post- 04/22/2022

In This Issue 4

Ellie Jurmann

4

Julia Vaz

Zoe Creane

2

Connect the Dots

You've Got Mail

The Power of Kvell Joseph Suddleson

Tools of the Trade 6

Nasreen Duqmaq

Schrodinger's Tinder Date 7

Nadia Heller

Spring Bucket List 8

postCover by Joanne Han

APRIL 22

VOL 29 —

ISSUE 9

FEATURE

The Power of Kvell a love language for the world

By Zoe Creane Illustrated by john gendron Light twinkled through the windowpane in front of

you, my little Zoe, off to Brown… I can’t stop kvelling over

countless occasions. Each time, I feel Barbara’s hugs, her

me, hopscotching across my worktable and glinting off

you!” She watched as I put the hoops in, showering me with

endless support, her doting love. I’ve worked with Barbara

the gems in my fingers. I was beading with rubies, stacking

words of affirmation. I love Barbara for countless reasons,

for nearly five years, moving from beading and jewelry-

them between my fingers and sliding them carefully onto a

but her talent for kvelling is one of the things that truly

making to interning for her nonprofit organization, the

strand of wire. Legs tucked up on my stool, I sat quietly, lost

sets her apart.

Whole Champion Foundation (WCF). WCF provides edu-

in the simple pleasure of my work. In a moment, distant

“Kvell”’s direct translation, according to Merriam-

cational and motivational materials to advocate for

footsteps pattered down the hall and I looked up towards

Webster, is “to be extraordinarily proud, [to] rejoice.” It’s a

personal awareness, responsibility, and action in order to

the bright smile of my employer and mentor, Barbara

Yiddish word with two roots: the earlier Yiddish verb kveln

improve our world; Barbara founded it on the principle

Edel-ston Peterson.

(to be delighted) and the German verb quellen (to well,

that global challenges can only improve when each

“Zoe, you’re just speeding through these strands!” she

gush, or swell). However, kvell has grown to encompass

individual does their part. Every time I meet with Barbara,

exclaimed, peering closely over my shoulders. “Now, look

much more than its origin. In Barbara’s words, “Kvell is a love

whether in a professional or friendly setting, she envelops

at these.” Barbara laid out a pair of earrings, thin gold hoops

language, sending a loud and clear message that you are

me with compliments, assurance, and gifts. In an undoubt-

with a Tahitian pearl. “They’re phenomenal,” I breathed,

adored, you are recognized, and you are doing or did a good

edly challenging and formative time in my life, Barbara

caught in the soft glimmer that skated along the surface

job.” Kvell is “a surge of positive feeling from one person

fostered confidence and self-love within me; she defined

of the pearls. “Well, I know, and you must have them,” she

to another,” a gift to both the recipient and the donor.

the power of “kvell” in my life. In recent years, I’ve noticed

Since receiving Barbara’s earrings, I’ve worn them on

beamed, holding them up to my ears. “I’m just so proud of

the fundamental role that kvelling plays in wellbeing,

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, Most days, the inside of my brain looks like a riotous smear of color. If you’ve caught sight of me on campus (on a good day), maybe you could’ve guessed that about me. My eyelids must be shimmering or neon or lined with a pop of teal at the very least, and my boots are nearly guaranteed to match them. Cerebral cortex like a Hilma af Klint painting.

This week has been particularly pastel, mediated by warm earth tones that feel like holding.

Our (gorgeous, printed, three-dimensional) issue contains all manner of wonderment. Our Feature writer talks about the idea of “kvell,” considering the types of love and care she has experienced.

In Narrative, one writer discusses a love for the game Dots, while the other meditates on the reasons why she writes. Our A&C section also contains a meditation on the nature of writing as one writer thinks about it as a physical process, as well as a reflection on the paradox of Tinder dating. And our Lifestyle piece provides a bucket list for this last month of our spring semester!

This week, we offer up a canvas of color-swatched ideas and watercolor musings. Whether you’re experiencing the tactile wonder of post- on paper or reading these words from the blue light glare of a screen, I hope you can see the colors spilling from our pages.

Feeling pink as ever,

Kyoko Leaman Editor-in-Chief

2

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Days of the Week 1. Yesterday (by The Beatles) 2. Hump day ;) 3. The Weeknd 4. The day of reckoning 5. Sundae 6. Thursday 7. Titsday 8. Chicken Finger Friday 9. Wednesday, from the Addams family 10. Prince Spaghetti Day

FEATURE and the many different places it can come from—friends,

college. I watched as he strummed with soft fluidity and the

I read it again. “We can be our biggest champions.”

parents, partners, strangers, mentors, and ourselves.

chords changed underneath his finger pads, his eyes closed

Her words reverberated in my brain, slotted into the space

as we both listened closely. I felt this bubble of unhindered

those two lost points had been filling. I wasn’t being my

*** At 8 a.m. on a sunny September morning, my parents

joy swell within me, something much deeper than pride.

own champion; I was letting a moment of accomplishment

and I rolled out of our Airbnb, loaded my six suitcases into

When he finished playing, the lamp seemed to dim, the

escape unnoticed, dragging my feet beneath the weight of

the rental car, and drove to Brown’s campus. The air was

reverberations of his final note slowing until the room sat

a small mistake. We can––we must––kvell over ourselves,

muggy, the type of humidity you can feel cluster on your

in quiet stillness with us. I grabbed his hands, letting my

just as much as we kvell over others. We need to nurture

skin—so different from the breezy warmth of my California

bubble of joy pop and billow over him.

ourselves before we can thoroughly nurture those around

home. My mom and dad trailed behind me to the key office,

“I am so proud of you,” I told him simply, “You have

us. I needed to take pride in my accomplishments, no

all of us jittery. As the door to my room swung open, reality

poured your heart into this and I see it and I am happy and

matter how imperfect they were, before I could consider

settled firmly on our shoulders; I was moving out from

excited and in awe.” I could see the impact these words had,

myself a true kveller.

home. We hung tapestries and stuffed clothes into drawers,

the brightening of his spirit and his confidence. Kvelling

all of us dancing around the ephemerality of our together-

fulfilled both of us.

So, I told myself: This is an accomplishment. This is your hard work and your tangible triumph. I took the

ness. My parents left me to my own devices and the great

A few days ago, my workload had reached a nearly

time and the thought to kvell over myself, to take pride

excitement of college that night, and came by again in the

insurmountable peak and I felt entirely overwhelmed. I sat

in my efforts and my achievements. My own kvelling

morning, before their flight.

down in front of my computer, FaceTimed my boyfriend,

strengthened my motivation, my confidence, and my

As we stood on the curb, the pressure of our great

and burst into tears. He pieced words together between the

ability to kvell over others.

goodbye surrounded us. My mom and I cried, hugging each

blubbering sobs and waited until I had thoroughly exhaus-

other. “We love you and believe in you, Zoe,” she said. “You

ted myself before speaking. “Zoe—

*** With these moments, I’ve come to understand

can do anything you set your mind to!” My dad gave me

You are strong. You are capable. You do not need to

something about kvelling; it doesn’t matter how or

a tight, quick squeeze. “I’m so proud of you, my dear,” he

do everything, but I know that you can. You inspire me in

where it’s done, only that it happens. Some people kvell

whispered. Their words held me up, gave me the strength to

everything that you do, and I love you.”

constantly, like Barbara and my mom and my boyfriend.

say goodbye and to push forward into my independence. In

I could feel the warm tenderness of my boyfriend’s

Some kvell quietly and sparsely, like my dad. Because the

that first week of school, chin-deep in unfamiliar territory,

kvelling, his stabilization and encouragement. Despite

connections between partners, friends, and parents are

their kvelling fueled my confidence and tenacity when I

being thousands of miles apart, our kvelling fuels our well-

so intrinsically different, the kvelling in these relation-

needed it the most.

being as individuals and as partners.

ships will differ greatly. Parents are often an early and

***

***

consistent source of kvelling, while partners and friends

The first semester of college was difficult for me and

Recently, I got my score back on the second midterm

grow and develop their kvelling. The ability to thoughtfully

my long-distance boyfriend. We were thousands of miles

of my chemistry class. When the email popped up, I anx-

kvell over oneself can be just as challenging to develop,

apart, our days were misaligned by three hours, and we

iously opened my Canvas page and stopped short—I had

but it’s a fundamental piece of fulfillment.

were in entirely unique and separate experiences. To be in

gotten two points less than I’d been hoping for. It was a

However, in all of my relationships, I value recipro-

a relationship during this tumultuous time of growth is to

great score, fifteen points higher than what I’d scored on

cation, the sharing of time, affection, support, and love—all

learn and mature together; we had to figure out how to nour-

the first midterm. But still, my heart squeezed tight, my

of these are tied to kvelling. I rejoice in the well-being and

ish ourselves as individuals and as partners. We discovered

spirits slumped, and tears pricked my eyes. My entire week

achievements of my loved ones, and they rejoice in mine.

a now indispensable part of our relationship: kvelling.

had been spent at the mercy of molecular orbitals and pi

Kvelling is a lifestyle; it is opening yourself up to the joy of

My boyfriend picked up guitar around six months

bonds, only for me to fall two points short. In the next

others. As Barbara told me, “Kvelling is a love language for

ago, as a creative outlet during a challenging time in his

few days, I grew more and more frustrated, noticing the

the whole world.”

life. Tinny fingerpicking soon progressed to complex and

silly mistakes or forgotten steps that had set me back. My

resplendent songs. The guitar is his fidget—he reaches for

boyfriend and my mom showered me with affirmations,

it in between classes and homework assignments, conver-

my friends congratulated me, but I couldn’t stop thinking

sations and meals. Several weeks ago, he flew out to visit

about those two points.

me, his guitar strapped to his back as a carry-on. Sitting in

A week later, I sat down with Barbara’s soon-to-be-

the cozy orange glow of my lamp, bright against the night

published book about the power of kvelling, I Kvell. Do

of my window, he began to play. They were songs from

You? On the last page, she writes:

my childhood, songs from our teenage years, songs from

Barbara’s book I Kvell. Do You? will be published soon and available for purchase on https://wholechampion.org/.

“We can be our biggest champions.”

“You never wink at me romantically anymore.”

“Crime, endearment. That’s all I know.”

“We can touch her and we can take her home.”

april 22, 2022

3

NARRATIVE

You've Got Mail a love letter to writing

by Julia Vaz Illustrated by monika hedman To my observer self, Since you seem so adamant about denying me an existence within your marrow, I will address you as one separate from me. Independent, unattached to the hand guiding this pen. I will unravel the threads that join us. For when I am putting words on paper, you vanish. And in your absence I find the space to miss you, to long for your naivety and wide eyes. Truly, I am just a vessel: a vase waiting to be filled by the dreams you have while I slumber.

I sing a lullaby of your own making. Or, maybe I am belittling myself. Call me…a translator. Yes, that's how I would like you to picture me. An investigator, a decoder.

This long preamble is all to say: stop asking me questions. I have received all your letters. They sit in piles scattered across my office: an archive of all the ways your doubts slip into the verses I transcribe every night. See? In your letters you call me a writer, but I am not worthy of that title. My work is mechanical: arranging your experience of the world into an easily recognisable system. The writer you call for is nothing but your heartstrings, your predisposition to the subjective.

Allow me to prove my point. You often write that your passion for storytelling began on the second floor of a small library in your hometown. You were just a kid, sitting on a dirty rug in a circle listening to the librarian tell tales about emperors, silk, and princesses. You first picked up a pen and a notebook because of the possibility of creating for yourself 4

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the worlds you escaped to. But I know that story, even after you have forced me to carefully transcribe it, to be a lie.

The truth is here, in the scrapped versions, in my failed attempts to translate your actual feelings.

In my discarded drafts, you are not even listening to the tales. You are not even looking at the librarian or the piles of books around you. Between the wrinkles and ink stains of my pages, I catch you watching the rain. That was it, wasn't it? Something about the way the water cascaded down the window, about the fact you couldn't touch it. Was it the feeling of being an observer? The slightly painful, perfectly lonely, incandescently warm feeling? Am I making you understand?

Creation does not start at the page. In fact, it doesn't even start with language. It starts with the way you taught yourself to breathe, to move through the complexities of existence. You notice the changing of the seasons, the dissipation of the morning mist and the couple walking hand in hand down the street. You take it all in as if those were versions of yourself. That's why you beg for a writer, isn't it? You need someone to carry the weight of the emotions you take it upon yourself to tend to.

To describe and pass down as family heirlooms. But writing is nothing but a way of seeing: the way you turn your head slightly when someone laughs in a café; how you always smile when a butterfly flutters along your path; or when walking downhill, listening to music, you suddenly have to close your eyes to avoid bursting into tears.

What I'm trying to make you see is that writing is not the mastery with which you arrange the words. It's not alliteration, metaphor or synesthesia.

Writing is standing at a threshold between all that life is and all that it could be. Writing is standing at a threshold and deciding not to move.

So, please, don't expect me to have the answers.

The writer is not me, but your shadow on a bedroom wall. Don't worry about me. Don't worry about my process. It's secondary and self-improving. It's nothing. It's only everything because you can look at an orange peel and feel infinite.

With love, Your humble translator

Connect the Dots swiping the hours away

by Ellie Jurmann Illustrated by connie liu (@the_con_artist) I’m going to let you in on a secret: I am obsessed with the game Dots. Maybe you have heard of it or seen it in the App Store, not that either would make my addiction more legitimate. Dots was my go-to game in middle school on my blue iPhone 5C, and I would spend hours a day connecting the stupid but beautiful colored dots together and removing them from the board. The app is simple and sleek in design: a plain white background, over which the red, blue, yellow, green, and purple dots do their magic. At the risk of sounding like a total deadbeat, I must admit that my screen time on Dots—even with the one-hour daily limit I have (though frequently ignore) on the app—is far more than my screen time on any of the other major culprits that kill hours of my day. Yes, that means I spend more hours per day staring at tiny, colored dots on my phone than I do watching TikToks, FaceTiming friends, or sending and reading text messages.

Currently, there is no better feeling in the world to me than creating a square of same-colored dots that causes my phone to vibrate and thus eliminates

NARRATIVE

all dots of that color from the board. I’m not sure why my euphoria comes from recreating seventh-grade swipesations on a touchscreen; alas, here we are. Maybe it is the intoxicating combination of nostalgia, gamer’s high, a compulsive need to constantly best myself, and the simple pleasure that exists in this beautifully simple game. Whatever is causing my obsession, I cannot seem to get enough.

Deep down, I know that in a week’s time I will likely have forgotten that Dots ever existed. The app will be deleted from my phone, and it could very well be another decade before the game even crosses my mind again. I wish I could say that Dots is special—that, like love at first sight, Dots and I are meant to be. And what a great story we—Dots and I—would have: Years after we first parted ways, the iconic duo is reunited, now better than ever, ready to set world records and achieve greatness. Sadly, I know all too well that this story is a short one. I may be pretty darn good at the game; I should be, considering the number of hours of professional training in dot-connecting I have per day.

But, like all of my other obsessions in life, this is just another fad, and the dopamine of Dots will soon be all but gone.

And it probably should. My college-aged, farsighted eyes cannot usually handle hours of staring at a screen that radiates blue light and makes my head throb. I am not sure why I play Dots through that pain until it becomes an unbearable migraine from which I must hide under my covers in the dark in dead silence to recover. Nevertheless, I go through it all, time and time again, just to experience the pure ecstasy of a successful round of Dots.

I sometimes wonder if I just have an insanely addictive personality, or if others endure similarly int-

ense yet meaningless phases—ones that people can move on from as quickly as they can become allconsumed by them. As far as I go on Dots, I will surely be onto something new in just a blip—hopefully ones that are not on my phone screen, for the sake of my tired and chronically-strained eyes.

To an outsider, it may seem like lunacy to discuss colored dots so extensively, let alone play the game for hours a day. But to me, Dots is a lifestyle—until I drop it all for whatever is to come, that is. I may love Dots so unabashedly today, but, tomorrow, I may live my life as though it never mattered to me. But this is no fault of Dots, nor mine. I am not a disloyal person. Dots was designed to captivate people like me, those walking through one door of life and into the next. Dots is a segue between beautiful moments in life: the silent waiting as the bus arrives at your stop, the antsy excitement in a Broadway theater right before showtime, the laying on the grass on a sunny day between classes. In the space between the colored dots, in the blank whiteness behind them, I find a million years of bliss. I am reminded of the tween girl I once was, who experienced the same simple joy I experience today from this simply perfect game.

Like all of the other activities I make the entirety of my existence for several days, weeks, and sometimes even months, the allure of Dots is in exploring the uncharted. I work to set new records for myself, discover every hidden pattern to develop strategy and skill, and feel the intense satisfaction that comes with each successful execution. Dots, unlike Two Dots, the newer version of Dots with countless levels and new challenges, is a straightforward game that demands mastery of the fundamentals. While games like Candy Crush or Two Dots perhaps appeal to some in providing

a variety of gameplay, I find them cheap, unoriginal, and boring. Dots is classic, timeless, and elegant, and I am currently committed to learning all the ins and outs of the game in order to master the simple art of connecting the dots.

In a trance induced by a multi-sensory symphony of vibrations, symmetrical rectangular formations, and perfect dot alignments, I feel Dots is one of my more justifiable obsessions. I see what my younger self once saw in Dots, as the uncomplicated but oh-sosatisfying game scratches every corner of my neurodivergent brain. I allow myself to completely lean into the craze of Dots so that I can squeeze out every last bit of pleasure from the game. Just like the platitude says about the people in our lives, my intense interests come into my life for a season, a reason, or a lifetime.

In my case, the seasons of my interests tend to be very short-lived. I think that by accepting that Dots likely won’t be here for the long haul shouldn’t change how I currently feel about the game. At this moment, Dots is everything I need in a pastime, and my worries blissfully melt away every time my screen lights up at the formation of a new square. Even if tomorrow Dots becomes exactly that—a simple collection of colored dots on my screen, as it once did in middle school—I can live with that, knowing that whatever shiny, new interest takes its place will serve me just as well. As good to me as Dots has been, I know that the obsessions yet to come will bring me new joys, satisfactions, and dopamine boosts of their own. I just need to continue basking in all that is exciting and uncharted.

Maybe my current phase is almost over, or maybe this is only the beginning. Either way, I am grateful to Dots for the here and now.

Until we meet again, Dots, Dots, Dots.

april 22, 2022

5

ARTS & CULTURE

Tools of the Trade

writing as an art and craft

by Joseph Suddleson Illustrated by john gendron I went to my first pen show when I was in high school, the annual Los Angeles International Pen Show to be specific. According to its outdated website: “started in 1989, [the Los Angeles International Pen Show is] the West Coast’s premier pen show. It brings together pen dealers, collectors, and writing aficionados from around the globe.” Oy vey––what kind of useless garbage am I reading about now, you’re probably asking yourself! Pens!? The world is crumbling and yet all I can think to write about are writing instruments… meta, I guess.

The first fountain pen I used was one I found on my dad's desk. If you’re not sure what a fountain pen is, first I’d say that a quick Google search should do the trick; but also, it’s basically just a fancy pen filled with liquid ink that was the standard pen type through the first half of the 20th century. The moral of this story, if you’ll indulge me, is that early in my life I discovered a tool that had long been outmoded and replaced by more advanced technologies. In a very real sense, I had uncovered a relic, and like a relic I treated it with reverence. Over a number of years, I built up a collection of my own. I loved their ornate finishes and luxurious qualities which made them fun to use and to collect. I also appreciated the ritualistic processes that using a fountain pen entailed (filling and cleaning the pen, unscrewing the cap, etc.). Using something so involved and so focused in its purpose brought me closer to the page and to the process of writing. I was making marks—leaving traces.

On January 27 of this year, a large box arrived for me. Within the box and under a lot of packing peanuts sat my new/old typewriter. It’s a pastel green 1965 model Hermes 3000 with curves like a mid-century sports car. It’s beautiful. Though I was initially drawn to the typewriter for its beauty and its novelty, I realize now that I was unwittingly taking my next step into this outdated writing instrument crusade. As a tool, the typewriter, like the pen and unlike a laptop, has one job. When you sit down at the typewriter you’re there to write. Especially if you’re using a manual typewriter, there is a physical connection between the pushing of a key and the swinging of the hammer that stamps out a letter on the page. Typing becomes a musical endeavor. It’s just you and the words coming out of your brain through your fingertips. And unlike a digital document, there remains a physical trace of your efforts that materializes instantaneously.

I didn’t understand all this until recently, but my foray into the world of antiquated writing instruments was revealing a fact about writing that was hidden in plain sight. I was slowly and imperceptibly becoming aware that writing wasn’t as opaque and mysterious as I’d been led to believe. Writing doesn’t come to the solitary literary genius through divine inspiration or through a muse; writing is work. Writing requires more work, more practice, and more intention than one could ever glean from typing on a laptop alone. Writing of any kind is fundamentally a 6

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craft in that it is nothing more than the natural product of talent, hard-earned skill through practice, and the proper tools.

Many consider the poet and artist William Blake to have been a visionary genius, a modern prophet. But it’s essential to remember that Blake earned his living in London as a copy engraver, a skilled tradesman. He is also famously eccentric and most likely lived with some combination of undiagnosed mental illnesses—he claimed to have come upon a tree filled with angels as a small boy (an assertion that brought the scolding of his parents upon him). Later he was visited at his home by a friend who reported that Blake and his wife were naked in their garden reciting lines from John Milton’s Paradise Lost as if they were Adam and Eve. But that’s all besides the point. I mean to stress that even Blake’s poetry and art, divinely inspired as it might have been, took tactile, human labor to execute.

Taking on the appearance of modern reinterpretations of medieval illuminated manuscripts, Blake’s artistic production was inextricably bound up with the tools and techniques of his day job, incorporating trade skills he learned through years of apprenticeship to older masters of engraving. Examining any one of Blake’s illustrated poetry collections, it is easy to appreciate his mastery of artistic form and language. Maybe his talent was God-given, but his skill was surely man-made. We often neglect to acknowledge the years of training, reading and learning it must have taken to properly etch a design into a copper plate, to hand water color the printed pages, and to execute poetic verse. As multimedia creator John Green succinctly put it Wednesday night during his visit to Brown’s Salomon Center, artistic creation is never a solitary process, but a dense web of collaboration with the world around us and the past.

Far from presenting an unmediated view of whatever divine force that used Blake as its mouthpiece, Blake’s poetry is suffused with the language of his literary antecedents: principally, the Bible and Milton. As readers, we pick up a finished product, complete and refined as if nature itself had always meant for it to be that way. A great work of literature is like a smooth

stone washed up on the shore; all we see is a perfect totality of form, not the millions of years of continuous waves that polished something rough into something simply beautiful.

I also like to think of the great writer as a great magician, a master of illusion. Writing something worth reading is akin to making someone’s ace of spades jump from the deck into their pocket.

The precision of the craftsman, the wonderful effect produced as a result, distracts the audience or reader from the unglamorous and often messy work that allows the finished product to materialize. As readers, we don’t see the endless drafts, the hundreds or thousands of rewrites, edits, and cuts: all we see is a finished page.

Writing, like any craft, should be a continuous wandering. The goal is to stay moving forward, but that doesn’t mean straight ahead. Writing does not miraculously manifest itself on a page: it comes through constant iteration, failure, invention, and effort. This all might be obvious to you but it wasn’t always obvious to me. It’s a fact that’s better learned through experience than intellectualized. I found my way towards this level of understanding by connecting with the tools that make writing possible. I wanted physical remnants of my work, haptic nodes charting my limitless searching for self expression, connection, and understanding. You do not need fountain pens or a typewriter to appreciate this way of creating, these were just my particular ways in.

Endings are good places to take stock of the journey you’ve just been on; endings are the season of reflection. I sit at my desk by the window typing this out with only a couple of weeks left before I graduate. I feel so much gratitude for all, from Brown and beyond, who’ve shepherded me and my writing along the way. In particular I want to thank my parents without whom none of this would be possible; Emma Schneider and all the other generous, insightful, and patient editors at post- who’ve taken a chance on me and my writing these past few years; and Professor Joe Pucci in the Classics Department who, more than anyone, taught me the importance of going beyond the first draft and whose passion for supporting students might only be matched by his love for Diet Snapple.

ARTS & CULTURE

Schrodinger's Tinder Date love and other paradoxes

by Nasreen Duqmaq Illustrated by elliana reynolds I don’t mind the gaps. You know the kind. The moment before an exhale and a laugh not yet realized, still bundled in the lungs. The instant before a foot hits the ground, a great crack of thunder right before the strike. A liminal space where everything hangs in the air, simultaneously fated and foiled, invariably and all at once.

There’s a finality to choosing, the ghost of the road not taken lingering in a series of troubling, utterly intolerable—utterly intoxicating—what-ifs. After all, I’m prone to trying on three or four outfits in the morning, just to be sure. And when ordering drinks, I am Sisyphus, the menu a tumbling boulder down a steep, steep hill of indecision. A chronic overthinker at my core, I know there’s an infinite number of moments to make a right decision, to be wrong.

Perhaps this is precisely the reason I’m an avid user of dating apps. Especially for a college student bearing the burden of youth and endless potential, the entire process functions like a pendulum caught midswing. Matching, exchanging pleasantries—it’s a noman’s land where nothing is promised and even less is expected. If a message is botched, there’s another equally—if not more—likable conversation queued. If someone seems promising, I can imagine all the little ways we fall in love and then out of it, without the onus of living through it. With each little icon added to my repertoire of potential suitors, I am comforted with the knowledge that everything and anything is still possible, should I want it. A cat trapped in a Tinder-shaped box.

My fondness for unrealized reality rests on its propensity for self-preservation, a shield against the digital world. For one, I’m self-aware enough to concede that I’m a difficult person to get to know. My social media presence is close to nonexistent, and I take at least five business days to respond to texts.

The feeling of immediate availability through Snapchat or Instagram or whatever makes my throat swell, choking on the threat of encroaching intimacy. For me, self isolation is familiar, almost instinctual.

Maybe it’s because I’m a twin—a constant, breathing weapon for comparison—or maybe it’s simply because I’m quiet by nature. But I adore being self-sufficient. I don’t—can’t—drive, so I’m intentional about living in walkable cities with decent public transportation. I take the time to be with myself and appreciate how my legs get me from place to place, a reliable source of movement. I make my own doctor appointments, I buy my own groceries, I pay for my own apartment. Two years ago, I researched colleges for my mom to resume her undergraduate degree.

Now, nearing the close of my own college career, I’m soothed by knowing that wherever I land, I’ll be fine on my own.

In a similar manner, I frequent Tinder because, for me, it’s safe. It’s all low-stakes entertainment, a way to turn my brain off after a long day. There is no legitimate threat to my independence, my ego. Stuck in a superposition between suitor and stranger, I endure Schrodinger’s Tinder date over and over.

Rarely do I match with friends (another form of selfpreservation; I take three hour seminars with most of them), and so the majority of my time is spent pursuing profiles of people who I vaguely register as real. After hundreds of matches, faces and names are pretty much indistinguishable, with pictures of European vacations and New York bakeries blending into a single, amorphous mass. In a roundabout way, this banality opens me up. I can rant about my

penchant for niche YouTube video essays and make grand statements about my unabashed devotion to Taylor Swift’s entire discography without fear of being cringe or weird or too much. These people don’t exist—not really—in the truest sense of the word.

Rather, these conversations carry all possibilities, each one occurring at once. I have not yet arrived at a coffee shop for a date, I have not yet been rejected.

There’s no telling if we, our texts, our flimsy attempts at a future, will coalesce in heartbreak, or even worse, love.

I have been in love before, once. It was good, until it wasn’t. For a long while, the pain was sharp and pointed—the words of a lover, now a scythe.

The process of rebuilding myself was tedious. Even months after the blow, there were moments where I’d realize I was doing something we used to do together, now alone for the first time. The crushing weight of knowing I’d have to shower alone, sleep alone, write love letters to no one, was almost unbearable. I grew accustomed to the way his sweaters hung over my knees, how he’d take photos of us going grocery shopping. For a while, I wasn’t sure where to put all the extra love I still had in me. It festered and hung like a phantom limb, and I carried on with the weight of a love that was more alive than it should be.

Even after lots of intensive therapy and accepting that I was not treated like I should have been in that relationship, the process of being vulnerable again is, at best, scary and, at worst, absolutely petrifying.

I finally excised him from my life, stopped him from overriding my brain at night. And now, when conversing on Tinder, I sense myself turning acrid, giving people a reason to leave, instead of a reason to stay. Another version of relinquishing the cat to another’s hand. I know love will come again, inevitably, as it always does. But what if I find someone who doesn’t mind my unintelligible ramblings about focaccia? What if they don’t mind that I still scroll april 22, 2022

7

LIFESTYLE on TikTok before I sleep? What if they rip my heart through my throat? What if I am wrecked and ravaged and—worst of all—what if I like it?

Still, I continue to swipe. Maybe as an act of stubborn self-defiance, or maybe because, even at my worst, I am an eternal optimist. Even when I won’t admit it, and I throw sarcasm at the wall because it’s easier than sincerity, deep down, I know I am fueled by hope. A writer through and through, it’s my job to live in doubt and come out the other end with a fully fledged world, forged in my own hands. Perhaps dating apps are another one of those stories, flourishing through a different medium.

These days, I swipe with no expectation. But still, no expectation is better than expecting the worst.

I text, I talk, I go on dates. Slowly, I am making a direct observation, forcing an outcome, making the parti-cles align. I cry, and I learn. I lose the cat, and I gain myself.

SLEEP IN ALUMNI GARDENS This goal is partially terrifying. The critters of the night traverse the streets of Providence with unpredictable appetites in their bellies. If at 4:02 a.m. they happen to stumble upon Alumni Gardens with a keen craving for an English concentrator who just turned 20, I’d be finished. But the idea of setting up a comfy sleeping bag and staring at the stars until a light spring breeze carries me into my dreams is a marvelous thought. Alumni Gardens seems like it would be the ideal place to spend the night, enclosed in a forest of blooming trees with the scent of blossoming flowers. Not to mention when I wake up, I’d be less than a two-minute walk from my morning classes.

As someone who lives in Perkins, this aspect is huge.

It feels like a pretty achievable goal. I would just need to borrow a sleeping bag and find a friend who will stay up while I snooze and defend me from the Providence wildlife.

Spring Bucket List

GET AN AUTOGRAPH AT BROWN SPRING WEEKEND I’ve never gone to a concert or a sports game without a piece of paper and a Sharpie. I’ve also probably never sat less than 70 rows away from the performers or athletes, but you never know. The one time I did forget a piece of paper was in middle school when Saint Motel did a free concert in downtown Providence. After the show, my best friend and I shimmied our way to the front and met the band.

When they offered their signatures my best friend,

bucket list for before the spring semester ends

by Nadia Heller Illustrated by Lena He (@liquidbutterflies)

who always came prepared, handed them her piece of paper and got a permanent autograph. I, on the other hand, got a scribble across my arm. Although it is a childish wish to get a celebrity's autograph, it’s not a goal I will give up this year.

WATCH A MOVIE AT THE AVON On one of these rainy spring days, I want to watch a movie at the Avon. I appreciate them more when I see them at the Avon, but I haven’t been to the little theater on Thayer Street since before the pandemic.

The Avon’s vintage decor sends me back to a decade I never lived through. It’s almost as if I’m acting in the movie myself. I love that the building only houses one theater and that the song “Let’s Go to the Lobby” plays before every film. The Avon introduced me to Whiplash, The Favourite, Sing Street, Isle Of Dogs, and so many other now-favorites.

One of the greatest parts about the Avon is the bathroom. Right before entering, there’s a candy machine that only works occasionally, and is always a very pleasant surprise when it does. Inside the bathroom, there’s a full-length mirror that fuels me with the confidence to stare at myself and think, “Could I make a movie one day?”. They also equip the bathrooms with speakers so people like me with tiny bladders that can’t hold a medium-sized root beer through a two-hour movie don’t have to miss the film’s audio. Before finals steal every hour of my waking life, I want to watch something there and take a trip back in time.

It’s that magical time of the year when the trees on campus shimmy into their spring costumes and shed pink petals onto gray pavements. The days sprinkle yellow sunshine over the ancient bricks, warming the buildings and flooding the Main Green with picnic blankets and neglected school books. The warmth nudges the skunks out of hibernation and sends hay fever haywire. The weeks at the end of April are complete bliss. It’s the sliver of time right after the last midterms fizzle out and just before the final exams demons drop down from their evil lair in the sky. It’s a time to take a deep (but not too deep) breath and enjoy the unraveling enchantment of spring.

Unfortunately, it’s also the time when my Flex Points dip below the dollar and I can afford less than two meal swipes a day. The end of the year may mean rationing vanilla lattes at the Blue Room and distancing myself from 1 a.m. Jo's sessions, but it’s also the last chance to try everything else. Before I make the third floor of the Rock a destination to stare at blank Google documents and finals prompts longer than a page, there are a couple of goals I’d like to accomplish; a bucket list per se:

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kyoko Leaman

“But when the day breaks, I am ready to step out of my bedroom, edit with dispassion, and make sense of my mind.”

—Joyce Gao, “Finding Coldness,”

04.09.21

“When I first heard the word serotonin—the neurotransmitter that regulates emotion—I liked how it sounded: It sounded saccharine-sweet, and I had the world’s worst sweet tooth. Something about the syllables was enough to make me crave it.”

—Kahini Mehta, “Recovery, In Fragments,” 03.06.20

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

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Siena Capone Section Editors 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!

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

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