle Emerson, “Coffee Grounds,”

03.26.21

“At this point, Blueno has been thoroughly accepted into the Brown community. Bluenothemed Facebook pages seem to be everywhere, and students have even created Blueno Spring Weekend tank tops and laptop stickers.”

—Hanna Rashidi, “Blueno the Transfer Student,” 03.22.19

FEATURE Managing Editor Alice Bai Section Editors Andrew Lu Ethan Pan ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Emma Schneider Section Editors Joe Maffa Sam Nevins

• • • •

Writing poetry Setting time limits for addictive apps on phone Writing a letter to yourself Allowing yourself to cry

Caring for the spirit is giving yourself what you need in that moment and for that moment only.

It makes you happy in the present. That happiness doesn’t necessarily last into the future, but that’s okay.

Never feel guilty for prioritizing the present over the future: Do what you feel you need most. You’re the only one who knows what that is.

• Trying a new snack • Making blackout poetry • Watching a guilty pleasure TV show • Dancing in your room like no one’s watching • Being spontaneous • Dressing up and taking pictures • Painting nails • Stargazing or watching the sunset • Sending kind texts to friends • Making a new playlist Essentially, treat yourself like you would want a friend to treat you. After all, self-care is self-love.

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Siena Capone Section Editor Danielle Emerson Leyton Ho LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Kimberly Liu Section Editors Tabitha Lynn Sarah Roberts HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Connie Liu

Want to be involved?

Email: kyoko_leaman@brown.edu!

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post–

With love, Sarah

COPY CHIEF Aditi Marshan Copy Editors Katheryne Gonzalez Eleanor Peers Tierra Sherlock SOCIAL MEDIA EDITORS Kelsey Cooper Chloe Zhao Tabitha Grandolfo Natalie Chang

CO-LAYOUT CHIEFS Briaanna Chiu Jiahua Chen Layout Designers Alice Min Angela Sha Caroline Zhang Gray Martens STAFF WRITERS Dorrit Corwin Lily Seltz Alexandra Herrera Olivia Cohen Ellyse Givens Joyce Gao Zoe Creane Danielle Emerson Kaitlan Bui Julia Vaz Liza Kolbasov Marin Warshay