post- 10/22/2021

In This Issue A Name with Room to Grow Part Two Magdalena Del Valle 6

Sink into Believing Mack Ford 5

Circle the Drain

Danielle Emerson 4

Parents’ Weekend

Ellyse Givens 2

Dorrit Corwin 7

Some Notes

postCover by John Gendron

OCT 22

VOL 28 —

ISSUE 5

FEATURE

Parents’ Weekend reflections on the parent-child bond, through college & beyond

By Ellyse Givens Illustrated by RÉmy Poisson, IG: remyp_art

Brown’s annual Family Weekend is an opportunity to give parents “a small taste of the intellectual and cultural vitality of [their] student’s home away from home.”

would go home and say that parents’ weekend was perfect, because Ellyse, as always, is perfect.

I woke Friday a fraction of a human. My face was scarred, my stomach a rock, my sinuses exhausted from the

The days before their arrival were meticulously

lingering cold coming up on the second month of its stay.

I open my eyes groggily and see my parents sprawled

designed. On Thursday night, the night before their

Yet I pressed makeup into my eyelids and skipped outside

out beside me—it’s Saturday of Brown’s Family Weekend,

arrival, I would get into bed having completed three

my door to greet my parents. Because I was perfect.

but I’m not at Brown. I’m on the white duvet of my parents’

midterm essays, 10 days in advance of their due dates.

I’m sure they could see the exhaustion dripping from my

hotel room bed, the Omni Providence bathrobe laid atop

Then I would wake, beautiful, on Friday morning, greet

face. I just didn’t want to acknowledge it, the pang in my hips

my legs for warmth. My eyes are puffy from crying—

my parents with a smile, and present the tenets of my

from hours in my wooden chair, the way my brain pounded

exuding “cultural vitality.”

new world.

against my temples as if it wanted to escape its confines. I

***

In the days preceding my parents’ arrival, I wrote

wanted to give them a “small taste” of the goodness of my

In my head, it would be perfect. A clean room, a football

two paragraphs. My hands shook as I sat longingly in my

life here in college—not this. They knew about the anxiety,

game. A bright-eyed, perfectly adjusted college freshman

dorm, yearning for the words, the knowledge to spill out

the overwhelm, the homesickness via phone conversations,

escorting her parents through her new world. I would have

of me. It didn’t. Instead, I squeezed the tiny bumps on my

but I didn’t want them to see this in the flesh. I wanted them

all my homework done; they would be impressed by my

face until they bled. I ate five pears and then a cup of ice

to know that they did a good job, that I was coping. I didn’t

time management, my exemplary hospitality skills. They

cream at 1:45 a.m.

want them to go home with worry lingering in their chests.

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, Here’s what’s intimidating about writing the Editor’s Note (and the blank page in general): It’s the fact that I could write about anything. All week, I’ve been gathering threads of thoughts, a hundred little wisps that I assumed I could take and run with.

Did you know that I bought ten new pairs of white socks? I’ve hoarded mundanities like a child collecting rocks off the ground and assumed it’d be easy to polish out something profound.

It’s been a bit harder to wax philosophical than expected. Maybe this is just me, readers, but my thoughts seem so much bigger when they’re in my head. Every imagined scenario expands and blurs at the edges. But once I put the words down, I realize that what’s on the page is all there is, binary boundaries between text or blank space. Isn’t the art of writing just paring our experiences down into something that can be understood?

This week, our writers have distilled their thoughts into words on a variety of topics. In Feature, our author ponders how to balance being an adult and a child. Our Narrative writers meditate on escapism through Jane Austen and the meaning behind washing dishes. In Arts & Culture, writers talk about nicknames (really, a lack thereof ) and music

by Joni Mitchell and Zadie Smith. And in Lifestyle, we revise and revisit a Brown-specific Rice purity test, our college experience broken down into the bare essentials: GCB, sexiling, and dining discourse.

Readers, I’ve almost done it: written an entire note that’s about something, but also a bit about nothing, no? I’m writing about writing, or about how I’ve spent all week thinking about the writing I’m finally doing. It’s always made sense to me in my head, but now that it’s written down, maybe it makes some sense to you, too.

Huzzah!

Alice Bai

Feature Managing Editor 2 post–

Things to Normalize 1. Avoiding eye contact anytime I walk anywhere 2. Having an Airhead and shutting up 3. Being a bimbo at Brown 4. Running off into the night to scream at the river 5. Being on the edge of glory and hanging on a moment of truth 6. Being a bimbo period 7. White mysteries 8. Data, through log transformation 9. Crying on the Main Green 10. Shazaming songs to fit in with your friends

FEATURE Saturday came and I couldn’t suppress my nasty

of my life, just as they were at home. I sent them pictures

make them worry. I don’t know if I believe them, though. I

cough or my debilitating fatigue any longer. I walked into

of everything, from my expeditions to Wayland Square and

am supposed to be able to handle this.

Walmart with my mom, and it felt as if the world was

Seekonk River, to my nights spent drunkenly smiling—and

spinning. I was manic; my mind was on fire and the task

I still do.

*** I have returned to campus from my inpatient stay at

of deciphering different laundry detergent brands only

Yet I have always struggled to tell them when life

the Omni. I feel as if I have awoken from the dead. But,

provoked its already raging flames. I tried to hide it. Maybe

isn’t as picturesque. At home, my mom would call me a

in coming back, I was lucky enough to see my friends and

if I spoke enough about fabric softener, I could mask the

“stuffer,” encapsulating my emotions into a tupperware,

their parents. I saw them leaning on them, just as I had

chaos seething through my body.

hoping it didn’t burst. I feel that this becomes even

done. I saw them sacrificing everything to cherish their

I don’t remember anything from those 30 minutes

more complicated when a child enters adulthood. Am

time with their families. They weren’t “too cool” for that.

spent in the supermarket. And my mom could tell, as she

I to burden my parents with problems that, due to

Maybe a child’s dependency on their parents doesn’t end

always can. I situated myself back into the car as normally

distance, they likely cannot fully understand? Now that

with the transition into college. Maybe it is not the end, but

as I could, still feeling dissociated from the very body I

I am an adult, to what degree should I be relying on my

just another stage.

sought to maneuver. But I couldn’t pacify my shaking hands

parents’ advice? Will I only worry them? But how do I

Our parents want to help. My parents kept telling

nor my raging thoughts, as much as I tried. My mom looked

maintain our close relationship while also establishing

me that they were glad to be there this weekend, despite

back from the passenger seat, concerned. She sees through

healthy boundaries?

its emotional chaos. Yet it still pains me to think of them

anything with those eyes, hence my avoidance of them

This is what I asked myself as I lay nearly lifeless in my

worrying, that my emotional expressions could somehow

all morning. One glimpse into them and the floodgates

parents’ hotel room. I knew rationally that I did not ‘fail,’

burden them. But maybe that is a flaw of my own perception.

opened—and the turmoil spilt out from inside me.

in any sense of the word. But I didn’t want my parents to

In a survey of 14,500 U.S. college students, three in

I told her I was anxious, that I was overwhelmed

question my ability to overcome adversity myself. I didn’t

five respondents stated that their relationship with their

by impending midterms, that I questioned my ability to

want them to think they didn’t prepare me well enough for

parents has improved since beginning college. Tisha

balance social and academic life, that I felt guilty for my

the challenges I’d encounter at Brown. I didn’t want them

Duncan, professor at Meredith College, attributes this

growing disconnection from home, and my enthusiastic

to leave here worried for my well-being. Had I shown them

improvement to the “shift in how young adults view the

commitment to my new one. I told her that these anxieties

too much? Will this only turn out to burden them?

role of the parent as one of confidant and adviser rather

compounded atop each other and multiplied to create

The parent-child relationship can be one of the

a uniquely encumbering heaviness. I had told her this

most enduring and emotionally tumultuous human

Duncan describes the relationship to be far more

over the phone, and yet I didn’t want this nervousness

connections. Ellen Galinsky, a current faculty member

“open, emotional, and sensitive” than it has been in

to plague our Family Weekend together. After all, I was

at Bank College in Manhattan, developed what have

past decades, which could be attributed to increased

supposed to be displaying the “vitality” of my new life,

become known as ‘the six stages of parenthood’ in her book

technological usage that allows parents greater access to

not a lack thereof.

Between Generations. The final of these stages is called the

the daily lives of their children. Kristen Gray, the associate

We didn’t make it to the football game. Instead, I

“departure stage,” which is characterized by evaluation.

dean for health and counseling at Hope College in Holland,

exchanged my dress for my dad’s t-shirt and my mom’s

Parents evaluate whether they have “achieved the parent/

Michigan, says that this parental insight can be extremely

sweatpants. I ate Chipotle and surrendered to the warmth

grown child relationship they wanted” and contemplate

beneficial, although in moderation, especially amidst

of my mother’s arms. My parents watched me sleep for

their successes and failures throughout the child’s life.

record high rates of anxiety and depression in college

three hours, my body finally given time to stitch together

They then envision what the future will bring, tasked to

students. Different from ‘coddling’ a student, this support

the lesions it had bore for too long.

redefine what their ‘family’ will become in the wake of

involves assisting the students in developing strategies to

their child’s venture into adulthood. Yet, they straddle an

cope with newly arisen stressors.

*** An intricately woven connection to my parents has been a constant in my life—and I am so thankful for that. All

obscure dichotomy, somehow offering care, guidance, and empathy without controlling or criticizing.

than authoritarian.”

After allowing my guard to fall to the ground, crying, revealing to my parents that I am imperfect, yet still

three of us cried on the first day of kindergarten—and first

Before ever encountering Galinsky’s theories, I knew

capable of remaining afloat, I feel closer to them than

grade, and second grade. I probably only began sleeping in

that entering college would naturally provoke my parents’

ever. I have assimilated them into not only the joys of my

my own bed consistently at the age of nine. Their touch,

evaluation of me. If I did well in college, my parents would

new life but also the pitfalls and struggles of it. I think I

their words, their mannerisms, their everyday traditions,

know they did a good job. They would know it was right to

need to learn that this doesn’t make me a “baby.” Maybe,

their love were the cornerstones of my youth.

let me off in the world.

crying in my parents’ hotel room allowed the depth of our

I didn’t know how these feelings of attachment would

I kept apologizing for my display of instability, and

be transported along with me to Rhode Island, if the plane

they kept rolling their eyes. (Apology is a tool I tend to

turbulence would provoke changes in their form and

over-deploy). My parents kept saying, as they have my

intensities. I still felt so tethered to my parents, even as I

whole life, that they didn’t want me to be perfect. They said

My mom told me that this was the “best parents’

watched them drive away on the evening of move-in day. I

they knew that freshman year was tumultuous, that they

weekend” she could have ever asked for. I’m starting to

still somehow wanted them present in the minute aspects

wanted to care for me. They promised that this wouldn’t

think that it was pretty good, too.

“Does your family, like, really do gender?”

“No, I think they just really do blazers.”

“That’s a good old-fashioned, well-bred American snail...Made in the USA!”

relationship to transcend the distance between California and Rhode Island. Maybe it made us stronger. ***

I’m scared of gaining an American accent when I speak Japanese. To somebody who doesn’t speak Japanese, it’s harder to pick up. There are certain mouth shapes, certain cadences, certain tongue placements that sound like the difference between a native speaker and a foreigner. I used Japanese my whole childhood, being sent to Japanese weekend school begrudgingly every Saturday from kindergarten through high school. But like many bilingual children, I’ve fallen into the habit of responding to my mother’s Japanese with English. It’s a strange and admittedly terrifying feeling that the words are all so familiar, but feel so foreign when they come out of my mouth.

As someone who looks outwardly more black than Asian, I often feel the need to prove my “Asianness” in Asian settings. I can’t help but feel like losing my “proof ” of being Japanese is losing a piece of myself. ­—Anonymous 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 22, 2021 3

NARRATIVE

Circle the Drain

washing dishes, healing wounds

by Danielle Emerson Illustrated by SongAh Lee content warning: abuse

Step one: The water needs to be scalding. It needs to hurt when you touch it. Step two: Pour a quartersized glop of dish soap into the sink. Let water run over the cap, so you don’t waste any. Step three: Watch the bubbles rise like clumps of white clouds, until they’re at a comfortable height with the water’s surface. When my father taught me how to wash dishes, he told me to always start with the plates, stacking them at the bottom; then the silverware, slipping them against the sides; and then the cups, turning them sideways with the surface of the water.

He said it’s best to do dishes with a washcloth, so you can reach tricky corners in plastic containers and the rounded bottom of mugs. He hated sponges and those weird soap dispensing dish scrubbers—the refillable ones that break after a week of serious use.

Cleaning was important when I was little.

Everything had to be spotless; the counters needed to be wiped, the stove scrubbed and sanitized, the pantry and cabinet doors wiped daily. Our living room was vacuumed everyday and dust was never allowed to settle anywhere. Growing up, it was me and my siblings’ responsibility to maintain our small living space, which is normal for most households, but our father seemed to take it a bit too seriously.

As far back as I can remember, my father has been in food service. He’s worked at various restaurants.

When Chili’s stopped cooking meat on fire grills, switching to electronic warmers, that was all my father talked about for a month. When Applebee’s cut his holiday pay and sent him a measly check of $1.75, his supposed Christmas bonus, he gave it to me, mumbling a sarcastic, “Buy yourself something nice.” And when Red Lobster tossed out a bunch of waiter aprons and order books, he snagged a few for my brother and I. It made playing “restaurant” in the red dirt outside our grandmother’s house after school much more realistic. Chili’s, Applebees, Red Lobster, Weck’s, Country Family Kitchen, Olive Garden, and Doc’s Diner. A waiter. A waiter. A waiter. A dishwasher.

A cook. A dishwasher. And a cook. My father had a lot of experience in kitchens, which might have been why he was so particular about our own.

4 post–

At first, my relationship to cleaning and dishwashing was ill-natured. It caused anxiety, invisible hands tight around my throat, an invisible knife against my stomach, with its invisible blade grazing my skin. My dad was an alcoholic with a temper. The number one cause of his tantrums: a “messy” house. My father’s definition of “messy” was an unwiped fridge door in a freshly mopped kitchen; it was a disorganized potholder drawer in an alphabetized pantry; it was a forgotten school bag on a vacuumed couch or a TV remote facing the wrong way on a clean coffee table. Eventually, “messy” became synonymous to dangerous. If we cleaned “the right way” before our father got off work, if we helped prepare dinner “the right way” before bedtime, and if we cleaned up after dinner “the right way” before our father retreated to the garage, then we’d retreat under the covers—an unspoken safe space—and escape to school in the morning, only to repeat it all over again. Cleaning made me anxious. Did I get everything out of the microwave? Would he notice that piece of rice at the back? Are the couch pillows settled right? Does this one look like it’s leaning too far to the left? Is this spoon clean enough? Scratching it with my nail isn’t working, should I use my teeth? The butter looks too close to the cheese. Maybe if I angle it closer to the milk it’ll look better? This continued until I left for college.

The summer before my junior year at Brown, things got a little more complicated. My father harassed me via text and over the phone when drunk, and all my anxiousness, strung out like wet rags over an overflowing kitchen sink, made the surface of my skin sticky. Old tics and thoughts stuck to the inside of my mouth, forcing their way down my throat one by one. It reached a point where I thought someone was always watching me. In the corner of my eye, I swore I saw the dark silhouette of a person. Something was leaning over my shoulders, its eyes sharp and judgmental, while I washed dishes or picked up trash in the common room. If I didn’t do things “the right way,” then I was convinced something bad would happen.

It felt like I was twelve years old again, in my father’s house, hyperventilating in the bathroom because we ran out of dish soap and I knew I’d be blamed for messing up dinner with no clean dishes.

Cleaning, and everything associated with it, felt unconquerable. I thought I was always going to feel this way—afraid.

Fast forward two years, and I’m living off campus with two friends. One day, while I was washing dishes, one of my roommates peeked over

my shoulder and said, "You always wash the dishes so fast, it's impressive." I froze, my fingers clutching the dish brush uncomfortably, before releasing a quiet breath and laughing.

“Really?” I asked.

My roommate nodded.

“Washing dishes was a big thing with my dad.

He hated dishwashers,” I said.

My roommate did a little “ahhh,” and raised her head.

“Yeah, he really hated dishwashers.”

The conversation ended with both of us chuckling. I turned back to the sink, feeling a little sad, but mostly a little amused. For as long as I could remember, my brain went into autopilot while I cleaned. Nothing felt real, and all I could hear was white noise. When I finished, everything felt disorienting as I returned to consciousness, allowing myself to feel sensations and react to things again. But something about that moment, an unexpected exchange between friends—a brief interruption, rippling like scattered soap suds— shifted my perspective. I can be present while I clean in this space. I can let my thoughts fill the sink and spill onto the floor without dangerous consequences, lining them up like wet mugs on a drying rack and then returning them to a warm cupboard. From then on, cleaning slowly turned into something more therapeutic.

Everyday, I’m reminded that the friends I live with are kind. They’re understanding. They’re compassionate. They make me lunch after class, or surprise me with linguini pasta—because regular spaghetti noodles are boring—for dinner. They make me coffee in the morning, three scoops (or four if we’re feeling adventurous) in the French press, and refilling the ever-depleting sugar jar. They watch movies with me in our living room, leaning back against worn couches we carried up two flights of stairs in the summer heat. They tease me about candles and I tease them back—“cinnamon apple spice is the superior fall candle.” I lay in our living room without feeling uncomfortable or unsafe.

I dance in the kitchen and slip-and-slide on the wooden floor in our hallway with my socks. I’ve found a space with people I care about, and who care about me. Where I can just exist—in whatever way I need. I can be present while I clean here. I can be present here. I can be here.

Of course, I’m still afraid. I don’t think I’ll ever get over my fear. Things will still be complicated and pesky anxious thoughts will still be pesky anxious thoughts—a ring stain on the sink that fades with each passing day. I don’t expect everything to heal quickly. I don’t expect every cleaning session to be therapeutic. But, as I allow myself to be present again, I will appreciate and acknowledge the peacefulness. I’ll take my time, letting warm water run over my hands: not scalding, not harsh.

I’ll close my eyes, listening to broom bristles swoosh and swish against the kitchen floor. I’ll hum along to music, a collection of Broadway hits and anime J-pop songs, a serving spoon becoming a faux microphone. And as I’m nearing the end of my thoughts, I think back to a night while working at Andrews. I always volunteer to mop. Everyone hates mopping, but I love it. After explaining why, a coworker-friend of mine just nodded and smiled. “I get it.” He said, “It’s like meditation.” I had to think about it for a bit, but eventually, I agreed. What might have started as an anxious tic with traumatic origins has become something peaceful—something meditative and, ultimately, healing.

NARRATIVE

Sink into Believing loving jane austen most ardently

by Mack Ford Illustrated by Lena He IG: liquidbutterflies I was always an avid daydreamer. I imagined stories for each cloud that drifted past while my little sister stomped around, demanding that I play with her. I barely heard her, barely felt the dampness of the grass pressing into my hair: I was deep in a cloudinspired imaginary world. For me, reality was simply a boring plotline I quickly dismissed in favor of absurd once-upon-a-times.

As I grew older—and dorkier—I began to read. In books, I discovered the perfect daydreaming outlet.

Picture me: a scrawny seven-year-old curled up in the furthest corner of the public library with my bike helmet and a battered copy of A Little Princess in hand.

In my mind, though, I was “curled up in a window-seat” of Miss Minchin’s School for Girls in London. I was wearing a petticoat and a “frock the color of a rose.” I should look like a “rose-colored butterfly,” or even a “pale pink fairy.” And in this imaginary world of lovely girls who told fantastical stories in delicate British accents, I belonged.

I discarded realistic fiction and the dangerously practical realm of nonfiction in favor of canonical, Victorian-era fiction. More specifically, I discovered Jane Austen. In her writing, I could experience adventure, love, risk—or at least risk to the extent that women could experience in an Austen novel—from the comfort of my beanbag chair. I met lovely women who lived in big houses where demure drama filled each drawing-room. This was a world where a whalebone corset might dig into my ribs so hard I almost couldn’t breathe: the perfect tightness so that, when the first attractive man walks into the room, I could swoon bashfully into his arms. I would look past the

underlying misogyny of this whole situation—and his awful sideburns—when he said, “You have bewitched me, body and soul, Elizabeth Bennett.”

By contrast, my real life wasn’t tied up in nearly so pretty a bow. My classmates laughed at my extensive vocabulary. I spurned recess in favor of the library.

After school, I took ballet, dreaming of sweeping waltzes through sprawling ballrooms. I knew it was getting out of hand when my internal monologue took on a drawling Yorkshire accent. I was so desperate for an escape that I even named the particular discomfort that plagued me. Era dysphoria: a distressed state arising from a conflict between the era one feels one belongs, and the era into which one was born.

In other words, I felt like a higher power had dropkicked me into the wrong century.

I know, it sounds like the desperate attempt of an introverted (and somewhat pretentious) child to escape reality in favor of an idealistic world created largely from her imagination. But in Austen’s world of Persuasion, I became a dashing young heroine whose life amounts to “simplicity and cheerfulness.”

Here, I could “love everybody” and be “surrounded by blessings.” I could dance through the “noble hills” and “beautiful verdure” with reckless abandon.

All the while, Jane Austen assured me that real comfort is gained simply from staying at home. I could almost hear her murmuring that the greatest pleasure in life is to “read all day long.” In her eyes, a fondness for reading could become “an education itself.” She even insisted that anyone who fails to enjoy a good book must be “intolerably stupid.” Beyond nursing my superiority complex that stemmed from reading literature neglected by most high school students, Austen’s comments always convinced me that reading was a worthy substitute for real life experience. Reading about extravagant balls where everyone understood that “to be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love” was preferable to stepping on some silly football boy’s toes at the prom. Reading about dramatic arguments where each character held “inconceivable

resentments” was certainly preferable to arguing with my own family members. And reading Mr. Knightly’s confession: “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more” was as good as—if not superior to— hearing my own declaration of love. The second-hand embarrassment of a “declaration of sentiments” was enough to persuade sixth-grade me that reading about love was quite enough for me, thank you very much.

But, as nice as it is to escape from my own claustrophobic mind, I now have to scrutinize the world into which I escape. It’s tempting to sink into a novel where life is nice and controlled, and the ending to every story gets wrapped in a neat little bow (and usually, when it comes to Austen, a wedding).

If it were up to me, I would let her beautiful words wash over me, let myself be transported to her idealistic world that is free from “guilt and misery.” But, of course, to read Austen actively, one must consider the classism woven throughout the beginning of each novel, when Austen inevitably mentions how many pounds each character earns per year. The obsession with class permeates each of her works, especially evident in the invisible servants who blend into the background, only appearing when there is tea to be served or a fire to be stoked. One must consider the innate sexism of the fact that every woman in her novel is obsessed with her own marriageability. The direst fate for a woman was to grow old alone and become a “ridiculous, disagreeable old maid.” Thus, a woman’s value was inexplicably tied up in her marriage prospects. And one must consider the fact that, in the bubble of English gentry within her work, there is never a mention of the ever-present issues of slavery, colonialism, patriarchy, or the rights of women.

The desire to escape, to transcend ordinary life, is universal. To drop away from the mundane realities of day-to-day life, to trade the monotonous for the extraordinary. Take a look at the modern rom-com—or, as I like to call it, the trashy grandchild of Jane Austen’s stories. More likely than not, it features a wealthy gentleman who whisks a young woman away from her

October 22, 2021 5

ARTS & CULTURE boring life to a world of romance and joy and happily ever after. And for some reason, they always end up learning the true meaning of Christmas. Don’t get me wrong; this is a lovely fantasy. We all want to escape every now and then. In my case, however, the escape comes in the form of a novel. I imagine escaping into a story full of grey skies over the English countryside, where I pen a letter to my dear sister asking for the gossip of the town. I lose myself in Mansfield Park the same way others might find themselves lost in the blue light of a sunset while credits roll and Celine Dion sings softly in the background.

But escapism, even if it’s only a few hours’ worth of meet-cute, enemies-to-lovers, kissing-in-the-rain entertainment, doesn’t come without a price. The romantic comedy is a warped version of reality. I mean, it’s very sweet when Ryan Gosling gives Rachel McAdams a smooch in the rain, but it’s mid-January in North Carolina. How isn’t she freezing already? Why don’t their noses ever bump awkwardly when they kiss?

And, in the iconic running-through-theairport-to-confess-your-love scene, where on earth is the TSA? But the issues dive far deeper than these simple Hollywood idealizations. Romantic comedies cast aside the real, gritty (and usually very awkward) parts of life like having conversations about difficult topics. Or sharing a bathroom. Time Magazine’s Eben Harrell affirms that romantic comedies are the root of “common misconceptions” for many couples. When we watch these movies, we internalize false expectations for life and for love. Relationship counselors find that romantic comedies encourage a belief that your partner should “know what you need without you communicating it,” and that soulmates are “predestined.” If we retreat into a world where Ryan Gosling might be waiting around every corner to confess his undying love, we close ourselves off to the tough realities of love and of life.

My mother used to say if you gave me a book, I’d “eat it right up.” I digest stories like I would a particularly decadent piece of chocolate cake, and then they become a part of me. And I attribute many lovely parts of my life to what Jane Austen has fed me: an extensive vocabulary, a passion for classic literature, and extremely unrealistic expectations for my own romantic life. But the lingering thought that I might also be feeding myself internalized misogyny is an uncomfortable one. I’m proud of my Sense and Sensibility-themed mug collection, but I have realized that believing Mr. Darcy is the closest I’ll ever get to true love—the same way that the rom-com leads us to believe we might bump into someone in a quirky Parisian bookstore and just know he’s our soulmate—is not a healthy way to live. If we spend our time escaping into a world where all decent women marry and sexism is a topic of conversation that simply “isn’t discussed,” we wind up internalizing those norms.

Now, I’m not saying to give up on escapism altogether. After all, it is an intrinsic feature of the human experience, whether you choose to spend your Saturday afternoon with your nose stuck in a book or watching Chris Harrison hand out the Final Rose.

Despite my “most ardent” love for her, I’m the first to admit that Jane Austen has flaws—and I might be working out some internalized misogyny in therapy for the next 10 years—but I have come to recognize those flaws in her writing. When I read her books actively, considering her limitations as I sink into that escapist world, I can enjoy her work without warping my entire sense of being. When we recognize the ways that escapism distorts our reality, we can watch Harry and Sally bicker in the car without guilt. After all, Jane Austen herself advises that we must “not allow books to prove anything,” but that we must appreciate stories, for there is “no enjoyment” like a good story.

6 post–

A Name with Room to Grow: Part Two

why I still don’t use a nickname

by Magdalena Del Valle Illustrated by Joanne Han “My name is like my hair: Even if I hate it sometimes, it still follows me around. It is all tangled up. One knot made by the m and the a, and another formed by the g and the d.

Magdalena.

People always remind me what a beautiful name I have. I think it’s horrible. If I had a simpler name it would be easier to introduce myself to other people. I wouldn’t have to say it as quickly as possible, hoping they won’t ask me to repeat it. Although most of the time, they do. To me it sounds like a tongue twister too complicated for them to say. Most of the time, it is.

Whenever someone learns my name, they make it sound smoother than it really is. Like turning a square into a circle, cutting away all the edges. It had too many of them anyway.”

I wrote this reflection, “A Name with Room to Grow,” for my 7th grade English class five years after moving to New York from Mexico City. In class, we were reading The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and our teacher asked us to write something influenced by a vignette in the book called “My Name.”

Unfortunately for me, the speaker in the vignette—the main character Esperanza—didn’t just write about her own name, but also mine.

“At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as my sister's name Magdalena— which is uglier than mine.

Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny.”

As we read this aloud in class, I remember the teacher pausing mid-sentence and the class staring at me thinking, ouchhh. But by that point, surprised responses to my name were barely a novelty.

Even before moving to New York I’d only ever met two other Magdalenas: my grandfather’s sister (named after her mother, my great-grandmother and also my namesake), and a girl in the kindergarten class above mine, who decided to use the nickname “Mela.”

When I heard that she used a nickname, I immediately asked my parents if I could do the same, but they refused. I insisted that my friend Sofia knew a lot of Sofias, my cousin Maria knew plenty of Marias, and that we knew so many Anas I couldn’t even specify a number for my argument. Meanwhile, the only young Magdalena I knew went by Mela, so I felt I should too.

Today, I’m very grateful that my parents put their foot down. They encouraged me to embrace my name. Magdalena. Not Mela. Not Maggie. Not Nenny. Magdalena.

The decision to not use a nickname did become a heavier burden after the move to New York. While the girls at my new school were lovely and nice, none of them could wrap their tongue around a name like

Magdalena. But at this point it was too late to change my name. If I conceded and let them call me “Maddie,” “Mags,” or “Mag,” I wasn’t just forgoing my name, but my country and myself. I would also go against my parents who went to great lengths to choose my name for me and who made me promise not to change it.

In New York, the name Magdalena became a reminder of where I came from. Magdalena was agua de horchata, Tajín powder, and conchas. It was hugs from my grandmother, fights with my cousins, and dances with my school friends. I couldn’t erase that. I couldn’t take away a letter or two. I couldn’t make it smoother. And I definitely couldn’t say “Mag-duh-leynuh” with an American accent.

The only time I even considered being called something else, I immediately regretted it. I was at a summer program when a boy asked my name, and I replied, “Magdalena,” as quickly as possible.

Then, he asked if he could call me something else and, exasperated, I responded, “Sure, call me any Latin name you like.”

He proceeded to call me Pedro.

So Magdalena stayed. And even though I rushed through introductions and hated it when people asked me to repeat my name, I still carried it with something close to pride.

As the years went by, I came to respect and know the name Magdalena more and more. Magdalena wasn’t just the name of my great-grandmother, but the name of a woman who managed to raise 10 children including my beloved grandfather. It went from being “some name you could find in the Bible'' to the name of the woman who was Jesus’s companion and probably even his wife (rumor has it she may also have been a prostitute). Magdalena transformed from a name I had only ever read as Esperanza’s sister’s “ugly” name in The House on Mango Street to being the name of Magdalene Dead: Milkman’s badass sister in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.

By the time I got to college, I'd stopped caring entirely whether people thought my name was weird. First off, Magdalena was the name on my acceptance letter. Second, the nine letters of my name—which I once considered too many—became insignificant compared to the hundreds of words I was assigned to write every day.

In college, people have all sorts of unique names, hobbies, clothes, and perspectives but no one judges them for it. Instead, they celebrate them.

So I would like to take this moment to amend my words from 7th grade.

My name is like my hair: hereditary, curly, and meticulously looked after. A name that’s nine letters long is hard to fit into, but it motivates me to keep trying.

Magdalena.

When people ask my name, I make sure to enunciate every syllable with its proper inflection.

When people get it wrong, I don’t get mad at them.

I’m also not disappointed with myself for not providing a name that would be easier to pronounce.

Now, when people say my name is pretty, I believe them because my name is like me: intricate, proud, and very, very Mexican.

ARTS & CULTURE

Some Notes

on “some notes on attunement”

by Dorrit Corwin Illustrated by Talia Mermin

Joni Mitchell is one of those artists I’ve always loved but never known. Or as Zadie Smith puts it, “The first time I heard her I didn’t hear her at all.” Mitchell’s chilling runs and wails didn’t play throughout the soundtrack of my childhood the way the Beatles, ABBA, or Electric Light Orchestra (thanks, Mom) did. I heard her occasionally, but I didn’t appreciate Blue in its entirety until the album was approaching its semicentennial, and I never truly understood Joni Mitchell’s impact on individuals and on the world until I read Zadie Smith’s 2012 essay, “Some Notes on Attunement.”

Smith’s complex nostalgia for her childhood music (which, like mine, highlighted other artists much more often than Joni Mitchell) leads into a fascinating anecdote about the unlikely landscape in which she finally connected with Joni Mitchell: an impromptu trip to Tintern Abbey with a cab driver/amateur poet. Smith’s experience hearing “River” for the millionth time—and for the very first time, in a way—makes for the incredible realization that listening to Joni Mitchell can be something akin to religious experience.

She compares the listening encounter to Allen Ginsberg’s Tintern Abbey acid-trip-turned“Wales Visitation” and William Wordsworth’s poetic ecstasy written about the same place.

I’ve never visited Tintern Abbey, though I long to someday. Smith’s experience there elucidates Wordsworth’s complex imagery of the “Gothic skeleton,” where the visitor seems to inhabit

both inside and outside space simultaneously.

Or, as Ginsberg remarks, “the wisdom of earthly relations, / of mouths & eyes interknit ten centuries visible.”

Between Smith, Wordsworth, and Ginsberg lies a universal dichotomous feeling of present vacancy and deep history, rooted into the earth through mossy groves and vines. As Wordsworth writes in “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” (1798), “That time is past, / And all its aching joys are now no more, / And all its dizzy raptures.” Such is Smith’s and my encounter with Joni Mitchell—her music propels me into my past and makes me feel as though she is whispering both histories and future promises directly into my ear.

Though people tend to remember Joni Mitchell alongside other Laurel Canyon–dwelling ’70s stars, Joni Mitchell is not Carole King. While Tapestry colored the soundtrack of my early adolescence, Blue is not an album that can be played passively in the background; it demands center stage. It isn’t that I don’t have visceral memories associated with certain Joni Mitchell songs, but rather, it’s that I’d often rather not unlock those memories. As Smith puts it, “Her voice did nothing for me—until the day it undid me completely.”

Smith confesses, “I can’t listen to Joni Mitchell in a room with other people, or on an iPod, walking the streets. Too risky.” I can’t either.

“The Circle Game” makes me cry tears of deep nostalgia and ache to hold my mom’s hand, so I rarely listen to it, despite its rhythmic beauty. And don’t get me started on “A Case of You”…

In second grade my class performed “Big Yellow Taxi” at a community sing. Our music teacher tried desperately to pull apart the lyrics and help us make sense of them. I remember being devastated by the very first line: “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” The catchy tune has never sounded quite the same since I realized that one of my favorite hotels was the cause of such a loss of natural beauty. My parents got engaged at the “pink hotel” that is mentioned, the Beverly Hills Hotel, which previously was a plot of rolling greenery in the center of largely undeveloped Los Angeles.

Years later, I took voice lessons with the same woman who once taught 30 screaming secondgraders “Big Yellow Taxi.” I was reintroduced to Mitchell when my voice teacher brought out “Little Green,” and taught me to lean into the wails and embrace the crackle in my voice when I sang through my passaggio.

I also learned “River”—we began working on it in the middle of summer, beads of sweat dripping off my ponytail in her unairconditioned Sherman Oaks apartment. As my Christmas obsession grew with me instead of out of me—the way my parents thought it would—“River” became the Christmas song I could get away with singing all year round. I actually prefer listening to “River” on a solemn fall October 22, 2021 7

LIFESTYLE day than any time during the holiday season.

In many ways, “River” is the antithesis of a Christmas carol—another thing that required maturing to understand and appreciate. It’s a deeply sad song, and when I finally glimpsed its true irony I sang it at my final high school winter choral concert—a bittersweet and chilling farewell to a special place during a special time of year. I might not have been able to relate to the sentiments conveyed through the lyrical storytelling of “River” about how difficult Christmas can be for many people. But I could suddenly identify with the heart-wrenching experience of leaving a comfortable and familiar environment behind to face the unknown.

Joni Mitchell changes with age; as I grow older, my appreciation for her artistry deepens. The first time I listened to “The Circle Game” from start to finish in many years was on the plane ride from Los Angeles to Providence to move into my firstyear dorm at Brown. I was finally able to loosen the grasp on my childhood—I didn’t plan on letting go of it completely, but I also didn’t cry. Then, my first time visiting home that Thanksgiving, I had a newfound affection for “California,” a Blue track I never paid much attention to. “California, I’m coming home / I’m going to see the folks I dig” – despite Mitchell’s lyrics being within the original context of her participation in ‘70s counterculture movements, I found solace and solitude in her admiration for my home state.

“It’s the feeling we get sometimes when we find a diary we wrote, as teen-agers, or sit at dinner listening to an old friend tell some story about us of which we have no memory.” Zadie Smith captures the essence of listening to Blue with this sentence; it’s a full-body experience that leaves you numb. Every once in a while, when I feel like being vulnerable with myself, I’ll sit in my room and listen to Blue from start to finish. It knocks the wind out of me, but in a refreshing way. “Roofless, floorless, glassless, ‘green to the very door’—now Tintern is forced to accept the holiness that is everywhere in everything.” Blue is Tintern Abbey is religion is love. Zadie Smith connects the dots with stunning rigor and poise. Like her immediate transition from ambivalence to love, my Joni Mitchell epiphany was “involving no progressive change but, instead, a leap of faith. A sudden, unexpected attunement.”

Brown “Rice” Purity Test

by Alexandra Herrera Illustrated by Joanne Han

The infamous Brown “Rice” Purity Test is back and newly revised! Find out if you really go here by taking the test:

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Olivia Howe

“For someone who calls herself an introvert, I really hate being alone with my thoughts.”

—Liza Kolbasov, “Hey, What Are You Thinking About?”

10.23.20

“Here, Dylan fulfills his purpose as a prophet, overcoming his cynicism to circumscribe history in eighteen words—you know, like a badass.”

—Griffin Plaag, “Two Writers,” 10.25.19

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!

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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