post- 4/4/25

Page 1


Cover by Tarini Malhotra

pilgrimage countryside catholics

My grandfather grew up in small-town, middle-of-nowhere East Java, right around the old Dutch sugar plantations.

I’ve been a city kid all my life. It takes me 21 years to ask to visit.

“You want to go to Tulungagung?” he asks, crow’s feet deepening with a smile.

“Yeah,” I say, a little awkward.

He pauses, mulling over the moment. Then he nods back. “You tell Opa when,” he says, reaching over to pat my back. *

The trip begins as something between the two of us, but quickly grows into something more.

My grandfather brings along his girlfriend-slashsort-of-wife (they’re both widowed and are touchy about re-marriage). My dad and aunt take time off work to come. My grandfather’s siblings text that they want in.

Then suddenly it’s mid-November, and my granduncle is picking us up in his car from the airport. We spend longer than necessary fiddling

Letter from the Editor

Dear Readers,

This Spring Break, I found myself out west in my half-brother’s beautiful, perpetually renovated home in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a die-hard, nearly lifelong, East Coaster, I’ve always been uninterested in living anywhere that doesn’t touch the Atlantic. But after a whole week of playing with big dogs, ransacking a fridge full of fancy cheeses, and spending quality time with family—all backdropped with stunning mountain ranges as far as the eye can see—I’m starting to understand the hype surrounding Manifest Destiny. When I try to make sense of my loyalty to the East, it all comes down to the media I consumed growing up—Gilmore Girls, The Great Gatsby, Gossip Girl, etc. (just to name an odd few). I fell in love with the coexistence of old and new: bustling cities with skyscraper-adorned skylines, cobblestone streets lining brownstones, lazy beach towns with cozy

with our luggage, which my granduncle insists is secure tied to the roof of his car. We watch as he fiddles with the rope.

“They’re going to fall,” my sort-ofgrandmother protests. As if on cue, one wobbles, threatening to spill onto the asphalt.

“So what?” my granduncle grumbles, revving the engine. “We’ll hear them if they do!”

The journey takes three hours. Between my granduncle’s brazen driving and the thick Javanese of my relatives, I peer out the windows and watch the roads go by.

The touch of the Dutch is everywhere— sugarcane litters the landscape.

East Java is mocked for a sweet palate. Every meal is accompanied by sweet tea and every dish with sweet soy. This is certainly true of my grandfather, the only son of a sweetmaker. His mother would wake up every morning, well before dawn, and get right to work shredding coconut, kneading flour, and steaming cakes to sell in her blue wicker basket, an icon of the area.

coffee shops, countless museums tasked with preserving rich histories and cultures. While I’m sure this blend of past and present exists out west, I am content with appreciating it in small doses—one Spring Break at a time, perhaps. Our writers this week are doing their fair share of postbreak reflection. In Feature, Audrey takes us around the world to the Lourdes Maria Cave and its replicas as they reflect on the role and spread of Catholicism. Our other Feature writer, Nahye, takes to journaling for introspection and recordkeeping. Three of our writers are feeling particularly pensive about the passage of time: Tarini’s piece touches on spiraling in three acts, Vanessa tries to find home in the spaces between fleeting moments, and Maxwell is inspired by the film About Time to be more present and avoid letting his life slip by. Also in A&C, Jamie uses Jannabi’s album Small Pieces II: Grippin’TheGreen to meditate on depression and rain. Meanwhile, our Lifestyle writers are reflecting on springtime and friendships: Jedidiah stops to smell the roses and gives suggestions for what to do on College Hill

Driving through the streets, he tells us these stories with pride; but, to my surprise, his sister laughs.

“You know those layer cakes?” she says. “This one,” she points a finger at his bald head, “used to sneak licks between the layers. And then Mama would sell them! Can you imagine?”

At this, my grandfather grins, the light gleaming between the gaps in his teeth.

Eventually we stop for our first meal. It’s soto, as most meals will be over the next week, at a spot my grandfather and his siblings assure me is a tried-and-true favorite.

I’m already digging in as my grandfather bows his head and makes the sign of the cross. The chatter circles around him as he prays.

Then he picks up a bottle beside him—tjap kuda, it reads—and squirts enough sweet soy to turn the soup black.

When he offers it to me, I turn it down. “I don’t like sweet foods,” I explain, pretending not to notice his dismay.

*

Several hours later, we pass into Tulungagung, which is bigger and more city-like than in my grandfather’s stories, but still small enough that I feel out of place. My grandfather points out his primary school, and my grandaunt points out a spot by the river, right where her favorite shaved ice seller used to be.

Eventually, we stop the car by a little gray house, which he tells us was his family’s as he was growing up.

“All of this used to be dirt. All kampung,” he tells us, hands clasped behind his back. “It used to flood a lot. We would have to paddle away when it did.”

I imagine him in a makeshift raft, huddling with his many sisters.

“All that flooding,” my grandaunt laughs, “and Mama still never taught me to swim!”

*

The next day—or maybe the one after that, I lose track—two more grandparents join us, adding another granduncle and grandaunt to keep track of. With nine of us traveling, it takes two cars to get anywhere.

With our group complete, my grandfather deems it the right time to visit the graveyard.

It’s blazing hot when we get there. Nobody else has the bad sense to visit at noon, when the sun is at its peak, so we wander in, parking the cars by a rich man’s gazeboed headstone.

The graveyard keeper is an older woman with a wide-brimmed hat and a tooth-gapped grin. She

this spring, while Daniella shares a list of things she has adopted from her friends. In post-pourri, Susanne writes a bittersweet letter to the childhood bedroom she will soon leave. Last, but certainly not least, this week’s crossword— made by the wonderful AJ—is a blast to the past!

Despite calling Cuba and Miami our first and second homes, my half-brother and I could not have more divergent convictions about living out west. Namely, he would not trade his adventurous and outdoorsy lifestyle for the world, much less for the cities in New England I’ve grown to love. Though this means we’ll likely never live in the same place again, I think there’s something special about bringing those you love into your world, even if it’s just for a few days at a time—or, in the case of this lovely little magazine, one issue at a time.

Expanding my horizons,

Katheryne Gonzalez

leads the way with a sickle, chopping down the tall grass so we can shuffle through it single file. The blades tickle my ankles.

We visit my grandfather’s parents, and then his grandparents.

Tulungagung is famous for its stonemasons, but these headstones are simple and perfunctory. “This one really liked alcohol,” he says, pointing at one of the slabs. A name is carved into the stone, followed by a list of living relatives. I don’t recognize any of them. “That’s where we get it from.”

At each one, we pause to pray. My grandfather makes the sign of the cross, but I’m not sure what language I’m meant to pray in, let alone what religion. I don’t think any of my ancestors were Catholic.

I bow my head and count sheep in my head until an appropriate length of time has passed. Then I open my eyes, and we move on to the next grave.

On the way out, I crouch down to play with the shameplants, grazing my fingertips across their leaves. They shrink away with the touch. *

After the grave visit, my grandfather and my other grandfather and my other other grandfather drive us to another village, Puh Sarang, to visit the Goa Maria—a name I recognize as vaguely Catholic but am given no explanation for.

We split up into the two cars, and my granduncles call each other on the phone so they can continue talking.

“I bought my puppy there for 15 dollars,” my baldest granduncle tells us over the phone, half-brag and half-fact, “including shipping and everything.” The puppy in question, Bruno, is known in the family for its protruding belly and perpetually muddy paws.

“15!” my second-baldest granduncle exclaims. “No wonder he looks like that!”

It’s mid-afternoon when we get there, and the sky is an ominous gray. We know too well what that means, but my grandparents insist we will be quick and elect to leave the umbrellas in the trunk.

We clamber out onto the side of the road, right by a stall selling stewed lizards. Puh Sarang is green and wet, the ground damp from the dew of the morning and the rain of the day before.

An old lady with a basket waves to greet us.

“Candles?” she offers, gesturing toward her wares. The candles are varied: short and tall and fat, all inscribed with blessings and prayers for fertility, money, health.

We empty most of her basket, then head into the site.

The walk to the grotto is long but scenic, paved with smooth stones and old, winding trees. “Careful not to fall,” one grandaunt tells me, pointing toward the rounded edge of a staircase. “I know someone whose son slipped here and was paralyzed for life.”

“You’re too negative,” my granduncle chides. He lets her hold onto him as they climb.

Our group splits up as we walk. My grandaunts, content to squabble on their own, scamper ahead, their chatter growing ever-distant. My granduncles find some way to disappear. My grandfather’s girlfriend—a recent convert—wanders around, taking photos of the things that pique her interest (tree, gazebo, Jesus sign, restroom). My dad whistles a quiet, breathy song.

I lag behind with my grandfather, whose hip has been acting up. He hobbles along and leans on my aunt the entire time, a hand gripping firmly onto her forearm.

Together, we inch along the stations of the cross. The sequence is familiar. Jesus is sentenced to death. Jesus carries the cross. Jesus falls with the cross. My grandfather coughs. Jesus falls again.

Partway through, the greenery comes to an abrupt end. The path narrows and feeds us into a road of gift shop stalls, baskets of Catholic-themed products spilling out onto the street. Their holey plastic awnings block out the sky.

We find my grandaunts here, huddled together at one of the stalls. “Which one should I get?” one of them muses, leafing through the Catholic t-shirts.

“Look at this!” the other exclaims, holding up AI-generated Jesus. “So cute!”

The stalls are an unexpected treasure. Some of them are more specialized, run by old carpenters selling crosses and wood sculptures. Others are a cesspool of regular gift shop fare—tamarind candies, wooden toys, snacks—coupled with a tsunami of Catholic paraphernalia. Mary statues of varying sizes, shrink-wrapped in plastic. Carvings of baby Jesus. Rosaries, wooden and plastic alike: brown and black and rainbow-colored.

I’m admiring a gold-lined, holographic Jesus poster when my dad comes up to me.

“Do you want a beer?” he asks. I’m convinced he’s joking until he points at the drink fridge. Sure enough, the top shelf is lined with cans of beer and seltzers.

I shoot him a look.

My dad laughs.

I move on to the shelf of holy water. *

I buy a rosary for a friend, but nothing for myself. My grandaunts leave with bags full of Jesus merch.

SHAKES

All together again, we hobble along the last bit of the trail, the trees thickening around us.

Finally, the path opens up to a large courtyard with a stone grotto at its head. Nestled in the cave is an enlarged statue of Mother Mary, her skin as pale as a ghost. The bushes snake around her, weaving between the stones and around her bare feet. She looks solemn—head bowed, hands pressed together.

Goa Maria translates, quite literally, to “Maria Cave.” Later I learn this is not a unique place, but a general term for a Marian cave, fashioned after a pilgrimage site in Lourdes, quite a ways away from East Java. There are perhaps a dozen of these sites around Java, each one a variant of the last.

If you can’t make the pilgrimage, make the pilgrimage come to you, one blog writes.

The Puh Sarang site is nestled comfortably in the middle of nowhere. Its history is a classic one: Dutch missionaries arrived in the area in the 1930s and made quick work of the locals. By 1936, a Dutchman with “a love for Javanese culture” had designed and built a church.

The cave was built 50 years later, decades after their departure. The locals have remained Catholic.

I imagine a parallel history across the island: conversion and continuity. Imposed, then embraced.

There’s another dip in the cave—under Mother Mary—with a designated area for candles. The remains of hundreds of candles spill into each other, red and white wax curling over each other in big globs. My grandfather hands me a pack of candles to light.

For children, they read. He doesn’t seem to notice.

I carry them to the cave, balancing them on the sea of wax. My dad tries to hand me a lighter, but I’m afraid of using them, so he lights a candle for me and I use it to light the rest. I pray, because it seems right, and this time I’m able to muster up something about good health for my family before walking away.

Just beside the candle cave is a spigot, stuck directly into the stone. A basin, carved into the landscape, sits beneath it.

“Holy water,” my grandaunt tells me. She turns the tap and washes her face.

I wet my fingers and make the sign of the cross. Then I dip the rosary into the puddle that forms.

My father scolds me. “That’s wood,” he hisses, because he’s a stickler about wood health for some reason. “I’m full of shame. I was raised Catholic. My shame knows no bounds.”

“My mom never let me use rope swings…that and cocaine.”

When he turns his back, I dip it in again, watching the beads bubble in the water.

*

My grandfather digs plastic stools out from somewhere in the landscape and settles himself in the center of the courtyard. He points to an empty one when he sees me.

“Come sit,” he says.

I set my stool down behind him. From where we’re seated, we have a full view of the cave. I watch the candles flicker from afar, like little flames licking the air.

My grandfather wasn’t Catholic for years, or at least not devoutly so. Growing up, this vestige of the Dutch seemed to escape him.

It was my grandmother who was. Even throughout their marriage, he would drop her off at Sunday Mass, and leave until it was time to pick her up.

When she passed, prayer consumed him.

My grandfather bows his head, brows furrowed in concentration.

Was he praying for her, to her, or on behalf of her?

*

The sky finally breaks. Rain spills onto the stone, the droplets heavy and fat. The nine of us

take shelter in the grotto until a gardener comes up to us with some umbrellas: a perfect savior.

We waddle back the way we came, passing shuttered gift shops and wet stone.

In the car, my granduncle complains he is wet. My grandaunt hands him one of her brandnew t-shirts, and he wears glow-in-the-dark Jesus around for the rest of the day.

*

On Sunday, we drive into the city and attend Mass. The city is near a famous mountain, which I’m told the Dutch liked for the colder weather. I can see it in the architecture: large and white and imposing. Even the church is grander, with taller ceilings and wider pews.

The bell rings.

The priest looks like us, but he speaks their words, preaches their beliefs.

I wonder how they got my grandmother to believe.

*

Months later, I am back at college, and my grandfather has a bad fall. Bedridden, he misses Mass for the first time in years. I tell him I love him. I wish I could be there.

Lent rolls around. I haven’t gone to Ash Wednesday service since middle school, but I go

with a friend and force myself to sit through it.

The priest is white. I listen to him ramble about his sister’s children and good deeds and other vaguely Catholic things.

I think of the missionaries.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

The ash cools on my forehead in a sticky way. I think about all the oils on the priest’s thumb— the oils of everyone before me—caked and layered onto his skin. I think about the acne it will cause, the fungal kind that comes from moisture behind my bangs.

When Mass ends, I wash the ash off—though not before sending a text to my grandfather.

Misa rabu abu, I type. I send him two photos: one of myself, ash behind my bangs, and a second of me and my friend by the chapel door. I don't tell him we are both begrudging participants—that, if he could have gone himself, I never would have done it at all.

Luar biasa, my grandfather writes back. Extraordinary. As in, how bizarrely, delightfully out of the ordinary.

*

I’ve never had a desire for pilgrimage. But maybe I'd do it for him.

I’ve bought a journal every year since 2018. It’s been seven years, though it doesn’t feel too long ago that I was a middle schooler gripping a ballpoint and carving letters into paper for no apparent reason. I struggle to remember exactly what drove me to my first notebook, what motivated me to write about my day, how I even knew what a diary could do in the first place.

In retrospect, it might have been Instagram/ YouTube/Pinterest—pick your poison. Sunny, smiling seventh-grade me, dipping her toes in the world of intellectual internet personas, would have seen an artfully decorated notebook, neatly printed handwriting, and pretty stickers and immediately decided that keeping a diary would have to be her new personality trait. I know I nodded to myself as I picked out an airport souvenir and wrote my name very carefully on the back cover. I had a journal, and all eight letters of my name were on it. This had to mean something, so I spent the next few hours

on keeping a record

a retrospective on my journaling habit

looking up YouTube videos of journal setups: smiling girls printing curved letters and penning black swirls on the blank page.

It was important for me to write as myself. I was 12 and already thinking exclusively about the lives of others. I fancied myself an astute observer peering into windows, listening in on—and miraculously comprehending—adult dinner-table conversations. I was a quiet child, a girl with her mouth constantly shut, a girl who did not really bite her tongue but just preferred to listen. I trusted I had valuable things to say, but never believed they were interesting. It was easier to open my eyes, my ears, and simply let myself remember the words flying around me, adding salt and pepper to the story I overheard before putting it to paper. All this to say I thought I was the least important person I knew—and to some extent, this is still true—and it never registered for me that I could write something substantial about someone so inconsequential. And what

would I write about? Get up, eat breakfast, go to school? Walk the dog? Do homework? At 12, I wasn’t a good writer but I’d read enough of the middle school classics to know that my life was not the kind of life you wrote about.

I’d first picked up the notebook because I wanted to be the sort of person who kept a diary, not because I’d recognized that it was important for me as a writer to reassemble bits and pieces from my life into a coherent whole. For a while, I leaned wholeheartedly into this new persona I’d devised for myself: stickers on the corners of pages, monthly and weekly spreads where I wrote down every assignment (not many) and every item on my to-do list (also not many) in meticulous, aligned handwriting. If I accidentally formed a letter I didn’t like, I’d rip out the page and start over. It’s only now that I begin to realize that even then I wasn’t really writing for myself. My first journal still had an audience in mind, and my writing became an embellished, washi

tape-covered record of the kind of girl I wanted to be.

All this neatness came to an abrupt end in 2020. By then, I had been journaling semiconsistently for two years. It wasn’t a regular activity like the notion of keeping a diary might suggest—I wasn’t writing any more than I was reminding myself of the things that I had to do. It was a glorified to-do list that gave me a sense of self-importance far beyond my 14 years— one that broke down with the rest of the world in March. When it happened, I didn’t neglect my journal. Instead, I threw myself into it as a proof of existence. Proof that the words I spoke might stay instead of dissipating into thin air, burdened by the days I spent alone in the apartment.

I grew so tired of talking to myself that I felt I needed to talk about myself to something else. It was at this point that I split my recordkeeping into two: a planner and a journal. I kept my weekly spreads, something that had become so integrated into my life that I simply couldn’t keep track of my schedule without it, and added another notebook that I rather innocuously referred to as the Thought Journal. An accurate

label, maybe—I did write down my thoughts, feverishly and often while crying. I remember my pen couldn’t keep up with the accelerated accumulation of my sadness. I would press holes through the flimsy paper, gel pen ripping through the fiber and leaving black ink clustered around the exit wound. Far from the neatly printed words of my first journals, my entries would descend into the written equivalent of primordial screaming, transcribed in capital letters so huge only a few of them could fit on each page. I would journal in lieu of bashing my head against the wall. I was stuck: in the house, in my head, in the fact that I would never be able to write nearly as fast as I hoped.

However, some good did come of my obsessive daily journaling. This was the first time I allowed myself to inhabit my own mind and hear what I had to say. I no longer treated my life as a kind of backdrop, an empty canvas across which the lives of others would be superimposed. Although it was unfortunate that I was only forced to privilege my own experience because I could no longer eavesdrop on that of others, I still learned the importance of not allowing the voices of others to take

precedence over mine. In retrospect, I needed that year to write only about myself, to learn to let my words narrate the stories of others, and to understand that a real journal shouldn’t be kept for aesthetic or literary pleasure. There was nothing pretty about the temper tantrums I threw across the page, but the words that verbalized my breakdowns were still mine. That was the most important part.

The worst of my mental claustrophobia passed with the worst of the pandemic. I became a junior in high school, which meant that things were getting serious, and some concessions would have to be made. I could no longer spend hours at my desk narrating my deep depressive state, nor could I create an elaborate layout of monthly and weekly tasks complete with stickers peppered in between the lines. Journaling seemed like the easiest thing I could sacrifice on the altar of college applications. I understood the things it had done for my mental health, but it was also unacceptably time-consuming. A fair trade, I thought. I’ll go back to journaling when I get into college, and for the time being, I’ll allow myself the luxury of a Google Calendar and a paper to-do list.

spiral

behind closed curtains

by

Instagram: @mossmilkshake

Act I, Scene 1.

The moon flickers adulterous, pretending to love me and the ghosts I embrace for naught. It’s a serene Thursday night; I hide us from our reflections on tear-stained windows. The moon shines in her fleeting glory—the world moves on.

The ghosts are sugary-sweet in their deceit, and they hug me tighter than I hold the stuffed toy on my bed. We are a cocoon of comfort-disguised suffocation; I welcome the

whirlpool if only to feel the wind flow free. i am invisible shadows and thorn-torn roses shivering suns on horizons i can never find and parched ghosts living in my untrusting mind.

And yet: Hold on. 1, 2, 3, breathe.

Act I, Scene 2.

The moon shines on, the sky beautiful and bright, yet the radiance mocks me as I

tremble inside. The ghosts, like tides, sway to the moon’s siren song as she promises light, and like a drunken sailor, I follow desperately. But the candle has been in the cake too long; the wax melts.

The ghosts entwine with my goosebumped skin, even as the arms that hold me are strong. My scars had faded in the Before, and I cry over illusory wounds, scab-picked. No one should— they shouldn’t—see me like this. I smile for my audience: for the furrowed brows and shush, I got you.

but i am chai spills and an unflinching dread of mirrors ghosts whisper scorching sonnets in my ear and making eye contact with love is my biggest fear.

And yet: “Hold on,” my friend whispers. 1, 2, 3, breathe.

Act II, Scene 1.

The ghosts follow me like the pining crescent moon chases the planets that spurned her devotion. I see you, she reassures them, but she sparkles with the weight of our shared false hope. Perhaps we aren’t enemies, but hostages to a stifling centripetal force, trying

to hold on to an inconstant illumination.

Far away, I hear my mother. The line is scratchy, her voice muffled by my thoughts. She calls my name as I clutch onto sound and warmth. I try not to feel like a skipping stone that drowns.

The ghosts loosen their hold. i am sugar-char and tarnished silver rings i try my best to believe in people’s good and if trust could bid farewell to the ghosts, it would.

And yet: “Hold on,” the voices urge. 1, 2, 3, breathe.

Act III, Scene 1.

The wisps obscuring the moon recede, her enchanting siren song fading into a soothing

lullaby. The thrashing ghosts enveloping my mind are reluctant, but the sounds of serenity push them away. A new minuet reminds me of my mother, friend, steady pulse, and love. Fairy lights, family photos, and unadulterated moonlight seep into my labyrinth, and the dizzying world—spinning on its axis—slows to a stop. Invisible nymphs threatening to spill caramel-sweet hope stop in their tracks. The world moves, but I move with it.

i am a colorful, cacophonic symphony and past hurts, when triggered, seduce my mind

the ghosts may reappear but for now they’re left behind.

I cling to hope. 1, 2, 3, breathe.

this will last forever

finding home in the spaces between

There’s something sweet in the air. It usually hits me at night on the walk back from North Campus, right between Wriston and Keeney. Each time, I’m left disoriented, unable to keep walking. It’s a green, sharp, scent–one of freshly mowed grass, sweat, clear sky, crisp morning air. It’s youthful— gentle, like an infant summer, like possibility and simplicity.

It smells like lining up in fifth grade to do a ring toss, yellow and purple and blue ribbons in hand. Like lining up in sixth grade to get on the bus to the trampoline park, brown paper bag lunch tucked in a sequined backpack.

I can’t stop smelling it.

It’s strange. I’m 18, at my dream college, and still, every time I smell it, all I can do is

tilt my head back, look at the night sky, and breathe it in until my knees work again.

The top notes are warm sun. Not like here, now, but like soft sun, childhood sun. It dims down into anticipation, like jumping out of bed in the morning because school is fun today, and the week has been crawling toward Friday and today is finally the day. Really, you can feel it in the air, prickling

at your skin—today is finally the day when school will be trampolines and scooters, warm picnics, and feeding ducks.

The heart notes are the rainbow Reeboks you rush to put on, tripping over your little feet. It smells like the siren song of the ice cream truck, of the bubbles you are given to blow, of the shrieks throughout the playground as you chase your friends with the comically long wand. This is what a day is—the glee of winning a Field Day ribbon, of making wood-chip art with your friends, of sinking into your carpet at home, of falling asleep with grass in your hair.

Come, take my hand, run with me down this hill. Let’s climb that tree, fly down the neon slide, trace dragons into the dirt. And when it gets dark, let’s go home for dinner, where grandpa has our favorite foods simmering on the stovetop.

Tomorrow, we will do it all over again. Whatever it is, we will put on our neon jerseys, race each other through the freshly mowed field, fall off our bikes, and think of nothing except today.

This will last forever. It is the only day we know. This will last forever because the sky will never turn dark, the golden meadow will be there always, and the air will never stop smelling like fifth grade.

And then in 10 years, when those fields are sawdust and the bikes are rust, take

my hand again. We’ll run down the streets of Montréal, New York, Shanghai, San Francisco. We’ll bar-hop the entire night, pretend to be older than we are, flirt with strangers, catch snowflakes on our tongues. And when it gets dark, let’s go home and cuddle under the covers, nestled safe and warm in the city, the cold lashing against the walls of our home. There’s a raspberry loaf baking in the oven, rising despite the missing ingredients and cut corners. We’re sleeping in tomorrow, getting ready for another long day of laughing, of eating, of stumbling between skyscrapers and each other.

This will last forever because it is the only day we know. This will last forever because the city will never turn off its lights, our Airbnb will be ours always, and the air will always carry cigarette smoke and raspberry.

“Guys, this is too nice. I’m gonna be devastated when we leave here.”

In The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, he writes about how Kurt Vonnegut said in an interview that his home is “Indianapolis when I was nine years old. And there’s no way I can get there again.” I stopped to take a breath after this chapter, the same way I have to stop between Wriston and Keeney, Montréal, and Shanghai. How many more homes will I find, fall in love with, lose, and repeat?

We left, and it was devastating. Over and over. It was beautiful, and we left, and it was devastating.

I kind of hate falling in love. I kind of think it’s the only thing we can do.

Home was eight years old on a freshlymowed field in a polyester jersey, mid-May sun warming our backs.

Home was 18 years old in a brand-new city, leather jackets keeping us safe from the mid-March chill.

If I can never go back, so be it.

I’ll go again. Breathe it all in, cigarette smoke and fifth grade and everything else in between searing my lungs.

Come, take my hand. We’ll run away, we’ll grow up, we’ll fall in love. Over and over, until the sky turns dark and the raspberry loaf is burning in the oven and we are so full of homes and lost homes and new homes that everywhere is beautiful, everywhere is kind, everywhere is warm.

Until our clothes reek of possibility, until our teeth are stained with raspberries and maple syrup, until everyone is dogpiled on the bed, home.

“Guys, this is too nice. I’m gonna be devastated when we leave here.”

“Right? I wish it could just be like this forever.”

“Wait, guys, I think the loaf is burning?”

Disclaimer: mild spoilers, I tried my best to live in the abstract but I would love it if you watched the movie before reading.

I’m terrified that I’m not living my life to the fullest.

Terrified that I’m not intentional enough, not grateful enough, not present enough. Sometimes I’ll look back on a week gone by—a fugue-state blitz of classes, work, and socializing—and be unable to pick out distinct memories. I’m scared of

closing doors, of missing out, so I hang on to everything I can, for fear of losing something that doesn’t yet and may never exist. In turn, I find myself so lost in my desire to experience all that there is—meet every friend, take every class, write every article— that I’m drowning in obligation and unable to appreciate any of it. Lost in the sauce, some may say.

In retrospect, years have slipped by this way. I, a solemn passenger, anxious and dutiful, carve my path through the world in

vague service of a better future and fear of a worse one. Truth be told, I am terrified to keep living like this.

What would you do with all the time in the world?

I’m often asked about my favorite movie, to which I always name the 2013 rom-com About Time . Usually, I am met with a “huh,” or a “is that the name of the movie?” It was released to no particular hubbub and wasn’t met with much critical acclaim, no Oscars

bY Maxwell Zhang
Illustrated by Ella Dayton-Yaeger

nods or box office glory. But it holds a special place in my heart.

Set in modern England, the protagonist Tim Lake learns from his father that the men of their family can travel back in time. On paper, this is a somewhat corny premise, but the genuine characters and gentle pacing of the film make you soon forget that. With warm colors and soft-spoken words, the film compels you to believe in Tim’s gift. Left only with the magnificence of his special ability, Tim and the viewer alike face the question: What would you do with all the time in the world? Warned against the pursuit of riches, Tim directs his gift toward love instead.

What about me? After all, I am no timeturning Tim. One of the most pressing considerations in my life is my professional ambition. Is the pursuit of fame and riches and a big-boy job title what I truly want? Would it be enough to enjoy the little things, smell the flowers, and saunter from small joy to small joy for the rest of my life? I’m not sure. Would I look back on a life of simple pleasures with regret for not pursuing greatness, or find contentment in a life well-enjoyed?

What if I made the wrong decision?

When I sit and think about the direction of my life, I find myself feeling tiny in the face of the world. I imagine all the doors that I’ll never be able to open—all the people I’ll never meet, courses I’ll never take, clubs I’ll never join, places I’ll never see—and find myself so defeated. What if I chose the wrong class to take? The wrong event to attend? What if I walked out the door right before I would have met the love of my life?

I find myself reluctant to close the doors I’ve begun to explore too, even if I’m not enjoying them, for I fear they may evolve into something I can’t miss.

Unlike me, never knowing anything but the paths I’ve chosen, Tim can try again. His first slew of time-twisting comes in pursuit of his first love, Charlotte. Staying at his family’s house for the summer, Tim watches the days pass, admiring from afar, until he musters up the courage on her final day to confess his adoration. Charlotte turns him down, saying that a final day confession leaves no room for romance, and perhaps he should have asked earlier on. Tim, endowed with the power to do so, obliges, only to find rejection again, with the suggestion that he ask on the last day.

Perhaps you are not missing out on anything at all; some things just are not meant to be. Even if you are missing out, it may be that …

To miss out is a blessing.

In a restaurant, Tim meets Mary, the love of his life. They eat, they flirt, and they exchange numbers. Tim goes home to find his flatmate desolate, the greatest triumph of his career snuffed out by factors beyond his control. Tim, able to solve such a misfortune, goes back in time to do so but in the process misses out on meeting the girl of his dreams. He ends up finding her, but learns that she has a boyfriend, so he turns back time to meet her before she met her boyfriend. In saving his friend’s career, but missing out on the lovely dinner, Tim afforded himself the flexibility to meet the love of his life in the

best way possible, at the right time.

After dating Mary for a while, Tim goes to the theater and runs into Charlotte, his first love. Charlotte expresses interest, but at the end of the night, Tim realizes that Mary is the one for him. Perhaps it was for the best that Charlotte turned him down.

How do I move forward?

Tim and Mary get married. She says to him, “And so it begins, lots and lots of types of days.” What constitutes living a good life? A good year? Good week? Day?

Over Spring Break I had a most wonderful day. A stroll through a cute town, with a sunset whose warm rays ushered in the stars on the ocean breeze, complete with dinner under warm lights, criss-crossed between aged buildings. The next day was my final day in town, and I rushed to catch the sunset again in the same place. I knew it was too late, but I still ran hard. By the time I arrived, the fire had already left the sky. In the final moments of the film, Tim shares what he’s learned for a good life, which I’ll leave you to watch for yourself. But in times like my sunset chasing, even turning back time wouldn’t quench what I was seeking. I was chasing a day, a time, that was wonderful. A time ingrained in my mind because it had passed. To live is to let go, because, after all, even Tim can’t relive the same moment forever.

So turn away from the sunset and let it pass. Turn with conviction, with the certainty that you have lived it to its fullest. Turn and look forward to what you never know may be ahead.

how to breathe through the rain between poetry

and lyric

Our sunroof is open only when it rains. When blue skies are all you see, they no longer feel like blue skies. It’s the rain that gets us excited. At its beckoning we pile into the car, wrists hanging over our heads as lazy and futile umbrellas. Our shoes stain puddles on the carpet and we shake the water off our fingers, creating our own miniature storm. We head toward the beach.

Someone once told me, each droplet of water is home to a million microorganisms. It seems brutal to watch them fall, a rolling streak of apocalypse down the car window. We listen to the crashing of a million universes upon our naked sunroof, and I become witness to a biological dystopia; sympathy for the atoms around me. On the radio, Jannabi hums “about a boy.” I reach to dial the volume up.

The Korean-Indie-Rock-Band scene is larger than one might imagine. Despite such a hyper-specific, hyphenated title, names such as The Rose, The Black Skirts, and Wave to Earth may still sound familiar. Included in this list is Jannabi, a musical duo consisting of vocalist Choi Jeong Hoon and guitarist Kim Do Hyung.

Jannabi’s album Legend was the band’s break into mainstream Korean pop culture. They made their debut in 2013 on an audition program, Superstar K , but were disqualified after two rounds. For six years, they busked around the streets of Seoul seeking recognition instead of pay; five boys singing next to a sign with their facebook username and no bucket or hat to drop a dollar in. When asked why, they would simply answer: “We’re destined to become stars.” With the release of Legend in 2019, they began chronicling their own legacies as legends. Even now, you can hear the fleeting melody of “for lovers who hesitate” escaping through swinging cafe doors. Freshly united college bands exchange introductions by rehearsing “TOGETHER!” for upcoming music festivals.

“I know the heart that has bloomed and died And the seasons that have returned. I want to blossom a while before wilting Once again and forever.”

Halfway into my walk to Prospect Terrace, it started to rain. The sun had set hours ago, and I was left wandering alone in the shadows of a dying day. I let myself sink into a puddled bench and breathe for a while. Umbrella propped against my shoulder, I captured the tame panorama of the Providence skyline with every blink. I imagine these are the nights when poems are translated into lyrics.

Choi Jeong Hoon, the vocalist of Jannabi, is often inspired from the pages of his poetry collection. There is often a sense of whimsy in his words, a portrait of emotions expressed in splattered acrylic. The sharp scent of the paint stings every sense, and the words behind them prod once more. I once found it nearly impossible to create beauty with Korean, a language that restricted me with its rigid silhouette. How glad I was to stand corrected after discovering the lyricism of this band. I find the opposite problem here: English does not do these words justice. It is as if observing a portrait with binoculars across a crowded hall, distracted by the clamor and clutter. When you listen to the album, you must drain your mind of frustrated translation and listen for sound’s sake.

“When the night comes, Let’s carve our own secrets. We’ll leave a bookmark on this night And peek when no one’s watching.”

My friends are no longer surprised by the transparency of my depression. I have grown tired of pretending not to be tired, and I am grateful for friends who have let me be so. I’ve learned how to surf through the valleys, find routine in the unpredictable. It seems ironic, I often think, whenever I laugh through my warning that I think I’ll be depressed tomorrow. It seems ironic, they often think, “You seem like you have everything going for you.”

The first time I heard this statement, I was offended by its silliness. It seemed so obvious to me: “It just doesn’t work that way.” Life is full of distractions. I imagine all the things that I have “going” snowballed into a boulder I roll on Sisyphus’ hill; a distraction from drifting. I imagine myself happy. But, sometimes I’ll find myself sitting on a porch overlooking Providence or the backseat of my family car. My eyes will glaze over with the reflection of a soft storm, and I’ll breathe calm. The boulder erodes, and the beauty of rain racing across the sunroof is all the distraction I need.

“ 이봐, 젊은 친구야

잃어버린 것들은 잃어버린 그 자리에

가끔 뒤 돌아 보면은

슬픔 아는 빛으로 피어 ”

“Young one, Forget the things you’ve forgotten. When you look back every once in a while It’ll have bloomed into a light that knows sadness.”

Tomorrow, I will go on a walk to Prospect Terrace. The weather app warns me of rain at 9 p.m. The sky is already cloudy.

stopto smell theroses

giving spring her flowers

As the weather becomes more gentle and clouds give way to warmer blue skies, I am reminded of how much I love the coming of spring but not spring itself. I often give it the cold shoulder when answering the “What's your favorite season?” icebreaker because when comparing spring to her seasonal siblings, it always felt to me like the others had so much more to offer. Fall is an undeniable favorite—its palette of tingling spices, fiery foliage, and brisk weather culminates in an alluring image of the harvest season. Winter revels with festivity amidst the frigidity with year-end holidays to warm the heart, keep out the cold, and temper the bleak grays of the season. And summer demands romps and relaxation beneath its brazen heat, its promises of an ever-deep well of possibility have carved out for it a sacred place in countless children’s hearts (cue the Phineas and Ferb theme song). So what, then, is special about spring?

Of course, there are flowers and the longawaited return of the sun’s warmth, but with spring also comes exams and final projects keeping us indoors and away from relishing spring’s gifts. The weather can be more unpredictable than the others; it’s bright and warm one day, then sluggish and wet the next. Not to mention the pollen. Last year, I could scarcely finish a sentence without getting whiplash from a pollen-powered sneeze. Trust that I am armed and ready with my antihistamines this year. Still, for whatever personal gripes I have with spring, it is undeniably a special time of the year, particularly for us students. As we approach this lead-up to the end of the academic year, I want to share some things to do to make the most of spring on College Hill:

Linger in the light

One of spring’s greatest offerings is its particular brand of sunlight. Not too hot that you feel yourself cooking in its rays but just warm enough where you wanna stay and soak up as much as you can. Grab a picnic blanket, your friends, and some snacks (crisp green grapes never miss) and join the swaths of like-minded springtime revelers on the Main or Quiet Greens. If the crowd is a turn-off, take a little stroll to the plot behind Barus and Holley or down to India Point Park. For those on your way to class and pushing away the temptation to skip, take a few seconds to lift your face up to the sun, cherish that comforting warmth, and recall how you were burying your face in a scarf from the chill just a few weeks earlier.

Budding blossoms

I am not well-versed enough in horticulture to identify them, but there are some beautiful flowering trees on campus. The ones on the Main Green side of Faunce Arch, in the courtyard in front of Hegeman, and right behind Barus and Holley, just to name a few. I haven’t had the chance to make the rounds yet, but as you walk around campus, sneak a glance at the budding trees nearby. Pass them each day, and note how the buds get bigger, fuzzier, closer to the moment when they brave a peek out to the world. Spare the seconds it takes to approach a tree, study it, pet its downy buds, and return once it’s finally blossomed. Be that flower’s day one. They won’t last forever, so make the most of their fleeting beauty.

Engage in the spirit of renewal

I think of spring as a time for second chances, when things can come back to or have a new lease on life. Embracing that, find things in your life that may have been pushed to the side a bit and rejuvenate them. Reach out to a friend to grab a meal. Take a trip to a thrift store (Saver’s, Salvation Army, Hall’s, or Nostalgia) and find some new pieces or trinkets to give a new home to. It’s not a bad choice for planning a Spring Weekend look either! In that same vein, offer up some of your own items in the spirit of spring cleaning. After a long winter of stockpiling outfit layers and hunkering down indoors, now’s the perfect time to refresh your space, declutter a bit, and come out on the other end rejuvenated and recentered. There are lots of clothing drives, especially as we get into May, and opportunities to donate unworn clothes that someone else would be grateful to have.

Spend some time on yourself, too. Though any day can be the start of a new journey, why not channel that extra spring zing into a personal goal? Read a few pages of that book you put down a while ago before bed each night, start going to the gym a few times a week, do some journaling or self-reflection. Flowers don’t have to be the only thing that bloom this season.

Try a new experience

There’s a bevy of student performance group shows in these next couple months (DAEBAK this Friday and Saturday, and Gendo Taiko on April 18th and 19th are my personal recs), but keep an eye and an ear out for weekend performances from numerous student dance, music, and acapella groups. As much as campus has to offer, there’s also a wealth of experience off campus. Take a bike trip with friends on the East Bay Bike Path (if you don’t have a bike, check out Bikes@ Brown!), hit up a club in Downtown, take a trip to Roger Williams Zoo, go climbing at Rock Spot Climbing and grab some banh mi at Asian Bakery & Fast Food right across the street, or hop on a RIPTA (free with Brown ID) to the beaches of southern Rhode Island. Why keep the joys of spring relegated to the Hill?

Part of spring’s cruel beauty is what her presence elucidates—that all good things come to an end, and we’ll miss them when they’re gone. Flowers bloom with the promise of withering. As much as spring means renewal, it also means the end of the school year and the close to a chapter of life for us students. Whether you’ve got years ahead of you at Brown or are priming yourself for graduation, remember to seize the day (especially these precious warm ones) and delight in nature’s gifts for completing another year. Our lives turn a new leaf with each spring, and whatever fears or excitement that stirs within you, there’s an undeniable value in relishing the uniquely joyous circumstances of the final stretch to the end.

As Spring gets to her feet, give her a hand up. Stop and smell the roses that pop up around her. Shore her little wonders into your arms. Let them rest in the gentle bend of your elbow, and arrange them into bouquets to admire and pass between loving hands. The memory of their sweet scent will last through all seasons.

stealing from my friends notes on the real influencers

Over spring break, I went to visit my closest friend from home and stayed at her college apartment. We made steel-cut oatmeal for breakfast and, to my surprised delight, she offered me a bag of chocolate chips to sprinkle on as a topping, alongside frozen berries that turned our bowls gorgeous shades of blue and purple. It was lovely, and after my last bite, almost without thinking, I opened up my notes app, tapped on the one titled “Grocery List” and added “steel cut oats,” “frozen berries,” and, of course, “chocolate chips.”

Following this meal, I realized two things. One: this particular friend, with a whopping eight years of being a mere text away, is my oldest. Two: so many things I do are stolen from my friends. Stolen…in a nice way. In an imitation-is-the-highest-form-of-flattery way. Even those to whom I’ve been close for far less time—one year, a matter of months, or even the loose friends I’ve made in passing—influence me in countless ways. So many behaviors and modes of being I learned from them have crept, gradually, into my routine.

And I’m not mad about it. My life is a great deal better with them and all the things they teach me in it. Of course, I am my own person, but not one immune to influence, especially that of those I like enough to spend day after day with. I think there is something cool in noting the precise ways in which the knowledge of others I love and admire finds its way into my manners both great and minute. So, I’ve compiled a list of things that I have, respectfully, stolen from my friends.

1. Chocolate chips on oatmeal

You get the point. It’s just so good, and I’m not sure how I didn’t think of it before.

2. The beauty of Instagram Reels

I was a TikTok gal almost from the app’s inception. So, I thought, why would I need to look at another platform to rot my brain in the same exact way? Boy, was I wrong about its sameness. Only when my friends began DMing me the memes of a caliber somehow only possible on the Reels format did I begin to live my best, chronically online life. It’s now where I go when I want to laugh, but also be highly confused, and maybe a little scared, but also to communicate with my friends in the mysterious language of a very niche side of the internet.

3. The act of lighting a candle

Growing up, my mom would never let anyone light candles in the house. She was scared of the flame spreading out of control. Truth be told, I didn’t experience the lifechanging, comforting and healing sensation of sitting by a warm scented candle until recently, when I went to my friend’s house to see at least five lit at once. Turns out, with a little research on fire safety, I could do the same. And I’ve enjoyed life more ever since.

4. Soup recipes

I consider some of my favorite foods to be those which are cooked by my friends. Of course, I help where I can—chopping alliums and slicing the accompanying sourdough bread—but it’s them who shine in the culinary realm. They make it look so easy to create a warming meal that’s more satisfying than the boiled pasta and canned red sauce I normally go for but that also happens to slap. I keep their recipes in my toolbox to recreate, even though I know the product of a solo endeavor will never measure up to the one resulting from a group effort.

5. Wearing wider jeans, and more green

Okay, maybe not strictly these two things.

But as much as I try to abide by my personal style, I’m constantly inspired by what I see my friends sporting. Sometimes they just look too good not to emulate.

6. Media of all sorts

Book recommendations. TV show recommendations. Music recommendations. Movie recommendations. Podcast recommendations. Game recommendations. Article recommendations. Immersive experience recommendations. Et cetera. Bonus points if they’re willing to re-experience it with me.

7. Driving to walk

Sometimes I forget that I have the free will to drive anywhere I please until someone reminds me. Why not drive to a beautiful park or pond and go for a walk? My friends often remind me that my world need not be limited to the streets and buildings I frequent everyday.

8. Driving technique

That being said, I am not known for my skill behind the wheel. My friends—the ungrateful beneficiaries of my rides—like to joke that they have been closest to death in a car that I am controlling (lies and slander). In truth, however, I have much improved my driving ability due to their (annoying) backseat driving. I’m now able to merge onto the highway with a technique slightly more reliable than closing my eyes and praying to whatever god is there. I can parallel park without having to leave a “sorry for the scratch” note on the vehicle in front or behind me. I heed stop signs. I am not sure how I passed my driver’s license test in the first place, but with a little practice, I probably could now with more confidence.

9. A vegetable or two

I was sure I hated green peppers until a friend made me try one at a farmers market. The green stuff in a dish always tastes better when I’m eating it with a companion who insists it’s delicious.

10. Curiosity

I surround myself with people who, for whatever reason, have an insane thirst to know and do more. They read Wikipedia pages for fun and love to debate. They love to go places they’ve never been before. They check things out. Slowly, I’ve found the same urge appear in myself, more and more. It’s the reason I am much more willing to try new things now than, say, at the beginning of my life, when I was a scared little kid. And, a lot of times, it’s the reason I have fun.

Increasingly, I want to try everything my friends do. It rarely steers me wrong (we don’t talk about the skinny dipping incident). Much more often, it leads me to enrich my own life and deepen my understanding of the world around me. If they mind my copycat tendencies, they haven’t mentioned it. Rather, it gives us more to share in, strengthening the material by which we are tied. Maybe I influence them, too. It’s nice that being friends means that, like a well-loved book, we can pass around the things that make us happy, cool, and smart. It’s nice to see my friends in myself.

POST-POURRI

BEFOR E YOU GO

love letter to my bedroom on leaving home

My bedroom is a shape no other room should be. It’s built like a square horseshoe, a left bracket symbol with elongated sides. The bed is nestled snugly into a space so small that when I sit with my back against the wall— head tilted forward on account of the sloped ceilings—my feet rest on the opposite wall. Around the corner from my affectionately dubbed cocoon is a bookshelf I can only partially see, which, apart from a coffee table, is the only piece of furniture in my room. I don’t even have a bedframe, just a mattress on the floor.

My dad built the bookshelf himself, finished it before I had slept a night in the room, and filled it so that its stained brown shelves curved under the weight of collected National Geographics and Kazuo Ishiguro novels. Tucked in a corner, it opens like a greeting, safeguarding my possessions everytime I’m away. My first crush lives in between the pages of the books, my lost friends in the loops of a crocheted plush. The annotated copies of my favorite books beg to be rearranged yet won’t be; I’ve grown too attached to the familiar color patterns their spines form. It’s sturdy—it can’t be moved, bolted to the walls. I have three or four copies of the same books and candles I’ve never lit: little anthologies of my life. When I came home for break, I was carrying new books for the shelves to absorb.

I wish that I could call it my childhood bedroom, but it’s not. My childhood bedroom was a regular square, and the walls were two different horrid shades of purple that clashed with my sister’s and my polka-dotted and striped twin beds. Every year, we rearranged the room in a

desperate bid for more space—my sister was a messy child, and I the opposite— but I loved that room, wearing a divot the shape of my body into the mattress.

When I left for college, the walls were painted white, our furniture was tossed, and the room became my sister’s. I alternated between sleeping in her bed and on the living room couch, adrift even while home. It was then that my dad decided to redo the attic, and for one perilous summer, every time I wanted to enter my new, horseshoe-shaped room, I had to climb up a ladder and walk across a plank.

My attic room is temporary, a space built for the few summers that separated me from graduation. It’s small. There’s only about two square feet I can stand up straight in. It’s an afterthought—a room built to be vacated. Yet I don’t want to let go. I fall asleep to the sound of my little brother gaming, and wake up to the birdsongs of his parakeets and my dog— who knows how to climb up stairs but not down them—whining to be carried downstairs. Just last week, my sister made me a clay bear and I added it to my bookshelf. The framed photo of my grandparents, the typed poem I bought in a park, the tiny bird figurines that line the shelves; the room is made up of thousands of little mosaic tiles that, taken together, form a rough amalgamation of my life.

I don’t know how to leave, how to let go of that horse-shoe shaped room. But then I remember when the room was still bare, the bookshelf only a sketch that existed on paper. I didn’t mourn the loss of that first room—instead, I spent hours thrifting for the perfect coffee table. The bookshelf may stay behind, bolted in place, but my books will come with me, wherever that may be.

blast to the past

4 1 5 Across Smithereens

When in the capital of Italy, do as this person does 6 She's a cartoon pig who loves muddy puddles

7 Of something incomprehensible: "It's all _____ to me!"

8 A soup or salad Down

“My sister: who is younger than me, but always insists on driving us everywhere. My sister: who has always been more than capable of handling life on her own—more capable of handling life than I am—still chooses again and again to follow me.”

— Emily Tom, “Killing Ants” 03.24.23

“The words, still unfamiliar to my ears and unnatural on my tongue, flow out more easily than I expected, coming out from the secret reserves where my mind has been hiding them for years.”

Dutch South Africans who fought two wars against the British 1 He designed the Louvre Pyramid Recorded E.g. a python It can follow "rug" or "Japanese" 4 2 3 5

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

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ARTS & CULTURE

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— Jeanine Kim, “Making Words Out of Nothing” 03.24.24 3 2 1 8 5 6 7

NARRATIVE

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LIFESTYLE

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