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A six-year-old girl slouches on her wooden chair. Standing barely 4 feet tall, that damn chair must’ve been bigger than herself. Her first-grade workbook is opened in front of her, with a pencil lying beside it. She sees her classmates quietly reading and writing while listening to the random classical music the teacher left playing from her Pandora playlist.
Unpopular opinion: I don’t like warm drinks — whether that’s tea, coffee or the like. They never feel soothing, and if I have a sore throat, I would prefer to down a glass of ice water, letting the coldness spread throughout me and numb the pain. When I came to Hopkins, that didn’t change about me. However, I value the comfort that arises from sipping a cup of tea; it provides a chance to relax, pause and reflect — time that I would rarely carve out for myself. For the longest time, I felt guilty for slowing down; I believed that I should constantly strive to make the best use of my time and to do something.
This summer, I built Ikea furniture. Well, not exactly. I had many pieces thrown at me at once. The instructions were written in a completely different language, and every time I put one shelf together, my work table collapsed under the weight of all my other half-built shelves. Most of my time was spent panicking, since I needed to have a giant complex-shaped shelf with interlocking pieces, that included functional drawers and sliding panels with many fragile components, fitted together in just a few days. I was expected to know how every single piece fit together perfectly. In case it wasn’t obvious, I completed Organic Chemistry I in just one month this summer.
I’m living The Simple Life.
It’s been about a week since I packed up my suitcase and flew across the Atlantic to start my study abroad journey in St Andrews, Scotland. In the few days that I’ve been here, I’ve met a good bunch of American students who are studying something related to politics or diplomacy, and lots of English students who wouldn’t dare touch politics with a ten-foot pole.
Over the summer, I read Tess Gunty’s novel The Rabbit Hutch, which was a wonderfully weird and captivating book that left me heartbroken at the abuse of a teenage girl at one moment and giggling at the concept of a man drenching his entire body in glow-stick juice the next. Like I said: captivating and weird — like all the best books ultimately are.
The first time I felt void of meaning was in my bedroom, hidden somewhere between the third and 86th pages of my sloppily written stanzas. For a second, my reflection in the deathly glow of my Mac split who I was and who I was trying to be. A blank document that had brimmed with possibility was now filled but shapeless; I was a writer with nothing to say.
College has started, and with it comes the never-ending cycle of assignments, quizzes and events that tug at me from every direction. On paper, this is what I wanted: a new chapter, a place to grow and a chance to shape my future. But when the noise of the day quiets down, when I finally return to my room at night, I am reminded of the people who aren’t here:
You always got somеthing you wanna prove
I know that this is going to be a messy goodbye and I don’t quite know how to put my thoughts into words. I’ve felt it in the group chats we’ve made with other graduating editors as we’ve transitioned from Slack messages into text conversations. It’s in the deep sense of pride I feel as I watch the new editors step up to their roles. It’s in the hint of anxiety as I try to stop myself from stepping back into the role I’ve just vacated — stopping myself from becoming that person who’s still clinging onto something that isn’t theirs anymore. It’s in the relief I felt when I allowed myself to turn off my Slack notifications for the first time in years.
As the semester progressed and the end of my tenure as Editor-in-Chief got closer, I expected to feel grief, dread and the desire to prolong my time at Hopkins. Instead, I’ve surprised myself by feeling the opposite and being at peace with the changes to come.
I’m no longer a freshman. Fuck.
I have meant to write for the Voices section for a very long time. It’s supposed to be the section where you can say anything and everything: no headaches over finding solid evidence or getting interviews with good quotes. And yet, I have never written a single piece until now — less than a month away from graduation.
It is warm again. Trees flower and shed like snow, dandelions sprout up in sidewalk cracks and, even though people say they are weeds, I am struck again by their undeniable beauty. Their white seeds twist into the wind. I make a wish.
When the sky is pouring with a certain degree of violence, everything smells sharper. One explanation for this is logic: Other senses blur — the thunderous noise of a downpour muffles our hearing, water gathers in the way of vision, touch is overwhelmed beneath cold wet clothes; the sense of smell gains clarity. The muddy asphalt falls under a sudden, water-pressure cleanse. The dampened leaves on low-hanging branches take on a sharper smell. And there’s that clear, fresh scent of dirt. Another explanation: memory.
I was told it’s time to start saying my goodbyes in Baltimore.
They called me Mr. Riley.
I think we take the sun for granted. I mean, yes, we would most certainly be dead without it, and then, well, I wouldn’t even be writing this, but there is a certain warmth, separate from physical, that we receive from the sun. It is always there, always rising from the east to the west.
I used to hate silence. The silence of taxis, elevators and long lines unnerved and perplexed me. So did the eyes desperately darting downwards, plummeting into isolation as soon as someone stepped into an elevator. Short, cordial greetings met with even shorter goodbyes during taxi rides. A person standing a foot away from someone else in line for an hour without acknowledging they exist.
Recently, I participated in The News-Letter’s weekend-long election process in which we appoint the board for the following year. This is an annual (and mandatory) tradition; helping to elect those who come after us is an indispensable part of our role as editors, as it ensures the strength and stability of the paper. I won’t be here next year, but The News-Letter will.