post- 10/15/21

In This Issue The Reeducation of Me emma eaton 6

Home Julia vaz 5

Coffee for Here

liza kolbasov 4

Summer on the Balton

emma schneider 2

Mariott Advice Ethan pan 8

Rechoevenation JOe maffa 7

postNina Yuchi

OCT 15

VOL 28 —

ISSUE 4

FEATURE

Summer on the Balton rediscovering family and culture from afar By emma schneider Illustrated by Emilia Mann

Csak az ágyban legyen jó,

harder, requiring an extra hundred hours. The next tier

word was the Hungarian word for cat, whispered intensely:

Csak a hajnal legyen szép,

includes only Malaysian, Indonesian and Swahili. Then

cica, with a finger pointing along with it. English came along

Csak a kávé legyen forró,

comes the fourth tier. At 1,100 hours, this tier includes most

as well, but my mother’s diligent reading of Hungarian

Csak a metró legyen kék,

languages using the Latin alphabet that aren't linguistically

stories, my aunt's long phone calls from across the ocean,

Csak a villamos legyen sárga,

connected to English. There are seven languages singled out

and the months we spent with my family in Hungary paid

...

in that category as particularly hard to learn before the final

off. Hungarian had the sweet sheen of family summer: my

tier. One of those seven languages is Hungarian.

grandma, doting great-aunt, benevolent uncle and older

“ Csak az àgyban,” KFT The CIA has a categorization of languages listed in

I had always known to some extent that Hungarian

cousins, people who would give me gum even when my mom

order of how long it would take the average American to

was special. My family used it as a secret language, a way

learn to speak them. At the bottom are languages closely

to communicate with one another in our own little bubble

Despite a childhood steeped in Hungarian and Hungary,

related to English. It should only take around 600 hours to

that no one could penetrate, but I’d never thought of the

college necessitated working for the summer, less free time,

become proficient in Romance languages and fun language

language as hard to learn, or that it would be hard to find

less time for family. I stopped my regular family phone calls.

cousins like Swedish and Norwegian. German is a little

people to speak it with. It was my mother tongue. My first

My great-aunt, my favorite person to call, had died when

said it wasn’t allowed.

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, It’s midterm season, which, if you’re anything like me, means repeated verbal blows to the head from your best friends for having taken an absolute hellfire mish-mash of classes. Even if not, midterms are all around us, as is family weekend!

Again I ask if you’re anything like me, reader, in the way that I firmly bind my people to the places in which I began to love them. Visiting my friend’s hometown to see her, for instance, felt strange and other-worldly: her face is anchored into Brown’s campus. Luckily, my parents live too far away to show up for family weekend, because that cognitive dissonance would all but bowl me over. But at the same time, there’s something so exciting about that dissonance—you get to show someone you love the places and the people that have become so important to you over your time here. You get to take them to your favourite library, to your favourite spot by the river, and suddenly someone very, very far away is

imprinted on all of Providence. Transferred, transposed, transparently forever here.

Our writers this week are thinking about people and places too: in narrative, one writer thinks about how memories and moments are overlaid onto her favorite coffee shops. Another writer in narrative reminisces about her hometown on the brink of a relocation. In feature, a prized post-it describes how connecting with Hungarian language through music brought her closer to her loved ones. In arts and culture, one writer tells us about his experience with preserving sneakers, while another meditates on marijuana and movies. In lifestyle, another of our own walks us through making it through the Marriott quarantine.

So reminisce with us, transpose with us, make new memories and savour old ones. Whether you’re suffering through midterms or showing your loved ones your life, we at post- are right there with you.

See you on the other side of it all.

Endless, endless love,

Aditi Marshan Copy Chief

2 post–

We DON'T Want to Show Our Parents this Family Weekend 1. Emergency exit sign debris in the dorm hallways 2. The last dregs of a fifth of grapefruit vodka 3. The giant dumpsters all over campus 4. Dorm bathroom. Any aspect of it.

5. The Bong 6. The underwear your situationship left in your room 7. The crafts I spent $150 on last weekend at the RISD fair.

8. The girl who cries on the Main Green 9. Your new pet skunk 10. Wait, your parents are coming?

FEATURE I was around 12, and my grandmother died right before I

I needed something that would connect me not only to

the sounds that made me miss Hungary the most. Active

started college. The death of my older relatives also lessened

the idealized Hungary of my childhood, but the language,

since 1981 and still going strong, the first song of theirs that

the urgency of visits. My grandmother could no longer

feelings, and understandings that people have of places

I heard was an ode to one of my most treasured childhood

watch me grow up, and besides, I was already grown. With

they live in as adults. I decided that I wanted to listen to

spots. "Balatoni Nyár" (Balaton summer) describes an

the loss of these phone calls came a sharp loss of my fluency.

Hungarian popular music. The question was: where to

affair on the shores of the Balaton—a huge lake, dedicated

My mother shied away from speaking Hungarian once I was

find it?

vacation spot, and neighbor to the town my mother grew up

grown, preferring to speak English for practice; my father

Then I was reminded of a band I hadn't thought

in. My summers, too, were spent lazing on the shores of this

was oppressively enthusiastic about practicing Hungarian,

about since childhood. In 2016 one of the members of the

lake, though unlike the singer of the song, I was not having

making it feel like a task instead of conversation, and then I

Hungarian band Omega sued Kanye West for 2.5 million

extramarital affairs. Instead I played with beach balls,

became an adult and Hungarian became something I almost

dollars. Gabor Presser, the keyboardist and songwriter for

devoured ice cream until I was on the edge of nausea, and

never spoke.

the band, claimed that Kanye had used an unauthorized

turned purple, covered in masses of bug bites.

Then Covid hit. The idea that I had ever lacked time to

sample of Omega’s song “Gyöngyhajú Lány” (the girl with

In another one of their songs “Csak az ágyban” (just in

visit my family became hard to process when I no longer had

the pearls in her hair) in his 2013 song “New Slaves.” In

bed), the band sings about the various colors of the metro

the option of seeing them. The scarcity of the language made

Kanye’s song, the guitar solo and chorus are distorted while

and streetcars in Budapest. Just let the streetcars stay

it a precious resource slipping out of my fingers. I’d never

Frank Ocean sings over them. To someone who doesn't

yellow, just let the metro stay blue… Those lines drove me to

thought of my Hungarian self as hard to connect to. For me,

speak Hungarian, it sounds more like pleasant background

tears. I wanted to be on those yellow streetcars that were so

it’d always been easy—facilitated by the adults in my life.

music than words. For me, it was a revelation. Copyright

close in my memory and yet so far away from me. I wanted to

As a child, summer entailed two or more weeks of total

issues aside, Hungary had been pulled into a contemporary

ride the blue metro all the way to my cousin’s neighborhood

Hungarian immersion. I’d visit everyone across the ocean

culture that was familiar to me and the people I cared about.

and babysit her kids while she went to the movies.

whom I loved. I’d eat goose liver fried to a crisp, set upon soft

I knew Omega because their song “Petroleum Lamp”

When my father told me about how he learned Hun-

roasted apples, dripping with grease. I’d water the flowers

featured heavily in stories of my uncle's childhood pranks.

garian, he always mentioned the moment he knew he was

on my grandmother’s and great-aunt’s gravestones. I’d go

I often tricked my mother into giving me extra computer

on his way to fluency. Everyday in Budapest he’d take the

out into the garden and kiss the cats. I’d converse with my

time by asking to see a video of Omega performing. The

bus, a calm experience where he’d bathe in the sounds of

baby cousins who’d tell me all kinds of rude things and bite

lead singer, Janos Kobor, pranced around with exaggerated

the language without fully absorbing any of the meaning.

me. The summer of 2020 was different. Covid showed us

Mick Jagger energy on stage, the Hungarian audience

But after his 1100th hour of language learning, his bus

all how fragile life is and how quickly it can be taken away.

cheering along. Omega was silly, but it was also Hungarian

rides changed. Instead of a soothing hum, he understood

Changing travel guidelines, quarantine requirements,

rock music that sounded like British rock music, even if

the words around him, and what the people were saying

and unclear records of cases in Hungary made the choice

most people couldn't understand the words. Now they were

was at best rude, at worst horrifying. He wished he could

to visit an impossible one to make. Staying away from my

affiliated with Kanye, their most popular song embroiled

go back, but he had entered the culture, and there was no

family for safety felt like condemning myself to never see-

in legal trouble. “Gyöngyhajú Lány” became international

removing that language from his brain. He was cursed

ing them again. The preservation of family at home was in

almost immediately. Omega recorded versions of the song

with understanding, no longer just going with the flow—

direct conflict with the preservation of relationships with

in English and German, spreading its sound across Europe.

he understood Hungarian without any mediation, on his

family abroad.

The German band The Scorpions also covered the song,

own terms.

It was in this weird in-between-place of language,

helping it rise to the tops of the charts, and other versions

A couple weeks into listening to KFT, I realized that

family, and missing both that I started to take my connection

came out in Polish, Czech, and Bulgarian. It was an Eastern

certain oddities of my uncle's speech were taken from their

to my heritage into my own hands. First, I tried to seek out

Bloc hit. And on the B side of the EP from which Kanye

songs. Often as he made himself tea, he’d sing to himself

more Hungarian media—easier said than done. My reading

stole was the song of my and my uncle’s childhood:

about how nicely the tea steamed, how nice the tea smelled.

level in Hungarian was low and I often quit out of frustrat-

“Petroleum Lamp.”

From my headphones the same tune emanated. How nice

ion. Books were not a sustainable option. I could speed read

The music related to everything that I missed about

the tea steams, how nice it smells, you can put some honey

in English; why slog through a language that only came to

my home away from home. As I listened to Omega’s catalog

in it. These song lyrics which had previously washed over

life when I whispered the words on the page?

and its subsequent radio on Spotify, I found more and more

me like a soothing hum were now grasped tightly in my

that sounded right, and it made my heart hurt deeply with

fists. What I thought had just been my uncle and my family

the pain of being away.

had been a part of the culture all along. Finally, I was engag-

In a previous language freak-out, I’d turned to the television of my childhood. My favorite: Dr. Bubo, a kindly owl who treats his forest friends’ ailments with the help of

One of those groups was KFT. Despite never having

his nurse Ursula, a warm-hearted bear. But now, I felt like

heard them before, the sounds of the band were some of

“Oh god, do you need a hernia?”

“Wow, I can’t believe I had my own independent thought about Playboi Carti.”

ing independently while I pulled myself into Hungarian on my own terms.

As a graduate student in ‘71, there were maybe 50 Asian Americans on campus. If you walked across campus and you passed another Asian and didn't say hello, it became a big deal around campus, like why didn’t so-and-so wave? You can't imagine that today.

We went through a huge struggle in the 1980s over admission quotas on Asians. We wanted to support affirmative action, but at the same time, we did not want discrimination against Asian Americans.

It was a long struggle that might have been the struggle that really got me in trouble, but ultimately, it changed the complexion of this very campus.

When I graduated, I started teaching Asian American studies as special “diversity” courses and for many years they were the only Asian American classes. It was a battle to establish an ethnic studies concentration. We had to organize ourselves. Students were key players who provided a great deal of energy to the movement.

During this time, a huge crisis of confidence occurred when I came up for tenure and the Department voted unanimously in favor but the university committee on tenure denied me. It was scary... but Asian American representation had become a national issue and Asian American students and scholars from all over the country were protesting a lack of diversity within academia. Eventually, Brown’s president, Gregorian, took my case and the board finally reversed their decision.

—Professor Robert Lee redenvelopestories.net Our identity is where our best stories come from.

Stories from the Asian community at Brown University covering relationships, self-acceptance, career paths, food, politics, and more, read in three minutes or less.

October 15, 2021 3

NARRATIVE central Oregon skies at 2 a.m. to get to this new corner of the world: our belated senior trip. On the third morning of our trip, we found ourselves sitting in a Japanese cafe behind the Portland Art Museum. We learned the cafe owners were also from San Francisco. They had spent the past ten years in Portland—we’d spent the past two days there. In a few months, I’d return to Providence, and my friends would be in LA and Pennsylvania—three corners of a too-large triangle drawn across the US. The cafe filled an expansive building with floor-toceiling windows and lanterns floating from the ceiling.

We sat outside, sipping our tea lattes and basking in the early morning sun before the heat turned harsh. Later, my caffeine-addicted heart would crave my foregone coffee fix, but in the moment, the smooth sweetness of

Coffee for Here

sharing a cup with my ghosts by liza kolbasov Illustrated by John Gendron

the tea tasted just right. But with each mouthful, my heart Through warm cinnamony conversations, we unravel

clutched at a preemptive sense of loss. I could feel that

layers of ourselves. In the middle of the crowd, I speak and

something was about to shift between us. Soon our love for

listen myself into existence. A seemingly de-individualised

each other would be forced to warp, adapt to flowing across

coffee chain becomes, for a moment, a world all our own. It

state lines. I knew then that time was precious, that our old

takes on a new light, malleable to our touch, our words.

selves were melting away with every passing second.

In December 2019, I needed a space to speak my identity—or, at least, speak around my identity—and find a

I offered my friends a sip of my drink.

Small Format: Maple Butter Latte (Providence, RI)

Peet’s Coffee Charleston Rd.: Coconut Black Tie (Palo

place to hold it. In my life, I have encountered few explicitly

I’ve always been attached to the idea of sharing—

Alto, CA)

“queer” spaces. But, for a moment, purely by claiming it

sharing drinks, sharing food, sharing space. With people

I taught myself to like coffee through sheer force of

as my own, I let Peet’s become such a space. Here, I said,

you know and love, and with people you’ve never met but

will. I’d take sip after tiny sip from the plastic cup perched

out loud for the first time, “I think I’m probably asexual.”

are still connected to in some way.

on the table next to me, a ring of condensation blooming

Here, I first admitted that my feelings are an unknowable

In Providence, I ran into the first explicitly queer

around the edges as the ice melted, watering down my

territory to me—that I don’t understand the difference

shared space that truly felt welcoming to me. It’s the sort

coconut-and-condensed-milk-sweetened concoction. I

between platonic and romantic attraction, that I never

of space I often dreamed of, but never believed really

swallowed the last lukewarm drops before heading home

have and don’t understand how other people do. Here,

existed—a queer cafe and art space. A pride flag blows in

for the night, proud that I’d finished my drink at last. I’d

I first heard my friend echo my feelings back to me and

the wind outside the small, colorful building. Inside, the

made the bitter decision to become a coffee drinker.

felt some sense of relief. Felt, for a moment, infinitely less

walls are lined with prints by queer artists, and plants

alone.

hang from the ceiling. A handful of leaves pinned to a

I’d always found coffee too strong to taste good. I took sips from my mother’s morning brew, mixed only

And the entire time, the coffee shop world milled

painted tree on the wall answers the question, “How are

with cream, and grimaced as each sip overpowered my

about around me. Each person living their own lives,

tastebuds. But in my junior year of high school, that

blissfully unaware of the small role they’d just played in

changed—or rather, I changed it. I needed caffeine to deal

the shifting of mine.

queer heart bubbling with earnest excitement. As some-

with the mounting pressure of school, but it was more

Dave’s Coffee: Lavender Latte (Providence, RI)

one perpetually living in a precarious liminal space

you a part of another? How is another a part of you?”

The first time I visited Small Format, I felt my baby-

than that. The aesthetic of coffee attracted me—sipping

As the pandemic tightened its grip, coffee “for here”

between out and closeted, coming where I could feel fully

from large mugs, admiring latte art, finding the sweet in

was no longer a possibility. And I missed it. But we’ve all

safe and celebrated as a queer being lit a candle some-

the bitter. My unfortunate dislike of the taste barred me

had to make do during these times—sipping the comforting

where in the depths of my soul.

from the rich, dark depths I craved access to.

swell of strangers’ voices from to-go cups alongside the

My first journey into coffee took place in an

bite of espresso and the nuttiness of oat milk.

I still don’t fully understand my own identity—and don’t truly know that I ever will—but in that moment, as

unassuming environment. The Peet’s Coffee on Charleston

My first semester at Brown held, without a doubt,

sits snugly between an overpriced grocery store, an

some of my loneliest moments. I’d find myself up at night,

cup, I felt a little more okay with that.

insurance company, and two barber shops perpetually

leaning my head against the smooth wall and listening to

The Shop: Oat Milk Cappuccino (Providence, RI)

lacking customers, in a tiny plaza bordered by bustling

the voices of partiers in the room next door. Strangely,

Somehow, loneliness slowly fades to the backgro-

suburban streets. The mid-afternoon rush includes a

being around people made me feel the most alone.

und. I realized this one Sunday morning, sitting in India

sea of stay-at-home moms desperate for a pick-me-up,

Painfully aware that I was expected to make new friends,

Point Park with a friend, trying to savor my coffee sip after

retirees looking for yesterday’s paper, and stressed-out

my body recoiled into itself, unsure of how to edge toward

tiny sip in comfortable silence. This is another coffee to-

high schoolers armed with AP notes—rearranging tables,

connection. I felt like a ghost around new people who

go, but it still holds the comfort of coffee shop bustle in its

ordering too little, and staying too long.

didn’t care about me. In my 4 a.m. moments I sometimes

foam. It’s from The Shop, which is closer to my sophomore

wondered, if I died in my room, how long would it take

year home than Dave’s. My go-to drink when I don’t

until someone noticed I was gone?

know what to order is a cappuccino. I sit, breathing in the

This scene defined my junior year. Here, I memorized the US presidents in order, the Krebs cycle, and

the sweet maple latte warmed my heart through my pink

proofs-by-induction. I learned to hug a friend through

To get myself off campus, I started taking weekly

comforting, slightly bitter, slightly nutty scent, and think

the escalating stress of midterms, to find moments of

trips to Dave’s Coffee, walking down the hill in the icy

about how things have shifted in my life over the past

laughter amid high school’s monotony. More of my waking

cold. I’d cradle the brief warmth of lavender coffee in my

few weeks.

hours passed at Peet’s than at my own home. Back then, no

hands and feel myself thaw a little. Aware that I looked

Through some quirk of fate, I’ve found the comfort

matter the time, I’d find one or two of my friends studying

strange, the cold air mixing with my hot breath, melting

of space in the hearts of people I care about. People I want

at a square table under the soft light. We’d reemerge

mascara down my cheeks, I’d turn toward aloneness. But

to make coffee and tea for. People I want to hold close.

hours later, the scent of ground coffee and the blurred

in these moments, I felt somehow less lonely than I did

I no longer feel quite so ghostly around others, only

sound of voices following us into a warm California dusk.

on campus. The coffee brought me back to a world outside

fading every now and then. My world here is still hard for

Peet’s Coffee Charleston Rd.: Havana Cappuccino

my dorm room. For the time it took to gulp down 12

me to grasp, but I’ve found more people to share a cup

(Palo Alto, CA)

ounces, I became a little more corporeal.

of coffee with.

It doesn’t snow in California, and so our holidays seem like a performance, but I’ll always associate winter

Behind the Museum Cafe: Hojicha Latte (Portland, OR)

Of course, there’s still a dull ache in my chest— perpetually missing pasts I’ve left behind or shifted away

with home. As I’ve grown, it’s become harder and harder

Getting to a cafe just as it opens means you avoid the

from, each finishing their coffee in one of the various cafes

to find joy in the holiday season: It feels like another chore

bustle. You get comfortable silence, the world waking up

of my past. I miss the people inhabiting those moments

on a long list. Yet even during times of stress, stepping

around you, a morning cup of love and the choice of who

with me, the conversations captured in mid-air. I miss

out of a chilly, gray December day into the enveloping

to share it with.

the half-forgotten feelings that still fill those past

warmth of Peet’s induces a moment of cheer in even the

I spent one such comfortable morning in July of 2021

most sleep-deprived—eye bags softened under twinkling

in Portland, with two of my closest friends. We’d driven

lights, quiet strains of holiday music easing headaches and

ten hours through the endless flat fields of northern

heartaches alike.

California and under the breathtaking starry blanket of

4 post–

homes, ready to overwhelm me whenever I step foot in them again.

But for now, I try to remind myself to finish my coffee before it gets cold.

NARRATIVE

Home

an inventory by julia vaz Illustrated by Anica Aguilar @anlouira I have heard that people exercise control to avoid pain. If you can rationally list the changes in your life, then sadness might seem like just one more item to check off and move on; isn’t that a nice thought? Walking around the house, I notice the out-of-place pieces that announce, even if there are still months to go, my leaving for University: the coat bought specifically for Providence's cold, the waiting suitcases, the pile of documents on the table. Watching those details accumulate, my chest tightens, and I feel the need to give objectivity a try; anything to make it hurt less. I’ve never been a scientist, but there is a calmness and certainty to their ways that seems inviting—especially at this moment, when I see myself faced with the unfamiliar. Afraid of leaving anything behind, I search for the tangible details of my current existence to be catalogued. I break down the bewildering whole in puzzle pieces. Letting my mind touch rather than think, I survey every object for memories. My method is already faulty, I notice. Scientists should first gather the data and then make conclusions, but I only collect what would sound nice on my lips if I were to describe it in years to come. There is no logic behind my inventory, just emotion. My process relies solely on feelings. I should clarify—they’re feelings I don't have names for. But isn't feeling a consciousness in itself? A way of perceiving the world beyond facts and numbers? A way of descending into the dark marrow inaccessible to language? Is this too poetic? Well, poetry is also a science, with all its line breaks, white spaces, and catalog of existences.

Maybe I got a little off topic here. My mind keeps skipping thoughts like stones. I can hear the scientific community getting ready to leave—but wait a second. I can fix it.

ITEM01: Paper. Text written in black pen. Cellulose.

Ink. Something Else. The writer makes excuses for her imperfect work. Offends scientists.

See? ITEM02: Pressed flowers. Brownish-pink. Twothumbs-side-by-side-sized.

My inventory project began in May, all because of a tree. I was sitting in my backyard reading the last chapters of Never Let Me Go. Yes, I guess I was

emotionally vulnerable. Thinking about death and life and memory, and how sometimes I wish I had taken more risks in my life, and the sense of independence brought forth by discussing relationships with your friends over lunch break— and then the last line came and went. One more title for the shelf. The best books, when you finish them, make you want to stare at something. So I looked up, and there it was: the tree, staring back at me with its gravity-defying branches stretching themselves towards the sky. And it was so amazing to have a tree as witness; it was like I had read every word out loud and we now shared a secret. It wasn't the first time this had happened. After all, when I think of home, this is the tree that comes to mind, as if I am one of its pink flowers and not just a benevolent worshipper. It was the first time I knew I was leaving it, though. One year from now, I would be on a college campus, finishing my first year and enjoying a shining spring while the leaves of my tree dried and fell. The only way to stare at it would be through a screen. Between us rested the weight of final moments, that energy you feel before a wave hits. Change, for the first time in my life, was coming to fetch me. I wished I could cut myself in half and count my growth rings. Trace them with my fingers, feel all the ripples of my years until now. I drew it on the final page, above 282, under I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be. A book is easier to carry off to University. Is it strange to ask a tree if it will miss you?

ITEM03: Sunlight on Wooden Dresser. Honey-sweet.

Coffee-smelling. Chamomile-tea-looking.

I can never find a balance. I am afraid of what was and what is to come. I am afraid of messing up my future with my past. I am afraid of staining my past with my future. Will the four-years-later version of myself be unrecognizable? Will it be so unchanged as to seem like a failure? I keep running after deathbed answers, moments of spiritual realization special enough to calmly free a soul of its body. When I look at sunlight on wood, I think I find them. It has something to do with the untraceable nature of the rays. The sun is millions of miles away, but it is also on my dresser: Little Miracle. “You are a deeply religious man who doesn’t believe in God.” I just pray that the people I love will look at the sunlight and think of me: miles away, but also here. I know I will think of them.

ITEM04: Poster. Farm Garden with Sunflowers.

Faded. Packable.

Brazilian households are synesthetic. They like piling up sounds, touches, and smells. You will never hear louder laughter or have tighter hugs. Brazilian households are an experiment in entanglement, on how separate existences can become one single, indivisible garden with hearts grown together like ivy. These homes teach you that life is more than the sum of its parts, but rather what each part becomes.

Life is a collection of brushstrokes. When I sit on my stairs and look at the painting on the wall, I think about the comfort of having a place you have to lose yourself into to feel found. “Where does such tenderness come from?” I know it will come from here, from the warmth of the earth I carry in my bones. It will be nature moving towards light. I will trace every love back to these roots.

ITEM05: Pool water. Chlorine. A leaf or two. Living beings.

I have been reading books in the pool. I used to be too scared of damaging them. Breaking spines, annotating, dog-ear-ing: It all seemed sacrilegious.

But I don't think like that anymore. Maybe because I don't want to see my books the same way I see my phone, but also because I am human and the desire to leave marks can be very insistent. I want someone somewhere sometime to know that my handwriting was a mix of cursive and print. That I wanted to punch Vronsky, and that Woolf's prose made me feel like floating in the ocean, or that I, too, feared Loneliness to be the Maker of the Soul. So, now I take books to the pool, let them have a look at the sun, and smell the sunscreen. I hope they will absorb it all, so that when I open them again, I can read myself in the in-betweens. Nowadays, I have the urge to do the same thing with the walls.

ITEM06: Passport. Bad photo. Dusty.

I have been teetering around the center. Should I just be blunt? I will miss it all. I will miss it so much I will grieve it, from denial to acceptance. I guess my project—taking stock of my memories, putting every moment under a microscope—was doomed from the start; I am too sentimental for science.

My thoughts are a collection of unresolved contradictions. Here goes one more: The sadness I feel while waving at my childhood grew from its insurmountable happiness. My childhood was the only reality I knew, and now it is the echoes of my sentences and movements. How to catalogue what can only exist in white spaces and line breaks? I told you poetry was a science.

October 15, 2021 5

ARTS & CULTURE

The Reeducation of Me movies, marijuana, and going man-free

by Emma Eaton Illustrated by Joanne Han I have one list on my Letterboxd account, an inside joke with myself: “movies men made me watch.”

Some of the titles are more incriminating than others, but the assemblage tells an embarrassing story either way. Fight Club. Superbad.

American Beauty. American Psycho. Birdman.

Safety Not Guaranteed. Inglourious Basterds. When Harry Met Sally. The Shawshank Redemption. It. Casablanca. Garden State. Pulp Fiction. Whiplash.

The Social Network. Nearly all of Christopher’s Nolan’s filmography.

The app was described to me as a film bro’s version of Goodreads, which was mostly true in the sense that I gave up after one glorious day of obsession. The act of downloading it was just another symptom of my sad affair with archivism during the early months of life on hold—I’d do anything to catch some bit of the time streaming right through all my nets. But I wasn’t really even watching movies anymore; it felt too reminiscent of the life at Brown I was freshly mourning.

My enduring memories from that first year on campus are all lit by color-changing LED light strips. The emotional contour of those nights rarely varied: the thrill of being invited into a male space, the life-ending embarrassment of fumbling with a lighter, then always the odd game of attempting to focus my swiftly waning lucidity on Mulholland Drive or The Big Lebowski. It’s not that I was reaching towards “Cool Girl” status (at least not in the terms of the infamous Gone Girl monologue: that epiphany had already come and gone for me in high school) by partaking in this ritual and humoring its arbiters. But I did very much want to be smart, and to belong. So I spent all my Thursday evenings fighting feeling too high, or wishing I was more high, and protesting whatever was on our 6 post–

watchlist just enough to prove I could think.

The quarantined summer after that, though, I discovered a new world of possibility. It was July, not the sticky, awful Jersey City version I grew up in, but a glimpse of the kind of high summer I’ll romanticize forever: one set on water, with windows worth looking out of, and an abiding sense that everything worth doing can be done on a porch.

After five months of unlearning (the hard way) how to look forward to things, I made plans that actually happened: an entire week with one of my female friends in somebody’s family’s empty lakehouse. It was my first time seeing her since being co-conspirators for all those dorm room movie nights. Both of us owned our own weed now.

We joked about this character development, declaring that we’d seized the means of production.

And then we did what we’d always done: smoke and watch something. I think that hour and 52 minutes of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was the highest I’ve ever been, but even more than the colors and noise and lights, I was transfixed by how much I now despised the movie.

"Wait, why was that so awful?” We just sat there as it ended, slack-jawed at the desecration of a mutually beloved story. But in our shared recognition of a shitty male directoral gaze, we recognized one another, somehow. The shock dissolved into delight—we gleefully mocked Scott, reveling in an unfamiliar freedom to criticize without performing. And something else was seeded, too: the singular joy of smoking weed without cis men.

This still feels like a wonderful secret. Sometimes getting high with femme people feels simply like softening my own edges, being sanded down to a self with fewer anxieties and a higher threshold for giggling, or else like diverting the fragile raft of myself from its home on rapids to some gentler, easier channel. But the other effect is to make my mind slippery, seal-like, briefly unaccountable for all the learned fictions that tacitly rule my sober logic. The omnipotent self-doubt voice goes quiet.

In other words, smoking weed now feels like the closest I get to knowing how I might think in some parallel universe without a gender binary.

Here’s the other thing: it’s in the context of movies that the theory really proves itself. Take

that rare mental elasticity to the fabric of any film, and you’ve found yourself an awfully sharp blade. *** What I’m trying to say is I just find it ridiculous that I’m still kicking that earliest habit of needing men. What I’m trying to say is I’ve spent almost every chapter of my life learning and forgetting and learning again that I like almost everything better without them. But as a beloved female film critic puts it, this is a problem that kneecaps me constantly. When you write against something, you lend it strength and space and time.

The more I hold these questions—the more they hold me—the less I can separate any of it from being queer. That is the original fantasy of female queerness, after all: what if it could be just us, no boys allowed? Lately, I can’t stand the way that maleness operates, and is wielded, and is always, always about positionality; I wonder if that’s enough to decide I’m uninterested in men, full-stop. If sexuality isn’t a choice, I still get to be intentional about who I give my care to, though the lines between these things feel blurrier than ever. But I had a Bisexual Pride! button pinned to my backpack until a few nights ago; I’m clearly still arriving to all of this.

I can already feel myself backing off from such a ledge, and not just because I know a few male people I plan to keep around (though I must admit a lot of those people are related to me). Nevertheless, I now know at least one kind of utopia.

Like this past weekend: magic. Eight of my favorite femmes and I made a break for it, flung ourselves as far southeast as we could. The whole trip felt suspended in strange new rules, or maybe the absence of them. What if male characters didn’t have to be part of the story? What if they didn’t lend legitimacy or weight or anything else? We filled a kitchen with market share vegetables and put our naked bodies in the Atlantic and danced and danced and danced, and nothing was missing. The very quality of light was different, warmer, more generous. Maybe that’s what it means to feel held by the people around you instead of examined—I’m still learning to notice this. And when we smoked and watched Rocky Horror Picture Show, I decided to start another Letterboxd list.

ARTS & CULTURE

Reshoevenation Mr. Fieri, Mr. Clean, and Mr. (Stan) Smith by joe maffa Illustrated by Joanne Han Morning dew twinkles on the twigs of grass, crisp in the dawn air. The smell of a fresh summer rain wafts off the asphalt, conjuring nostalgic memories of early July. Gusts of wind carry secrets between maple leaves as they start to blush with embarr-assment. Puddles condense into sloshy heaps, liquid enough to dampen a sock, but firm enough to step through the seasons. And with each step into the new, a promised practice waits on the other side: shoe rejuvenation—reshoevenation, if you will.

It's a ritual at this point. Four times a year, I’m up before my alarm, springing out of bed and pulling on an old shirt scavenged from some high school event. Bounding downstairs, I open the closet and assess, pulling each pair out with care—left then right, they walk off my hand’s runway and do a spin, brandishing their blemishes and beauty marks. I transport them to my bathroom, piling them in the corner next to layers of Bounty, ignoring my mom’s voice in my head telling me to not be wasteful. Next to me, a cereal bowl filled with dish detergent overflows with stained shoe laces, tangled into unending knots that I’ll sort through later. One by one, I take each shoe, turn on the faucet, and begin scrubbing. *** Since I can remember, I’ve had my eyes glued to my shoes. First, it was my velcro light-up kicks that flashed like the Las Vegas strip when I stomped my legs extra hard. Then my tennis sneakers—intricate hive patterns of mesh netting: iridescent purple, sky blue, neon orange—back when I thought color meant cool. As I grew up, I developed work-life balance, separating the shoes I used on court from a more ubiquitous sneaker, one that I could rip up during middle school frisbee and also wear on weekend excursions to Boston. Now, I choose leather: the vintage aesthetic that’s the only justification for ever calling various shades of white “diverse.”

But I still like to reminisce about the old days of shoe shopping. The anticipation for a fresh pair

growing alongside my sprouting height. My knuckles hugging the uppers of my sneakers, waiting to poke through, gently urging me to size up. I’d go to Sports Authority—a now defunct childhood sanctuary—and walk up and down the aisles, ripping the shoe stuffers out and throwing them haphazardly into the box as I took each one for a trial run down the indoor track. I used to spend hours there, testing the pairs I liked, and quietly dismissing the ugly ones under my breath. Fifteen minutes before closing, my mom would pressure me to pick as I delayed my decision in hopes of a return the next day. I never won that battle.

Back then, I only thought about new; brighter was better. In fact, I still subscribe to that mindset— albeit in a different light. I learned that new doesn’t have to mean just purchased, and the patina of history can be buffed out to a radiant shine. *** I began cleaning my shoes freshman year of high school, around the same time I started my sneaker collection. YouTube targeted me with Reshoevn8r and Crep Protect ads, but word-ofmouth told me not to spend the money. Instead, I spent a Saturday with my old toothbrush, bristles spiked out like Guy Fieri’s hair. Sitting criss-cross on my bathroom rug, I dipped the head into a homemade baking soda solution and scrubbed, between the patterns of the knit upper, across the hills and valleys of the midsole, into the trenches of the sole.

On rainy weekends, lazy days off, and before big events, I was Monet at sunrise, dotting niches on my canvas with precise strokes, uncovering colors hidden by grime.

And between it all, I was dirtying them all over again—shuffling around the dusty, checkered Market Basket aisles, splashing through thunderstorms en route to the car, scraping along the pavement as my bike ambled to a clumsy halt. I wore them to the ground with no regard for their health or beauty.

I knew Mr. Clean didn’t discriminate. Scuffed or tattered, they would be restored to their like-new perfection soon enough, so I chose to deal with the messy yolks instead of walking on eggshells. *** Last year, my spring cleaning led me to my attic.

There, hidden under layers of boxes, resided more boxes. And in those boxes: more boxes—shoe boxes in fact. I opened them to reveal old shoes and old

memories that had been stashed away.

Looking at them, I envisioned times gone by. My red-clay stained Nikes, dusty from the clouds created while sprinting from side to side on Swedish tennis courts, made my mouth water for salty fish and creamy desserts. My pair of New Balance 806, now one size too small for me, but once two sizes too big for me as a hand-me-down, painted grassy landscapes of freshly mowed lawns and icy lemonades that tasted so much better under the beating summer sun. My size four Adidas Barricades unearthed elementary school conversations about times tables and map quizzes.

These memories made me question my own cleaning. Was I erasing my past?

No. But honestly, new has become passé. At least in the sense of a brand new pair. Or even a rewhitened pair of Stan Smiths. I don’t need a blank slate to start again.

As I’ve grown, I’m surprised that so many of my conversations are retrospective, not retroactive. In a way, my shoes are both: a reflection of where I’ve been without losing the alleyways, dirt roads, and scenic routes that brought me where I am today.

I’m living in the past, and continually stepping into the future, puddles and all.

But I won’t stop cleaning my shoes. It’s therapy for me. There’s something to be said about the serenity of a deep cleanse—the subtle ch-ch-ch of a brush against canvas, and the gradual wrinkling of my fingers tainted by the soapy water. But I might cut back on my scrubbing, or maybe clean more particularly. There are some battle scars I don’t want to erase—the scuffs that bring me back to the pumpfake that made my friends lose their minds, the scratches ingrained into the leather from tripping on the street and laughing it off as if nothing happened, the dirt stains from a light festival at the zoo that wasn't quite illuminated enough to see where I was stepping.

I’ll clean with the intention to preserve, not erase. Sure, the ketchup stain won’t remain; but the pink tinge might, and alongside it the time that a shared burger spelled disaster. My shoes will have grown as I have—they aren’t getting bigger, and neither am I, but we’re creating a mutual history.

They’re my journal, and my steps are the pens with which I write. Every day, a new entry, and every now and then, a new book, waiting to be filled with my stories.

October 15, 2021 7

LIFESTYLE along with the mysterious Chef’s Choice. Especially for dinner, I repeat: Order the Chef’s Choice. Fried chicken sandwiches and pasta alfredo sound delicious, but they’re actually made of an amusing medley of chalk, cushion foam, and cardboard (think the Almost Pizza skit from SNL). You can taste the cooks’ apathy.

But in the Chef’s Choice, the kitchen staff really brings the heat with edible proteins, flavored sauces, and real vegetables. If you haven’t lost your sense of taste, you’re doing yourself a massive favor.

Get outside.

Don’t ask me why—the windows open by less than a foot. If you want fresh mask-filtered air, you will need to step into the wonderful little lawn flanking the hospital wing of the hotel. This is it. The hotel still has regular guests, so you’re only permitted to traverse these few square feet. Make it work. Pacing, sitting— get outside as much as you can. It’ll do you and your vitamin D levels wonders. In my experience, the other visitors graciously decide to not eye you like you’re a

Marriott Advice

by Ethan Pan Illustrated by Lucid Clairvoyant Whoops! You got COVID. No judgement—you have

rabid raccoon. They eye you like you’re a normal one. for toiletries, and the hotel is not able to service its COVID wing. This means if you want toothpaste,

Bring useful entertainment.

conditioner, or anything of that sort, you have to

Many courses and professors are wholly un-

bring it when you arrive. I have since learned the fatal

equipped for teaching remote students. It is highly

differences between conditioner and hair cream. Do

possible that your classes will provide no Zoom link,

not follow in my footsteps.

no recordings, no nothing except online readings and

likely taken the proper precautions and simply fallen

Other items to pack include snacks (unless you

assignments. Staying on top of that work will burn

prey to the cruel knife of chance. This is an obviously

are really into Ruffles Original potato chips for some

some daylight, but you will have a lot of free time

heinous situation to be in. Quarantine is ten days

reason) and a reusable bowl and mug. Nothing is more

without needing to acquire meals, socialize, or even

calculated from the day of symptom onset or a positive

demoralizing than washing a paper coffee cup in your

walk. Bring a book you’ve been meaning to read, or

test result (so either you actually feel sick, or you don’t

hotel sink for tomorrow’s coffee, and the paper bowls

else you’ll discover Stardew Valley only costs $5 on

feel sick and just have to quarantine longer than

can’t even hold one packet of the Top Ramen they

the Apple Store, and then you’re hooked on a game for

symptomatic people). It’s a lose-lose situation. Regard-

provide. In the end, as long as it fits in the back seat of

which you’ll soon have no time to play. No promises,

less, you are now required to self-isolate, either at home

an EMS SUV, pack whatever you think will help you

though—I brought a book.

or elsewhere. When choosing your new hibernation

get through these times. Except clothes. You’ll barely

den, one of the finest only options is the Marriott hotel

need those.

Get those creative online socialization juices flowing again.

on Orms Street downtown. You might be attracted to the high-flying hotel lifestyle or the free gourmet

Flip your space.

Remember when we didn’t see our friends for

food. To those of you in this camp, take the dead look

Your hotel room will come completely void of

literal months last year? Take solace in that phase of

in my eyes as my request for you to reconsider.

character, the quintessence of mediocre lodging. You

the pandemic being over. Also take solace in the society

But maybe you have a genuinely important reason:

can change that. As far as I’m aware, it is not illegal

-wide strides we’ve made in terms of online sociali-

Your house only has one bathroom, your roommates

to move the furniture of your hotel room around, so

zation. Force your roommates to play Zoom Monopoly

are high-risk, etc. In this case, from one fully-vaccin-

customize your space to suit your needs. I pushed my

with you, or use that new Hulu Watch Party feature.

ated, law-abiding citizen to another, I present the guide

two full beds together to form a California, Oregon,

There’s no better time.

to Marriott living.

and Washington King bed, and I moved my nightstand next to my sofa chair. It might not seem like much, but

Bring everything.

Remember that everything will be okay.

it can really make the room feel just a bit more cozy.

Upon my COVID diagnosis, I may or may not have

When you tell Health Services that you’d like to

And please, if you can somehow arrange a blanket fort

felt like a stain on humanity, morally bankrupt and

isolate in the Marriott, you have nary a few hours to

among the furniture (trust me, I tried), send a picture.

wholly irredeemable. If you feel this way, let me be the

pack your entire life into a suitcase. They will tell you

I need to see my vision through.

first to say that you are not. But that may not be that

to pack light; do not listen to them. You will have access to a suggested packing list and available amenities.

soothing, so as you’re emotionally healing, try to keep Order the Chef ’s Choice (especially for dinner).

in mind that you’re incredibly unlikely to become

Pack according to these at a minimum. But in your

You place meal orders for a whole week, so you

severely ill, and you will be out soon. Look forward to

“personal care kit for bathing and grooming,” be com-

have to commit to your choices early. For lunch and

the upcoming three months in which you won’t have

prehensive. You will only receive bar soap and shampoo

dinner, there will be a repeating set of regular choices,

to take any COVID tests, and good luck.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Olivia Howe

“The soles of my feet settled along the rippled floor with ease and purpose as if they’d never been gone, and my self-doubt unfolded and fluttered away.”

—Olivia Howe, “Bend and Snap,”

10.16.20

“It’ll be a miracle if I know that Jaden Smith’s son, Ninja Qwest Smith, is spearheading the 2039 trap-disco revival.”

—Julian Towers, “What to Expect When Mom and Dad Take the Aux,” 10.18.19

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

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Siena Capone Section Editors Danielle Emerson Leyton Ho

Copy Editors Katheryne Gonzalez Samuel Nevins Eleanor Peters

LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Caitlin McCartney

SOCIAL MEDIA HEAD EDITOR Tessa Devoe

Section Editors Kimberly Liu Emily Wang

Editors Kelsey Cooper Julia Gubner Kyra Haddad Chloe Zhao

HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Joanne Han

Want to be involved?

Email: olivia_howe@brown.edu!

8 post–

COPY CHIEF Aditi Marshan

CO-LAYOUT CHIEFS Jiahua Chen Briaanna Chiu Layout Designers Alice Min Angela Sha STAFF WRITERS Kaitlan Bui Dorrit Corwin Danielle Emerson Jordan Hartzell Alexandra Herrera Ellie Jurmann Nicole Kim Liza Kolbasov Elliana Reynolds Adi Thatai Victoria Yin