The Grotonian, Fall 2014

The Grotonian

Fall Expo Issue

Dear Groton Community, Each fall, Groton seniors take an expository writing class that has become known as ‘Expo.’ Out of the many excellent works that this year’s seniors produced, it is our pleasure as the Grotonian editors to share with you some of finest pieces.

So without further ado, here is the Fall Expo issue. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we have.

Editor-in-Chief

Editors

Faculty Advisor

Daisy Collins

Samantha Crozier Layla Varkey Derek Xiao Logan Deming Ethan Woo

John Capen

Featured Works Cover Art Frances McCreery More Than Blue(s) Malik Jabati 1 The Sweetest Juice Nala Bodden 6 Rachana Tyler Sar 11 Marshall West Noah Altshuler 16 A Bottle Blond Walks Into a Nursing Home Daisy Collins 20 The Crossing Philippe Heitzmann 24 Into the Cathedral Samantha Crozier 31 Deus Sowon Lee 34 Sixth Form May Go Derek Xiao

More Than Blue(s) Malik Jabati

Downtown Elementary was situated right in the middle of Memphis, Tennessee. My dad worked less than ten minutes away from Downtown Elementary, but he always took his time coming to pick us up. It’s hard for me to figure out why. He never seemed to be that busy whenever I visited his office, and he was the most punctual person I knew, but he consistently picked me up at 6:03, 6:05, and on a bad day 6:14. The afterschool program ended at 6:00.

The school was less than a mile away from every major attraction in the city. We were right across the street from Memphis’s Masonic temple; down the street from the triple-A baseball team, the Redbirds; and just a short walk away from the Peabody Hotel.

Downtown Elementary’s location gave its students lots of opportunity and a chance to explore the city.

On Friday nights, my dad would take my brother and me from school to Beale Street. Beale Street was a blues alley. As the sun passed the horizon and the humid air cooled down, the rattling strings of guitars and old pianos peeked out from behind cracks and crevices. There was a stadium where a jazz band played every night. The bass carried me into another world. Ba-dum-dum. Those low notes floated up high, shaking the very ground beneath me and my heart within. The saxophone confused me. Skiddly-dee. Hurried notes and garbled phrases exploded from the bell of that horn.

The sax moaned and screeched, trying to appease us all. The drums kept it all together. A-boom-chak. Its rhythm ordered the chaos of this tiny jazz band. It was the nucleus; everything revolved around its steady rhythms and familiar accents.

That jazz band was my dad’s favorite. My brother and I would always sneak out while he stood focused on the music.

Maybe we would go to the booths in the back that sold homemade jewelry, homemade creams, and homemade pie. One of us would run back, asking for a ten or twenty dollar bill to buy some food 1

and possibly a frozen treat. We always pocketed the change. At the time, I thought we were so clever. For a ten-year-old, I was “rolling in the dough.”

My dad knew. He figured he could spare twenty bucks every Friday. After all, the music was free, and there was never any cover charge for the indoors clubs. My brother and I used that money to buy street paintings and buy ourselves spray-paint portraits. There was one guy who painted scenes from outer space. He would use his cans and caps to cut out circles and mark off planets. That guy was there every night, but he mesmerized me with the ease and joy he had in his craft. Every few weeks, I would stand there, listening to the jazz a few hundred yards away, watching this man paint otherworldly objects, and smelling the equal parts revolting and welcoming scent of sweaty people and sweet paint.

One night I snuck away with my brother in tow. This was not unusual. Beale Street was almost like a second home. On one end there were horse-drawn carriages and acrobatic street performers (only for the tourists), and on the other there were abandoned theaters and overgrown shrubbery.

That night I walked up and down the street. The only rules seemed to be to stay on the brick road and not to walk past the barricade on either end. Here we were big boys.

After a while, I decided to go into B.B. King’s Blues Club. I had been there many times with my dad, but after 10 o’clock minors had to be accompanied by an adult. My dad was far away. He was on the other end of the street. My brother and I snuck up behind a man who kind of looked like us, and stayed close to him while he walked through the doors of the club. We were in.

As we passed through the heavy oak door and stepped onto black-and-white tile, we were greeted by a building haunted, taken over, by the twang of blues. With their hands locked in a timeless embrace with the person dancing in front of them, the geriatrics on 2

the central floor floated from side to side and front to back. They were ghosts. Their creaky bones and arthritic joints swept over the floor in large arcs, and they twirled in pairs, sometimes stumbling only to quickly resume their positions of graceful enchantment.

These old folk screamed, too. These screams were not from pain; they were from delight, from amazement, from beauty. Much like the tiled floor beneath them, the people dancing were both black and white. For most of them, this was a dream. Decades-old memories of a segregated South, lynch mobs, and unfettered hate still floated around inside their skulls, but they danced together this day and were able to forgive each other, reconciling through motion.

Their blood-curdling shrieks filled the club with accents and punctuation for the trill of the guitar and the howl of the singer.

Those who were seated crooned in response to the shrieks of the club’s elderly. They were more like zombies rather than ghosts. Eyes focused intently on the band. Foots tapped in rhythm to the music. Bodies swayed in half time. The seated patrons were mostly middle-aged. They sat with parents, spouses, children, and partners. Some sat alone. Those who came in with family and friends used the music as background to their conversations. For them, the singer and his band were less the main attraction and more the never-ending action that they could turn to when their conversations became dull. Those who came in alone were real blues fans. With no one to talk to and to take their attention, they listened intently and strained to hear every peak, valley, and plain in the music.

I sat there, too. My brother and I claimed an old wooden bench near the back of the establishment. It was adjacent to the kitchen and about fifteen feet from the entrance to the bathroom.

The waiters must have thought that we were waiting for our parents to come out of the restroom because we went unquestioned the whole night. My goal was to emulate those solitary listeners. They were cool. They adorned smart cardigans and oxford cotton button downs. Sprawled across the bench, I was dressed in only a white polo shirt and khaki pants, but I so desperately wanted to focus 3

on, to feel, and to ford a new path of understanding through this delightful blues.

Halfway through his set, the singer reintroduced himself.

He was Blind Mississippi Morris. Born in 1955 in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Blind Mississippi Morris was a typical blues artist. For a blind man, he wore quite colorful suits and was very aware of his onstage surroundings. He walked back to the drums and tapped the snare. The drummer took his cue and started the intro to a song called “Working Mule.” I do not normally pay attention to the words in a song, and this occasion was no different. The repetitive blues lyrics flew right over my head. I do remember, though, the distinct plucks of his wiry-sounding guitar and the confident warbling in his voice. The song sounded like a sepia-colored photograph. Old, warm, and something to be remembered. He transitioned into another song. This one titled “Bossy Woman.”

I squinted my eyes and relaxed my body. As I slouched back, the stray notes and worn wooden bench enveloped my entire being. I blocked out every sense but sight and sound. The music soon found a way to push even sight onto its most basic level. Those elderly ghosts and tuned-in zombies faded into the corners of my vision. Blind Mississippi Morris’s howling rippled the images in my line of view. Objects faded to faint impressions, which faded into indistinct blurs. The dim lights of the club overtook every other color as they flooded my eyes with a fluorescent blue. The thin blue of flickering lights, the deep dark blue of melancholy blues, and the sad blue of lonely listeners swirled into an oceanic mass before my eyes. The music wasn’t just blue; there were glimpses of blood orange and thick violet. There was an occasional twinge of happy nostalgia beneath his somber lyrics. For every story of “rigging a jukebox at an old club” or “having a little too much of a man’s fun,” spasms of sharp yellows and royal burgundy surfaced. I had left my body and become the music. I was a colorless shade, mixing and taking bits of the hues surrounding myself, my consciousness.

4

I still struggle trying to figure out if my experiences were

real or if they were solely the result of sleep-deprived delirium.

Sometimes I think back on it as merely a dream, but I know this not to be true. After the performance, I staggered to the front. I hoped to speak to and thank this man, Blind Mississippi Morris, for giving me a life-altering experience. He marveled at the voices of us two brothers, who had not even reached double-digit ages.

He gave us an autographed CD and a harmonica, which he called a “Mississippi saxophone.” His signature seemed to be right out of a seismograph recording emotions. He was a blind man, so there was nothing more than one long and sinuous line, but his arm moved with such confidence and fluidity that I am inclined to believe he wanted to give us a message, one of encouragement. It must have been amazing for him to hear such youth in a place celebrating an art form slowly withering away with each passing day.

My brother and I left the club along with the rest of the crowd who had stayed to hear the last of the night’s music. We saw our dad standing and gesturing frantically on the side of the road as he tried to find us. We met up with him just before he pulled out his phone to report us missing. As I rode home, I thought over the day’s events. I was mentally drained. I had experienced something alien, something that was not meant for those with sight. Blind Mississippi Morris should have been seeing colors that night, not I. And maybe he did; maybe he always has. If that was the case, then I shared a unique, otherworldly moment with him. Young and old, able and blind, observer and performer.

I have never been able to sense, or to be, music since that moment; however, I still attempt to emulate the experience whenever I get the chance. That moment inspired me to pick up an instrument and is the reason I play the saxophone today. Music now seems like an indecipherable code obscuring euphoria. A beautifully simple language and an equally beautiful complex system of mathematics, music carries varied meanings and teases, taunting the listener to comprehend more.

5

The Sweetest Juice Nala Bodden

I swear in another life she was a doe. It may have been due to her large round brown eyes, slightly sunken into her face, and framed with her showing veins, the type that only come after the age of seventy-five, that still shone. Or maybe it was the way her face gleamed, illuminated by the TV, in the dark room with all of her sadness crystal clear to me.

“You don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to. If I ask too deep a question, tell me to shut up.”

“Oh I will. I’ll knock you back down if you do.”

Facing me with her bed as a divider, she sized me up. I was some random girl asking not only to interview her but to record her. I willed myself to not crack under my own discomfort as we regarded each other in silence.

“Can you put this on the dresser?” she suddenly asked, holding out a small bottle of hand sanitizer. “And could you put this there too?” she held out a bottle of lotion, “and pass me that bottle…no, not that one, the other one…now put it in the drawer.”

Again we found ourselves quiet. The daily noise of the nursing home infiltrating the room combining with the sputtering of the air conditioner and the voice of Whoopi Goldberg on The View was all that could be heard.

“Ain’t you going to ask me some questions? I’m ready.” And she was sitting there in her wheelchair erect, purse on her lap, arms folded in front of it, primed for our talk. I quickly got out my notebook and turned on the recorder.

We talked about the basics that first day. Where she was from? South Carolina. Was she an only child? Only girl of seven.

Why did she move to Brooklyn? A better life for her and her daugh6

ter. Did she have anyone up here when she moved? No. How did she survive? Through sacrifice and patience and work in hospitals.

Did she want to be in this home? No. Did she wish she was back in South Carolina? Yes.

She didn’t give much more than that on the first day.

I simply sat there absorbing the presence of the beautiful woman in front of me, as she began to get lost in her thoughts. Her southern accent, her warmth, and her aura of sadness were captivating to me. Her wrinkly brown skin was beginning to take on different tones, each pigment of color varying from the other with beauty marks here and there. Her salt and pepper, heavy on the salt, hair came to a rest at her chin in a bob, tucked under kissing her cheeks. And her voice, it was lilting, sweet, high, and airy, musical even if you listened hard enough. You could hear the shrills and the slight wavering in her tone, as if at any moment it would give way to nothingness, but like her it always had energy. I still can’t tell if her voice had always been that way, even as a young girl, or if it had simply become fragile just as she did with time.

She always wore some combination of a pastel color. The different shades were always very light, feminine, and springy. The colors screamed infant — something I pointed out to her that day — but with her brown skin and tiny stature, it fit so well.

“It’s funny how that works,” she said to me at the end of our interview.

“What?”

“That at the end of your life you dress how you did at the beginning.”

I came back to interview her four days later. The minute I stepped off the elevator I saw her parked in the hallway holding onto the rail leaning as far off her seats as she could. There was a smile in her eyes as she watched the nurses walking up and down past her.

7

“Imma’ buss you up!” she snickered, her airy voice contradicting the mischief in her eyes as she tried to provoke the staff.

I watched amused, as she laughingly continued her threats to the nurses, who gleefully played along.

“Miss Susy you causin’ trouble right now?” I teasingly asked, my voice taking on a slight southern accent; she was rubbing off on me.

She looked at me for a while, as if deciding whether or not I could join in on the fun. After a moment she nodded her head, her tucked under curls moving with her, as she snickered some more.

“No-ah, no I ain’t causing trouble, these nurses are! They know I’m gunna’ buss them in the head!” she said raising a shaky fist.

She paused to watch more people go by. Her face was unconsciously scrunched up into a scrutinizing glare regardless of whether she liked the person or not.

“So you just gonna’ stay out here in the hallway peoplewatching, Ms. Susy?”

“Yeah, yeah I am. Why? You gunna’ talk to me today?”

“I just might …will you still be here?”

She smashed her lips together as if she was about to speak before she changed her mind and simply nodded her head. I waited for one more second before turning to walk down the hallway.

Whenever I looked back, she was still sitting in her wheelchair right outside the elevators looking up and down the hallway. From afar her face was innocent, childlike, with her eyes wide open darting around trying to figure out what kind of world she was living in — I wondered if she realized she wasn’t in South Carolina anymore.

As I stepped off the elevator returning from my lunch break, I saw her perched in the same spot, eyes unfocused on the resident 8

in front her. The resident had just thrust a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into her hands, and she hadn’t noticed. As the resident began to walk off, I made my way forward until I was right in front of her; she finally looked down.

“Oh it’s you again,” she greeted once she tore her gaze away from the sandwich in her hands.

Watching as she slowly turned her wheelchair with sandwich on her lap, I couldn’t help myself: “Ms. Susy you gonna’ eat that sandwich?”

I knew even though she couldn’t see my face, she could hear my smile since she sucked her teeth and proceeded to tell me to “shut up” only to dissolve into giggles, hysterical as she waved around the sandwich. I pushed her wheelchair into the room, and tried not to let my own chuckles cause me to bump her into a wall, as I navigated the turn into the room.

“What am I going to do with this damn sandwich, huh?

Ain’t no food up here good anyway!” she exclaimed flailing her arms as I positioned her next to her rolling table.

“Damn air conditioner, freezing me up. Can’t even work that damn machine. You know how to work it? Got all dem’ buttons can’t tell what none of them do. I just want to know why they couldnt’ve put it on her side of the room instead of freezing me up.

Can’t even work that thing anyway. Now what was you gunna’ ask me?” she asked finally resting her arms in her lap.

“What was your favorite part about your house in South Carolina?”

She paused for a moment, her eyes beginning to get lost in a memory, wet from the emotions. I watched her wishing I could capture this moment forever — she was the picture of joy. She was in South Carolina.

9

I waited as she sniffled a little bit, and stared at her fingers.

When she finally looked to answer, the doe was back again.

“We,” she cleared her throat, “we used to have grapes and berries wrapped all around the house that my daddy would grow.

The sweetest I had ever tasted. And when I was little, I would just eat ‘em, eat ‘em all cause they tasted so good and they were so sweet,” she puckered her lips up, biting into the memory and savoring the sweet juices from the berries. “I love grapes and fruits. My daughter and my grandchildrens they always bringin’ me fruits and stuff whenever they visit. Just the other day she brought me a whole bunch strawberries and grapes. What was I gunna’ do with all dem’ strawberries?” she chuckled to herself and rolled to her wardrobe pulling out a bag of grapes. “I saved the grapes, but I gave most of the strawberries away. I couldn’t eat them all.”

She began to eat some of the grapes, languidly sucking all the juices out after every bite, and placed the rest next to the sandwich on her table. There was no twist of her lips; they weren’t as good as the ones in South Carolina. Her gaze stayed on the grapes, but she was far gone.

“You give away your food? Is that how you make all your friends, as some type of food dealer?” I probed trying to break her out from her fog. All I got was a nod of her head, the only way I knew she heard something I said. But all my efforts were for naught. Ms. Susy was not with me, nor was she trying to find her way back to Brooklyn. I used to wonder if she ever truly left South Carolina. I used to wonder if she wanted to. Now I wonder what she’d be like if she did.

10

Rachana Tyler Sar

Rachana means “creation”. The name is of Hindi origin; my parents thought it too beautiful to waste on anyone other than their new child. Rachana Julia Sar – Julia just in case no one could pronounce her first name correctly. But still, my parents probably wouldn’t have let anyone call her anything other than her first name, Rachana. The name was too pretty to waste.

In first grade, I learned that my mother had a watermelon hiding in her belly – well, it wasn’t really hiding, because I could see it pretty darn clearly. My dad said that one summer day, while she was eating a deliciously refreshing watermelon, my mom swallowed a seed by accident. He said that the seed would grow into a watermelon inside her belly, grow and grow until it became a humongous ball bigger than me. Then… he didn’t tell me what was going to happen next. He said that she’s pregnant. To me, pregnant meant that she had a watermelon in her belly, and I hated watermelon. So, I hated my mom for growing such a thing in her stomach. I kept telling her to get rid of it, I hate watermelons, but she just smiled at me and stroked my thick black hair with her comforting hands, so soft, so warm, so cozy. She said it was going to be a girl, which, of course, confused me. Nonetheless, I was still mad at her.

I remember telling my first grade class about this as we sat in a circle for morning meeting. My teacher had asked me if anything new had happened in my family, and I said, my arms opening wide, “MY MOM HAS A WATERMELON IN HER BELLY!!!!” All my friends were amazed, asking me “Is it big? When can you eat it?

How did it get in there?” My teacher just smiled in the background as I answered every question with a “I don’t know, but my mom has a watermelon in her belly!”

During her watermelon-growing process, my mom asked for a lot of random food – Meatball subs, pickles, and Sour Patch Kids among other things. She always felt better after eating. While 11

she kept that watermelon inside her, I continued with whatever I did as a first grader, doing my homework, going to school, watching TV. I knew nothing about the watermelon, other than that it hurt my mom and it’s a girl and I hated it. She said it hurt more than I hurt her when I was a watermelon in her belly. That confused me, because I never knew that I was a watermelon. Then I thought, I could have been a watermelon. How else did I get here, in this world?

A few times, my mother was really, really sick. She started spending more time upstairs in her room all day, especially when her stomach got bigger and bigger. She cried and cried, and my dad never let my brother or me go upstairs. She was crying because it hurt so much, her belly lurching and flipping inside. My dad didn’t want us to see her, because he was worried that we’d be scared looking at my mother howling in pain. She was pale, lying on the floor in a pile of blankets, sweating, crying, screaming sometimes.

She had to go to the hospital to get checked up several times. The doctors wondered why her pains were stronger than they were supposed to be. One day, after she had come back from the doctor’s, she went to her usual pile of blankets on the floor of her upstairs room, wrapping herself up. My dad wasn’t home at the time, and it was just me and my mom. From the downstairs living room, I could hear my mom moaning. My dad never wanted me to go upstairs, to see mom, but I needed to help her. When I came in, I noticed tears running down her cheeks as she lay in her usual spot.

She told me to come close, closer, and then I laid down next to her and wrapped my body around her watermelon. She held me tight, tighter, squeezing me closer and closer to her. She could barely move her body, but she used all her might to bring me in closer to her.

One day, she stayed in the hospital for too long. My dad accompanied her, and my cousin, Charlie, came over to babysit my brother and me. We asked Charlie what was wrong, but he never told us. Nothing, don’t worry about it, he said. So, at home, we 12

watched Drunken Master, a movie by Jackie Chan. The Kung-Fu awesomeness couldn’t change my focus from my mom. Where is she? Why is she gone for so long? Mommy, where are you? I want mommy! And all I did was sob and sob and my brother and my cousin couldn’t do anything about it. I kept crying and crying, like my mom did in her room upstairs. I was helpless without her.

July 11, 2003. Rachana was small. Too small. She couldn’t breathe. The doctors tried everything they could, but they couldn’t help her. Too soon, they said. She came out too soon. The spasms forced her out. She can barely breathe, they said. Then she stopped breathing. My mom was moaning in pain, grief, distraught. She was gone.

died.

July 11, 2003: the day Rachana was born, the day Rachana

I didn’t see any of this. I didn’t hear the bustle of the beeps, the doctors rushing and shuffling back and forth, my mom moaning in pain, grief, distraught. I was at home, with my brother and my cousin, watching Drunken Master. Crying. And I knew something was wrong – I just didn’t know what.

Sometime later, we had a wake for Rachana. All my cousins and aunts and uncles came over to the funeral home to mourn with us. The casket was open, containing the tiny little body that belonged to my sister. We couldn’t see her face; at least, I couldn’t. I was too short, and it looked like her body was wrapped entirely by blankets, like my mom once was. I don’t think I ever saw her face.

“Hold her hand” my mom told my brother and me, her watermelon gone. My brother and I stepped towards the open casket, trying to look down, seeing nothing but blankets. I couldn’t even see the mound that should’ve been her body underneath the sheets. Just blankets. So I reached out my hand and touched the blanket.

I felt nothing but disgust. What am I doing here? Who is she? I knew nothing about her, had no emotional connection with 13

her. I didn’t know why I was here, why so much of my family was here, why any of this mattered. I knew nothing, felt nothing, even when holding the blanket that should’ve been her hand. Here I was, holding the phantom hand of a dead body of a dead soul that I didn’t care for, yet everyone was crying and sobbing around me and I didn’t know why. I just kept holding that blanket, my eyes dry.

The whole funeral was a streaking black blur, except for the monks. I was wearing black trousers and a black polo, and my brother was wearing the exact same outfit. Everyone was covered head-to-toe in black. The building was black, the cars black, and the faces blue. For almost the entire time, I stayed neutral and emotionless like I was during the wake. The Buddhist monks came in, garbed in orange robes, chanting their prayers as they folded their legs crissed-crossed-apple-sauce, their eyes closed. With their mouths moving, their orange robes were the only color in this black world, the only light in a sea of darkness.

Then I heard the grumbling of the lurching engine, the cremator. It was groaning so loud. All I remember was the noise of that monster. Just the noise. I couldn’t see it, but I imagined it: a ginormous beast adorned with scales and feathers, its eyes black and angry and its mouth open, revealing razor-edged teeth, dripping with dark red blood. The blood of my sister. It was eating her, devouring my sister, killing her. Its groans got louder and louder, its eyes intent and its mouth drenched with her blood. I saw nothing, but I knew that the monster had eaten her. I knew the monster killed my only sister, Rachana.

My brother was to the left of my dad, I to the right. When the grumbling began, tears welled in the both of our eyes. Then the rumbling grew more intense, and our eyes became the sources of waterfalls pouring down our cheeks. My dad held the both of us tight to his body, I in his right hand, my brother in his left. And my brother and I began sobbing, moaning, screaming for her, and we didn’t know why. We didn’t care why. Our sister was gone. My father joined in the chorus of moans, and my mom too – she was 14

the loudest, her screams reminding me of her screams when she was lying in her blankets. Eight rivers streaming from eight eyes, mourning wails emitting from four mouths. We were the only ones weeping, moaning, as everyone stared at us, at our endless agony.

That’s all I remember. Crying. And her name. I remember her name: Rachana. She was here and not, present and gone, forever. The sister I could’ve known, should’ve known, would’ve known, if not for the fates. I could imagine her growing up. If she had grown to the age of one or two, I would’ve started seeing that her face resembled my mother’s pretty face. Then she would’ve grown long dark hair, and she would’ve become a beautiful young woman. My brother and I would’ve played pranks on her, taught her how to kick a soccer ball, told her that all the boys in this world suck, except for us of course. And now, we can do none of it. I can only imagine the smile on her face, even though I never knew her as anything other than a watermelon.

But the monster came and found her. It killed my sister.

My Rachana. Her name was Creation, but all I remember was her Demise.

15

Marshall West Noah Altshuler

When Marshall West shaves, he starts above his lip, moves to his chin, jaw, sideburns, neck. He cleans the razor in his cracked porcelain sink, washes his face, and then re-opens the shaving cream. Spreading the foam over his left hand, he then shaves his thumb, an inch long stump cut short by a band saw. When he was 35, he had been cutting wood for fence posts when his hand slipped, and the blade tore through skin, flesh, and bone. Blood splattered like a Pollock painting on the maple boards, and he rushed to the hospital, but the doctors couldn’t reattach the lost third of his thumb. Instead, they sewed it shut with a patch of skin from his abdomen that now grows hair just as vigorously as it would have had it never left home.

When he showers, he scrubs his swollen knees with dish soap, scraping off dirt and grime with the rough green side of a sink sponge. Since he was 43, he has had rheumatoid arthritis, which fills his weathered joints like water balloons with fluid, bitter, pulpy and pink like grapefruit juice. He is 64 now, with gray-blue eyes, soft, furrowed skin, and teeth like aged ivory piano keys, yellowed and chipped. His smile is wide, his hair, black and gray, and his face, neck, and thumb have stubble like sandpaper. He is quite handsome, and rugged, and calloused, and he was a great boss.

I worked for Marshall when I was 13 years old. He runs a farm on Lake Champlain in Vermont, and hired me to help him with haying one August. At the time, he had a crew of ten or fifteen men, all with tough tattooed skin, bulging muscles, husky voices, and lumberjack beards, but as a favor to my parents, whom he had known since college, he took me off their hands for a few weeks of haying.

Haying is a brutal business. There’s lifting, throwing, dragging, catching, tossing, dodging, stacking, straightening, tying, fixing, sweating, pulling, grabbing, heaving, bleeding, and at the 16

end of the day there’s always another field to bale and loft to fill. For me, a big-headed boy from Boston, it was even worse. I had nothing to offer the hayers, the rugged country men with biceps bigger than my thighs, and they knew it. Hardly moving their lips, they would call me “Barn Arms,” laughing through their rotting teeth at the pale-skinned city boy who could barely lift a bale. I didn’t fit in.

I felt weak and useless, which I was, and I wanted to go home, back to guitars and pianos and poetry, things that made sense for arms like mine. Still, I tried my best to follow along, throwing my body into the hay and hoping the bales might do me a favor and stack themselves. But they never did, and I was left to cheer on the real men as they picked up my slack.

At lunchtime, while the country men sat on their tailgates and cussed through haying stories, I sat alone behind the barn thinking of home. I was no good at haying, at being tough, strong, and masculine, and I wanted to quit. But before I could, Marshall pulled up in his rusted red brick pickup truck, an old 1963 Ford that sputtered and spat as it stopped, and called for me to get in: “We have work to do.”

He didn’t tell me what the work was, what signpost needed painting, what fence needed fixing. I assumed it was just another farm chore, but as we drove past the dairy, past meadows and woodshops and sugarhouses, I was stumped. Still, so long as it wasn’t haying, I didn’t care.

The car slowed to a stop just in front of the lake. His swollen arthritic fingers fidgeted the key from the ignition, and wiggled his seatbelt lose. Massaging his knuckles, he stepped out of the car.

“Grab the oars from the truck bed,” he said as he walked towards the shore, the pebbles crunching loudly beneath his boots. As I retrieved the paddles, Marshall dragged a rowboat down to the water.

Pulling off the blue tarp and pointing to a white motorboat moored in the bay, he told me to get in. “We’re going skiing.”

He was silent at first as he rowed us towards the moored 17

boat, with the water splashing and churning and the rusted oar locks clicking as he dipped and pulled, dipped and pulled the oars over his angled knees. He started speaking slowly, and clumsily, talking first about the motorboat I would ski from, the skis I would use, the lake we were on. He then continued to tell me about his life, how his great great grandfather had been an oil baron, how he and six brothers had grown up in the Upper East Side, how he had gone to all the right places, Trinity and Groton and Yale, but all along, something had been missing.

One summer, he told me, he worked on a friend’s farm in Vermont and fell in love. “There was something about the farm that was bigger than school. I loved getting dirt under my nails and muck on my boots, the feeling of haying. Bale by bale, loft by loft, I could change the world, if only a little bit.”

He dropped out of Yale and hayed at various farms across Vermont and New York, saving pennies and nickels as he moved from one loft to the next. “It’s what I loved, the spirit of a good day’s work, getting things done. Grades, numbers, all that, it’s just ink and paper… I wanted more.” So he’s worked on a farm ever since, eventually making enough money to buy his own. And there he was, a man who had grown up much as I had, with comfort and education, pressed clothes and vacations, and a future on Wall Street. But that wasn’t his dream. What was right and good and noble was a life on the farm. So he threw out the pennants and blazers and notebooks to get his hands dirty, to do his best to make a difference. Hearing all of this, I felt even more useless than before.

Not only was I an awful farmer, a barn-armed, big-headed fool, but the few things I was good were irrelevant. Ink and paper, I thought.

Ink and paper. At that moment, I was ready to quit. But before I could, Marshall taught me how to walk on water.

Before I got in the lake, he mimed the whole process for me, propping himself up on the back of his boat to show me how it was done: how to hold the rope, how to hold my legs, and then how to fly. As he acted it all out, I could tell it hurt, his swollen knees 18

weighing him down like sandbags, but he didn’t care. His arthritis could keep him from skiing, but it couldn’t stop me. He wouldn’t let it.

It took me eight tries, or nine, but I stood. With my thin, pale, barn arms flailing behind the rope, I pulled myself up and out of the dark blue-green water, carving my way across the glassy surface. When I stood, I could see Marshall’s face light up, his smile shining in the rearview mirror. Even with the engine growling between us, I could hear him shouting, bursting with joy like a bottle rocket, “You did it!”

It’s so easy to explain sin, to trace evil back to its roots and soil, but grace, and kindness; those come with no trunk to follow.

Yes, Marshall doesn’t ski anymore. A few years back, his doctor told him that while his heart and soul can ride behind the boat, his knees, wrists, and neck no longer can. But I can, and I did, and from across the wake it seemed like that was enough for Marshall.

19

A Bottle Blond Walks into a Nursing Home Daisy Collins

I didn’t meet my grandfather until I was nine. He was like a character in a book that my mother would read to me over and over again, the corners of the pages softened with wear. I tried to imagine him often: the shape of his chin, the length of his nose, the way he walked or spoke. I always pictured him handsome and lively, the “generator of fun” my mother described. Because we had never met, he existed only in her stories. I heard them countless times, but because of my mother’s need to protect me she left out the stories she remembers the most.

There was only one picture of him. It’s taken at some sort of stadium or amphitheater, and he’s wearing his Navy uniform.

He’s sitting with his arms resting on his knees, and leaning forward slightly. My grandmother is next to him. At her funeral, a man told me that she had been so beautiful “you could feel it when she walked into a room”, and when I look at this picture, I know why.

My grandfather is leaning forward in the bright sunshine and she sits in his shadow, ankles crossed, in a white dress and dark red lipstick. They look so young, and so happy. This was the closest I ever came to clearly picturing him; a fuzzy black and white photo from the forties. My mother tells me they only knew each other for a week before getting engaged. I pictured them falling in love quickly and deeply, swept up in wartime. He told her his wedding gift to her was small, black, and expensive. She anticipated a Singer sewing machine, but found herself with a Cocker spaniel puppy.

She later got the Singer, which my sister and I used to make dolls’ clothes and lopsided pillows. The story made me think of the sewing machine as magical and vaguely romantic; I carefully traced the wheel and bobbins as if it were a holy relic.

I don’t remember why my mother decided it was time.

Maybe she knew he was dying, maybe we were old enough. She had been to visit him a few times that year. My grandfather was only 20

about a hundred and fifty miles south of us in Danville, a depressed mill town. She took my sister and me to see him, as well as the place she had grown up. As my grandfather was a character in my mother’s stories, Danville had always almost seemed fictional. She spoke so clearly about the fire department, the movie theater, going out for “kicks” on Friday nights. As we drove by old tobacco fields and sagging houses, I felt slight disappointment at the place I had heard so much about.

When we entered the nursing home, I remember being overwhelmed by the smell of urine and dry air. I also remember my heart pounding, and being worried that my hands would be clammy. I was a sensitive kid, often described as “the soft one.” I was old enough to imagine a moment upon meeting my grandfather, and young enough to have overly high expectations: I imagined the handsome, funny man from my mother’s stories standing up as we entered the room. I imagined myself running to him and hugging him.

His wife, Marion, and my mother chatted stiffly until we came to his door. It opened, and sitting by the window, small and crumpled into his wheelchair, was the man I had been dreaming about. Marion rolled the chair towards us as my mother said,

“Daddy… these are the girls.”

My heart was racing. This was it. This was the moment. He was looking at me, really looking. This was what I had been imagining. This was where everything would become real and not a story.

His eyes, brown and slightly bulging, were studying me. I was in the middle of wondering how to hug someone in a wheelchair when he said in a wobbling voice, “Are you a bottle blond?”

I froze, then burned, and then, upon my mother’s cue, laughed.

21

That night we went to a Winn-Dixie and bought oatmeal cookie cream pies, just like the ones my mother used to eat.

“Something’s different about these. I think the ratio’s off.”

My mother told many stories about how fun, charming, and full of energy my grandfather was, but she had also made it clear that he was not a good man. We knew he hurt our grandmother and our aunt very badly, but their pain was too big for us to understand then. We knew, somehow, that he was the one that had left my mother broken. When my grandfather died, my mother did not cry. She carried a heaviness around with her.

My grandmother also remarried several times. She finally found Fred, who was the real man in juxtaposition to the imaginary character of my grandfather, as he had played the role of grandfather in my life since birth. Fred was quiet, and gentle, and sweet.

He was good at sitting in silence, only speaking when he felt moved to. He loved hummingbirds and airplanes and ice cream. Fred, like my mother’s family, had hurt too. He carried it with him; it clung into the creases on his forehead and around his eyes. As he aged, it began to fade along with his memory. He wasn’t anxiously looking toward the future, and he couldn’t remember the past, and so at the end of his life was living completely, utterly in the present, and therefore was completely at peace. I would come into his apartment and find him watching a movie, or looking out the window, or reading a book. I’d hug him tight and sit down next to him, ask and answer a few questions, and then simply be there. Sometimes I would bring him a candy bar, or hang up paper cranes on the ceiling while he directed me on where they should go. Sometimes, he’d turn to me and ask, “Do you ever indulge in cloud gazing?”

And we’d shuffle outside to watch the giant clouds, full with summer. One visit in particular, I was sitting with him, holding his hand, and in our companionable silence I was struck with grati22

tude. I felt no obligation to make conversation or small talk. I didn’t have to try to be interesting or funny or smart to try and entertain him. Being there was enough. I must have looked lost in thought, because he asked,

“What are you thinking about?”

“I’m… I’m thinking about how much I love you.”

He laughed.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Same thing.”

As I reflect on meeting my grandfather for the first time, I can’t help feeling slightly embarrassed at my expectations. It was always hard to separate the fact from the fiction of what I knew about him, but it should have been clear that he wasn’t particularly interested in my existence. I know this now, and I don’t feel bitterness. I don’t think he was a good man, but I also don’t think he was a well man. In this case, it’s important to recognize the difference.

There’s another frame on the table, along with the picture of my grandparents at the stadium. It’s of my grandmother and Fred, taken when they were in their late seventies. They’re standing back to back, and they are both in the light. My grandmother is wearing a pink shirt, and she is smiling, and she is so beautiful I can feel it.

My grandfather is wearing a dark suit and has a small, but very real smile. I know now that that is the face I should have been studying all those years; those were the stories to be tracing with my fingers.

I look at their picture, taken on a spring day on their front lawn, and I can tell that she is deeply, deeply in love with him. I study his face, his small smile, and I have a feeling that he’s thinking the same thing.

23

THE CROSSING Philippe Heitzmann

It was around three o’clock when I started noticing a change in the behavior of the passers-by. I was sitting at the table of some Spanish café in the heart of Sevilla, half-listening to my Mom reading me passages out of her travel guide, ranging from the Moorish architectural influence on the Catedral de Sevilla to the names of the bridges spanning the Guadalquivir River that were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. Our table encroached on a small square paved with smooth slabs of white stone paler than the elderly German tourists walking by in socks and sandals. Meanwhile, my two younger siblings, Edouard and Victoria, were sloshing away in a fountain in the center of the square under the supervision of my father, who would tickle them if they dared splash him and get too close. It was July in Andalusia and I had just turned ten years old, an age whose two digits made me think I was now a grownup. I would soon learn I was wrong.

Despite my mother’s soothing voice and the sparks of childish laughter coming from the fountain, I could feel a certain tension in the crowd. I thought it was perhaps the end of the afternoon siesta; yet more and more teenagers, especially young men, started bustling around the square. Many were shirtless, beating their sunsoaked chests at nobody in particular and spewing loud torrents of what I guessed were Spanish swear words. Occasionally, one rabblerouser would spot a tourist walking towards him and maintain a collision course until the very last second, when he would step out of the way and shout ¡Ole! as the scared foreigner scattered away, to the delight of the other boys hanging behind. Sometimes a young Spaniard would feel especially creative and extend an imaginary cape for the tourist to walk into, then withdraw in a dignified manner and salute an imaginary crowd with a slight twirl of the wrist, cueing his friends to huddle around him and yell ¡El Ma-ta-dor! ¡El Ma-ta-dor!.

24

Those performances were certainly more exciting than my

mother’s regurgitation of facts, and I found myself at the edge of my seat. Something was brewing, and I wanted to know what it was.

“Maman, where is everybody going?” I interrupted.

“To the running of the bulls, sweetie. They release bulls in the streets and people run with them. It’s very dangerous, and it’s only for grownups.”

But I was a grownup. I too could shout nonsense while running at a sightseer and swing my hips at the last second to avoid being gored by the imaginary horns of an imaginary bull. I was ready.

“But Maman, I’m ten now. I’m strong like Dad and I can run fast. Please please please please please…”

“You’ll have to wait till you’re older, sweetheart. Not today,” my mother replied, stroking my hair as she spoke.

I sunk back into my chair, more upset by the fact that I was still subject to blatant motherly affection than by her refusal.

I couldn’t stand being treated like a child. I envied the groups of older boys horsing around on the plaza, making their way to the thrill of a lifetime. I slurped my drink and blew loud bubbles, but my mother resumed her travel book lecture, taking no heed of my clear show of discontent.

As I kept on pouting, a group of policemen emerged from a side alley into the square. An uneasy stillness overtook most of the troublemakers, prompting many to hurriedly hide bottles of tequila into backpacks or to hush their macho talking. My father turned his head from my shrieking sibling to see why the tension had suddenly built. He raised his eyebrows and trailed off into his characteristic slow nod that rocks his whole body. He gazed past the crowd and, by the looks of his eyes, entered a state of recollection that my family has since jokingly dubbed “l’Univers de Papa,” in reference to the otherworldly dimension of thinking that his distant facial expression seems to transport him to. After a few moments in “l’Univers,” he returned to our world with a sly smile creasing his face. Based 25

on my grandmother’s dinner table stories about my Dad’s adolescent confrontations with the law, the smile told me that my Dad saw his younger self in the crowds of tipsy young men around us. I would be seeing the bulls today.

My father gathered my siblings and carried their squirming bodies on each shoulder and back to our table. They flapped their towels in a sign of protest, yet despite their best efforts, Edouard and Victoria found themselves seated and strapped into their baby-seats in a short time. My father took a sip of his Perrier and slumped into his chair before turning to my Mom and asking about the commotion.

“It’s the bullrun, honey. They’re releasing the bulls at four o’clock in the old part of town.”

The smile immediately returned. He sat upright and stared off into his private dimension again, wringing his hands all the while.

“Maybe I should go watch with Philippe. He’s come of age, and it’d give him a good taste of the culture.”

My mother glanced up from her book, unconvinced.

“Or we could choose not to go the hospital on this trip. The tapas should give him a good taste of the culture already, so why don’t we just relax and enjoy our vacation instead?”

An argument started between my parents. Thankfully, the occasional stares from the tourists kept the tone down, but the waiter still brought us our bill as quickly as possible so that we wouldn’t scare off any clients. I fiddled with my cutlery and thought to how I could end this. There was a single rule in their debates: whoever’s native language was used would win the debate. My Dad is a lawyer and could usually argue his way out of most disputes, but only if they were in French, which is his native language; ones 26

in English would almost always go to my Mom. Thus, in accordance with this simple law, each responded to the other’s contentions in their respective native languages, wrestling to gain the verbal advantage. I was desperate to see the bulls, so I chimed in my own pleading in French. Sure enough, my mother took the bait and replied to me in French, allowing my father to press on in his first language. The argument continued in French for a short while until my Mom capitulated, bitterly adding that we could follow the shirtless drunkards if that was really what we men were interested in. My father didn’t leave her any time to change her mind and took my hand to lead me into the square.

It didn’t take long to reach the medieval section of Sevilla.

The streets funneled into small roads as wide as cow-paths, and even if the gradually narrowing passageways weren’t indication enough, the shouts of the drunk Spaniards ahead would guide us.

We arrived a little before four o’clock at the site of the release. My father decided it would be safer to stand halfway down the course of the bulls, so we continued walking until we suddenly heard the boom of a pistol followed by cheering. My father immediately pushed me behind metal barriers that blockaded a side alley from the main road. Two policemen in short sleeves stood by us, but by the look of the uncorked bottle of wine they shared I understood they were here to spectate. My father told me to enjoy the show.

I tracked the time on my Mickey Mouse watch, and not a minute later I saw the bull barreling down the path. The animal wielded long horns with the ends cut off; yet even without its primary weapons the bull could no doubt inflict serious damage.

Its black coat, glistening with sweat in the afternoon heat, rose and fell with each successive labored breath. It was ready to trample any amateur matadors who would get too close. There were plenty of targets to choose from, too. Many Spaniards would run across the street and slap the bull’s rear before jumping onto high fencing or grabbing the railing of first floor balconies to hoist themselves out of reach of the furious horns trying to hit any dangling feet or ankles.

27

I glanced up at my father and he looked just as enthralled in the dangerous game as I was. We cheered when the occasional drunkard would try to touch the horns of the animal or dodge a charge in extremis. But I wanted more than to simply resign to the sidelines; I wanted to run. I looked around and the policemen were too deep into their bottle to bother. The metallic gate didn’t fully attach to the left wall of the alley, and while my father was busy hailing the idiotic courage of the attention seekers, I slipped through the hole. I hesitated on the other side of the sidewalk, only a few meters away from the bull.

The bull was absorbing its surroundings, shaking its head to scatter the flies perching on its muzzle. The crowd was loud and rowdy, yet the animal just stood there as its obsidian hooves extended into the dark macadam of the road. I wanted to be like the bull, unchanged by its environment and confident that its place was in the middle of the passageway. I wanted to let the sweat drip down my neckline and stare back at the sun, unfazed by the crowd and the heat. This was my rite of passage, my chance to prove myself. My first tentative step onto the road didn’t solicit any reactions, and I skirted at the edge but off the sidewalk, scouting the terrain.

Drunkards ran around me, dancing around the bull with warm bottles of beer in hand. I took a deep breath. It was my time.

But a young shirtless man suddenly pushed me from behind so that he could get onto the street, and in an instant I was stumbling on the street. I choked on the clouds of dust and got back to my feet, but the bull was facing me. Its inky eyes transfixed me, and it shook its ears to relieve itself of the flies. I let out a shriek of terror and bolted across the road.

Midway through the crossing I heard my father shout my name, but his words were drowned out by the Spanish voices on the other side. I thought that I had already braved the worst danger against the bull, until I reached the opposite sidewalk of the path, where somebody yanked my collar back and shoved me into the crowded hallway of an old building. I looked up to see one of 28

the amateur showmen, who didn’t look too pleased to have a child repeat some of his stunts, which he made sure to tell me in a storm of Spanish and spit. He pushed me back into the hallway while he entered back into his personal arena of glory, taking a swig of warm wine from his bottle as he went. I gagged from the smell of urine, sweat, and alcohol that hit me, and I was jostled to the back by the avid spectators in the entrance. I was lost beneath towering giants who spoke a foreign language, and I panicked. I abandoned all grownup pretense and started to sob against a molding wall of the hallway, cursing myself for my stupidity.

A few minutes later, a wrinkled hand softly touched my arm and pulled me to my feet. The old lady didn’t let go of my trembling hand and pushed her way through the cheering crowd at the entrance. The bull was only a few feet away from the gate, and the locals were throwing rocks from the safety of their iron bars to provoke the beast. Nonetheless, the lady didn’t slow her pace and crossed the threshold of the hallway into the street while I trailed behind her. The clouds of dust stung my puffy eyes and I was at once blinded by the Sevillian sun. I heard a familiar voice to my right and saw my father hanging on a railing on the opposite side of the street, edging his way towards the entrance of the hallway.

His hairline was damp with sweat and he was shouting at a local, asking him if he had seen his son. The local was too busy watching the bullrun and simply shrugged. My father insulted the bystander in frustration and scanned the crowd once more, squinting to see through the screen of dust. He finally spotted a teary child squeezing the hand of an old lady, and yelled at me to stay exactly where I was. I tasted the salt dripping down my cheeks, and smiled.

My father crossed the street while the bull was busy investigating the source of the pebbles bruising its flank. He grabbed my hand and took his wallet out to thank the old lady, but the old lady declined with a twist of her hand and disappeared back into the darkness of the hallway. The bull hadn’t noticed our family gathering yet, and my father took me in his arms and hurried across the street. I buried my face into his shoulder and cried some more, 29

relieved by the warmth and security of his strong arms.

We walked back in the shadows of the cream-colored houses bordering the medieval alleys of Sevilla. At an intersection in the road we found a small vendor shop, and we crossed the road to enter the store and buy something to drink. An older Spanish man dressed in an elegant blue shirt beamed at us from behind the counter as we crossed the threshold, and my father asked for two bottles of water in Spanish. After we licked every last drop of fresh water, my father bought a cold beer and the old man gifted me a small bottle of bubble soap because I “needed to cheer up.”

Hand-in-hand we made our way back to our hotel. My father sipped on his beer while I blew bubbles into the cool air of dusk. The bubbles popped around me. I squeezed my father’s hand.

30

Into the Cathedral Samantha Crozier

I spent my youth bathed in the rainbow colors of light filtering in through stained-glass windows. The school that I attended before Groton sat adjacent to St. Andrews Cathedral, the most ornate and famous religious structure in Hawaii. Every Tuesday, I would don a plaid dress and red tie and file in through the great wooden doors of the cathedral. I have memories of the sound of organ music and the smell of candles and the weight of a Hymnal in my hands—but all of these memories are accompanied by a sense of unrest, a feeling that I was an intruder in a fortress of glass and pale stone. I was drawn to the rituals, entranced by the symbolic elegance of dipping a wafer into a silver chalice filled with wine and marching slowly down the nave with a wooden cross, wearing a white robe that seemed to be sewn at the beginning of time. Yet, the moment I sipped the wine, I was left with the metallic taste of guilt. This feeling was heightened when I sat in mandatory Christian studies classes, memorizing and reciting Bible verses that I still know by heart. It seemed strange to me, even then, that we always referred to God as “he,” and that the devil could be anywhere, lingering in the shadows—red-eyed and watching. I remember envying other girls who talked of Sunday school and baptisms, wearing their piety like a badge of honor. My family never went to church on Sundays—and, because I was not old enough to either understand the true beauty of religion or to articulate my misgivings— I felt damned.

Ever since the earth started its creaky revolution around its axis and human beings began to think, people have asked the question: Is there a God? When I sat in that cathedral, I was overwhelmed and excluded by the conviction of those around me. I could not say the words of the Lord’s Prayer; I could not join the resounding chorus of Amen that echoed after every prayer; I could not answer yes to the most important question of our existence. I remember standing near the altar and looking up at a white-haired chaplain as he used his thumb to mark my forehead with a cross of 31

ashes. As the final chords of the closing hymn sounded and every uniform-clad girl filed out of the chapel and into the school building, I slipped quietly into the bathroom. After looking at myself in the mirror, wide-eyed and daubed with black ash—I made the cacophonous decision to quietly wipe away the cross.

Though I could not—and still cannot—recite the words of the Nicene Creed (the beginning of the final verse reads: “I believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins”), I still loved the idea of belief, the profound wellspring of hope that poured from the baptismal font. The brilliance of religion is that it teaches humans to love without limits, to look through the body and into the soul. And yet, as I stood there in that white-walled bathroom—with windows that were cracked and dusty and depicted no saints or prophets—I found that the mark on my body did not bleed into my soul.

To keep the cross on my forehead, I knew, would make me a liar. But although I could not accept the cross itself, the essence of the cross is what has stayed with me to this day.

Religion, in all of its forms and disciplines, is a brilliant thing. It forces people to ask the question: Is there a God? And in asking this question, I believe we catch a glimpse of another layer to our world, the possibility of a greater, uniting force that touches all who draw breath. In choosing to believe in something greater, we let ourselves hope. Though I may have squirmed in the wooden pews and fallen silent when we had to declare our allegiance to a god whom I only ever knew as “Lord,” I am grateful for my place in that cathedral because it taught me how to ask the most important question of all—one that is more important than the verification of a deity: how can we have hope?

Hope graces life with a beauty that no other virtue can provide. It is so potent that it is almost instinctual. Think of all the times that humans justify events with the platitude: it was meant to be. We have no way of knowing if anything that happens is truly 32

meant to be. Yet, we still have faith that we are more than bodies meant to fertilize the earth around us—even if this hope is unconscious. We live, form relationships, have moments of happiness and simply being. We would not do this if we were not creatures of faith, of light. Hope is what ignites a fire of belief in human beings, like altar candles puncturing the weighted dark. Without hope, there would be no stained-glass windows letting in light; instead, we would live our lives blindly, feeling around on the inside of a crypt.

Though I believe in hoping, I cannot say that I believe in a God; in my opinion, the word itself shouldn’t even be singular. The concept, to me, transcends both the singular and the plural. It is, quite simply, an everything. I believe in the universe, in the fabric of the human soul, in an order that is so perfect and profound that trying to articulate it with words would be futile. I believe in a collective human spirit—and I believe in the inter-connectedness of that spirit to the earth and the cosmos. But most of all I believe, quite simply, in believing. We must accept that we will never know the answer to the question of a higher power, but we must keep asking it. And we must believe that it has an answer. Even if one chooses to answer with a resounding no, the denial of divinity in itself is a belief, a philosophy, a statement from which meaning and purpose can be derived.

A few years after I had left my old school, I went back to that old cathedral. Vacant and silent, I found it all the more brilliant. A cathedral filled with people demanded answers, an empty cathedral whispered questions. I walked by the pews that I sat in the last time I ever smelt the altar candle burning, but I never sat down. Instead, I made my way to the very back—where a hundred thousand pieces of rainbow-colored glass were pieced together to fill an entire wall. And there, I felt comfortable asking myself whether the colored light shining through the windows held a truth that transcended the ancient scenes, carefully constructed in earthly stained-glass.

33

Deus Sowon Lee

I met Deus this summer at an isolated convent on the borders of Rome—the perfect place to find God, no? I am not a nun, and Deus, as far as I know, is not the second coming of Christ. The convent was the campus of a summer language camp that taught Latin and Greek through immersion; we were allowed to speak only these two languages at all times (in truth, no student attempted Greek outside of class except in short phrases for fear of bursting a blood vessel while navigating the seven tenses, three moods, and three voices). Last year, I had struggled with speaking a language I had only ever read until I encountered other English speakers willing to talk in our native tongue. Consequently, while my Latin skills did not increase as dramatically as expected, I befriended characters worthy of biographies, among them my Spanish roommate, Adriana, who is one of my best friends today. She and I vowed to return the following year; for a while it seemed impossible as my application was not accepted until the last minute, but it must have been the fates, for I returned as promised for the second round of adventure.

It was the first night, at dinner. Adriana noticed him first.

“Desiderata! (This is my terrible Latin name.) Desiderata!” She grabbed my shirt sleeve and pulled me closer to whisper (in Latin).

“Look! Over there, in the blue shirt.”

Casually pretending to stretch my arms, I twisted around and glanced in the indicated direction. There were several people in blue shirts, but the one who caught Adriana’s attention was unmistakable. He had tanned honey skin, and flowing milk chocolate hair to match, naturally swirled to give Edward Cullen and his windblown locks a run for his money (Deus, like Edward, has never groomed his hair in his life). His eyes were jade green, and stunning in the sunlight. Even his mustache and beard, although I had always hated facial hair, only made him look divine. It wasn’t hard to believe that he had just stepped off the express cloud ferry from 34

Olympus. When I turned back to Adriana slowly, she giggled, “Est Deus! (He’s a god!) Maybe Adonis.” I nodded my silent assent. If Adonis, the god of beauty, were to walk on Earth, surely this entity was his incarnation. Thus, he became known to us as Deus. Although we learned his real name soon after, we always called him by his codename except to his face.

For the next two weeks, Adriana and I worshiped our local god. We could usually count on him being at the swimming pool during every break, so we looked out our window to catch a glimpse of the “deus natabuli” (god of the swimming pool). He cut a lithe figure in the blazing sun, bounding like he had springs attached to his heels. When he reclined on his back, reading by the edge of the pool after a swim, the female population of all ages walked by and murmured to each other, “Armani model.” If Michelangelo had decided to sculpt Narcissus by his pool instead of David, and if Narcissus preferred reading over hunting, Deus would have been his muse. However, despite the fact that he was the most striking person there, he preferred to listen rather than talk. In vain, Adriana and I peered out of the window at the swimming pool like Echo gazing upon Narcissus, watching this mythical creature pass by feet away. As we came no closer to figuring him out, we wondered what was behind the watchful marble façade. Adriana continued to sit by the window while I turned my back, mistaking his silence as confirmation of the shallowness behind the glorious mask.

Not every pretty face has a story to tell, but this one did. Two weeks in, at a fellow camper’s farewell party, I found myself with Deus and two other classmates I hadn’t met formally, and we started talking over a bottle of free champagne.

Deus was born in a small village in Argentina with four hundred people. He has seven siblings and is the fifth child. Now he lives in Buenos Aires; rather, his parents live there because he doesn’t have a permanent house. He wanders the continents, staying with friends or renting apartments. After college in Buenos Aires, where he earned a law degree, he studied at a conservatory. The music training at a conservatory there takes ten years, according to 35

him, so he must have left in the middle of the program; nevertheless, when he played guitar, his legs crossed, head gently bent over like a flower in the breeze, you would have sworn that you were in the presence of Apollo.

His jobs are as varied as his interests. Having fenced for six years competitively, he decided to be an instructor for a few years.

Since he loves skiing, earlier this year he filled an opening at a ski resort in Colorado as a cook and skied in his leisure time; the fact that he knew nothing about cooking didn’t deter him for a second.

The same happened with photography. Before coming to camp, a friend had called from Andorra with a job offer, asking if he knew how to take pictures. Deus had never picked up a camera in his life, so he replied, “No—but I can learn.” He bought the plane ticket that night and two weeks later, he was a professional photographer in Andorra. He is currently a lawyer, computer programmer, and student. This winter, he is heading to Spain to study classics at university, but he may also be a hang-gliding instructor on the side.

Deus claimed he spoke English albeit terribly, but he insisted on talking in Latin, forcing me to actually become fluent, as the program intended. We let our T-shirt clad bodies freeze as we dipped our feet in the pool and discussed the morality of lawyers and argued for pro-life or pro-choice. Neither of us saw the surrealism of the scene: two strangers heatedly debating under the spotlight of the moon in a language no one bothered to speak for hundreds of years. We would hoist ourselves over the fence that surrounded campus and wander on the roads until they led to dead-ends. In ungodly hours of the night, we meandered, weaving through lonely paths and conversation.

“Americans are stupid. I’m sorry, but it’s true,” Deus declared.

It wasn’t the first time I heard this, but it usually came out the mouths of my Asian friends who had finished calculus when they were twelve. Besides, people at camp saw me differently; being 36

mostly full-time scholars or teachers, they looked at me and saw a starry-eyed girl enchanted by Rome and new people. Although I told them about my life at boarding school, they could not imagine me as I was for most of the year, powering through work and sports rather than frolicking in the summer sun. “What do you mean? I’m not stupid.”

“I know you’re not stupid. Americans are intelligent, but they think all wrong. For example, why do you think people work?”

I looked at him, eyes narrowed. “For money. Because you need money to live.”

“Yes. But you don’t stop working when you have money.

You keep working to climb to the top, to become rich and powerful.

When you have money, you will save it, no? When finally you retire and have time to spend your money, you’ll be old and die.” This was a problem I had discussed fruitlessly with friends but could not solve. I nodded. “You see now? Americans are stupid.” He laughed then. “I study Latin because it’s a beautiful language. What will you do by studying classics? Are you hoping it will make you money?”

Deus didn’t even realize that he reached a sore point. People asked in derision all the time how I would make money with classics, and I always replied in frustration that I study classics for its own sake. Nevertheless, I swallowed my pride and admitted he had a point. I had been seeking another, more fulfilling approach to life, and the answer was walking right beside me. Deus had no house and next to nothing saved up. How was it possible to be so dependent on serendipity, to walk a tightrope with nothing below? How did he carry his belongings and relationships with him when he was always moving on?

“I move roughly every three months. After that, it starts to feel like prison. Traveling isn’t expensive—once, in Spain, I rowed down a river for a week and camped in a tent every night. And I don’t see why I should spend money on things—I have two pairs of 37

shoes and seven shirts. I don’t have a phone because my computer is enough. Those things don’t mean anything. As for people, I have my family in Buenos Aires and I can see them any time. People are everywhere, but I haven’t yet met anyone who can make me stay in one place. I suppose I want a family later, but only when I meet someone truly special. Happiness doesn’t cost much. Wine is cheap in Argentina. Give me wine and music and that’s all I need.”

I understood then. Deus was free. He carried no weight on his shoulders because he strode through life lugging no belongings, no place, no people to weigh him down. In exchange for uncertainty, Deus had independence. Although he had nothing to fall back on, he kept forging ahead. He did what he wanted when it suited him, choosing only freelance jobs. The only anchor in his life was debt. Immediately I assumed that this was the catch, the price to pay for such freedom. However, he owed only a couple of thousand euros to his brother, which he was paying back after camp was over.

Deus was by no means perfect. The simple fact that he looked presentable, let alone picturesque, was incredible considering he spent nothing on personal care items. His teeth were neither straight nor gleaming white, but at this point, his appearance was no longer the main attraction. Moreover, he didn’t have all the answers I looked for. When he needed to settle down with a family, how would he buy a house and raise his children? He didn’t know, but said he had time. He said that a lot—that he had time. One day, however, he would be out of time. He would be too old to camp outdoors and run barefoot on gravel as he is accustomed to doing without feeling pain in his bones. At this point, he looked straight at me without missing a step and said that he would die, because if life was for enjoying, then what should stop him from ending it when it became a constant pain?

I had arrived at camp struggling, but mostly resigned, to accept the path that the American dream had mapped out, trudging after the pot of gold at the end of the road. As I departed, I was just as confused, but I had seen that a lifestyle as unconventional and 38

unpredictable as Deus’ could lead to happiness. His flight was two days after mine, yet on the morning of my flight (if five hours past midnight can be considered morning) he embraced me for the first time as we said farewell.

Two days later, waking up in a tiny hotel room in Portland, Maine, I sat up in bed and thought of Deus for the first time since I left. There was a faint but distinct ache in my chest as I remembered. Again, I felt the damp grass under my feet as we darted nimbly back and forth, lunging and parrying with makeshift wooden fencing foils, never breaking eye contact; I heard gravel crunching as we both chased after a frog at three in the morning, alternately crouching and hopping as if we were frogs ourselves, and laughing hysterically as he wrapped himself around a tree and attempted to climb after the elusive frog. He had compared me to his favorite sister, and I saw him as the older brother I never had. Accordingly, I was confused by the throbbing and hollowness that pervaded me.

What was Deus doing now in Buenos Aires and where would he go next? He would be racing from one adventure to another, meeting people as unique as himself. Meanwhile, I would be another tourist in Portland, lumbering after my parents and eating lobster that cost more than Deus’ weekly spending. The smell of marine sewage in the air lingered. In a week, I would be back at school, buckling down through the insanity of daily life as if Deus was simply a fading memory. He would stride ever forwards into new places as I stayed exactly where I was. As often as was socially acceptable, I snatched the opportunity to chat on Facebook; one sleepless night, I gazed for a long while at his latest message, “Bonam noctem, mea cara (good night, my dear)” before drifting off with a shivering heart. There was no reason I should feel such longing, but I reasoned that it must be a malady as of yet new to me: love.

Weeks passed. I returned to school, carrying Deus’s spirit with me. With an entirely different outlook on the future, I felt freer than I had for years; specifically, since my mother deemed me 39

old enough to break the news that being a professional dancer was unacceptable, because my aspirations should be realistic and (with tacit understanding) lucrative. Like many of my peers, I had been ingrained with the materialistic ideal of the American dream. Since I had assured myself, however, that although it may be expected of me, it was not necessary to chase success in terms of wealth and privilege, I no longer felt a deep-rooted dissatisfaction or desperately missed Deus. The twinge of longing faded as it dawned on me.

Had I been in love with him or his life? For all of Deus’ physical magnetism, his true attraction was his lifestyle. Without his experiences, he would have remained Narcissus, beautiful but shallow, and I, having more sense than Echo, would have lost interest instead of pining for him. All this time, I had not wanted him, but his freedom. The liberty I envied did not have to be an impossibility of my dreams, but an attainable goal of my future.

I admit, I’m terrified. Room to breathe is one thing, but in too much space, I may get lost. Not only am I uncertain of how I would fill that blank space, but I am also hesitant to relinquish the familiar. Like Eveline in Dubliners, I know that a world of potential happiness is open to me, but I am reluctant to let go of the railings.

It is harder for me than Eveline, I imagine, for I know that what I leave behind is desirable. My upbringing has caused me to be accustomed to material comforts and security and to strive for these things. Throwing them to the wind seems senseless. It’s much easier to stay on the well-trod path to conventional success than take a risk and carve your own meandering route to happiness.

Freedom such as Deus’ will take sacrifices. It will not always be easy to leave home to be among strangers, or to bid farewell to friends to meet new ones. When I lose heart, I remind myself that I will never find adventure until I crawl out of the comfort of my hobbit hole. Or in other words, as I like to say to myself: WWDD? What would Deus do?

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Sixth Form May Go Derek Xiao Inspired by “An Open Letter to My Boarding School,” by Josy Jablons

I thought about you a lot over the summer. About your schoolhouse and classrooms and people. And about that night we spent together before I had to go—you, outside my room, waving at me as you often do with that mischievous yet disarming smile on your face, even as you shivered in the brisk spring air of the New England evening.

I invited you inside. You said you’d miss me, and I said the same. With you leaning on my shoulders, we spent that night talking about next year and what we’d do that summer, first about you and the makeover you had planned for when I left for California.

The Corinthian columns and aged red bricks of your Schoolhouse would be covered with scaffolding, you said, and your classrooms would be all mixed up and not where I remembered them to be.

With your cheeks rosy—perhaps because of the cold, or perhaps because this embarrassed you—you assured me, though, that it’d all be back to normal by the time I got back. But I didn’t mind.

Sure, you and your impressive golden dome and neo-Gothic chapel would always take my breath away, but to me, your beauty had always transcended your physical appearance anyway.

The conversation then turned to me and my summer at the art studio, and I told you about the hours I planned on working on my college art portfolio. You joked that I should draw you—“like one of your French girls,” you teased—and I laughed. But then I considered it, and like I fell in love with you as a freshman three years ago, I likewise fell in love with the idea. The piece immediately took on a life of its own in my mind—a huge mural, depicting you and your red oaks and your red common room couches and your red-bricked walls. You, and the long gray ribbons of sky that often reached above your Schoolhouse and Chapel and Brooks House. You, in brush strokes bold and impassioned by the spirit 41

and intellect of those who occupied your vaunted halls, yet at the same time dignified and reserved out of respect for the centuries of tradition that you had overseen. In this mural, there would also be the places we had been together over the last few years: the stiff, plush chairs I’ve taken far too many naps on in the Science Lounge; the boathouse road down which you shared many a quiet nighttime stroll with me and my closest friends; and the small matchbox room in G’s where—along with two roommates—we lived a year so drama-packed that it could probably serve as the plot for next year’s fall play. And of course, the focus of it all would then be the scenes from our time together, both the good and the bad—the late nights and early mornings, struggling through homework and cramming for tests, talking and laughing and studying and learning under the century-old roof of your Schoolhouse.

I didn’t draw you that summer, but I didn’t forget about the idea either—not during the summer, not when I came back to you this September, and not even after you once again overwhelmed me with commitments and essays and tests. Indeed, the idea never ceased manifesting itself in my mind. Thus, when I saw an opportunity to make the dream a reality by signing up for a winter art FSA, I didn’t hesitate to seize it. I typed on my application: “The purpose of my winter art FSA will be the design and creation of a 3’ x 10’ mural depicting Groton.” But that didn’t sound right. I paused while my cursor blinked and read over what I had just typed. “Too vague,” I muttered. Delete. Delete. Delete.

“For my winter art FSA, I will be painting those scenes from Groton that mean the most to me.” That wasn’t it either. Delete. “For my winter art FSA, I will be juxtaposing a black and white background of Groton’s most iconic buildings with scenes that capture the essence of the school.” Nope. “For my winter art FSA, I will be painting scenes from day-to-day campus life on top of a black and white backdrop of Groton’s iconic 19th century architecture.” Close, but no cigar. Finally, in exasperation, I banged on my keyboard in all caps: “GROTON. For my winter art FSA, I just want to paint Groton.”

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It was certainly curious to discover that I couldn’t formulate the words to describe exactly what I wanted to draw of you, all the more so because of our familiarity. Indeed, with the exception of a few school breaks, some away games, and a Shaw’s run or two, you have literally been the only one I have known for the past three years. That I couldn’t define you even with images of your campus dancing through my mind as I sat in the glow of my blank computer screen—the words playfully eluding the frustrated grasps of my consciousness—bothered me like nothing else.

But I suppose that’s just part of your charm. As much as I want to depict you accurately in my mural, and as much as I want to capture what truly makes you mean something to me, I understand that you aren’t just some static being, or some pretty face for me to paint. Even after spending the last three years of my life here with you, you are still as mysterious and enigmatic a presence as you were when I first laid eyes on your lush green fields and stately red bricked buildings as a new third former. Our relationship has likewise remained ever so dynamic, redefining itself with each morning I spend with you in Chapel and each night in the library, each sleepy Saturday sunrise together at 6:00 AM and each cold winter sunset at 5:00 PM. In this sense, you and the memories you invoke may never truly be captured in words or in paint, forever to remain so flirtatiously elusive. Yet as a sixth former with just 189 days left—believe me, I counted—until my time with you will come to its inevitable close with a handshake, a diploma, and a casual “go well,” I also realize that in a short period of time that will probably pass by much too quickly, you will lose your indefinability. You’ll cease to be dynamic to me, and your complicated beauty will be locked in time by the memories we’ve made as I move beyond your Circle. Along with the 10-page lab reports I have to do for Advanced Ecology, it’s quite the thought to keep me up at night.

You do your best to keep my mind off such things, though, by giving me homework and clubs and girls’ playoff soccer games to occupy my mind with instead. And I hate you for doing these 43

things—or at least that’s what I tell my friends. In truth, I know that you’re just looking out for me, and that you want what’s best for me, but sometimes I really wonder if I actually do love you. After all, why should I, after you made me throw away my favorite graphic tees, faded Levi’s, and Nike basketball kicks in favor of those Polo shirts, khakis, and Sperry’s you like? After you whisper nasty rumors and secrets I don’t want to hear into my ears? And after you force me into stiff, wooden chairs each night and watch over me as I make study guides that can be mistaken for novellas, memorize Latin declensions until I dream about them, and stay up until my eyes cannot possibly stay open any longer (only to tell me to go to bed and rest up because I had to wake up and do it all over again the next day)? I know my friends certainly despise you for such things. They hate your fickleness and your constant demands. Your fruit-infused dining hall desserts and the way you refuse to share your Wi-Fi.

Or maybe it’s just because they hate your obsessive tendencies, and the way you jealously control not only the academic lives of all around you, but also our characters, social lives, interests outside of school, food preferences, fashion sense, and everything else in between. They hate your all-encompassing nature and how you have become everything they know, since the things they did with different people in different places before they met you—school, art, sports, dinner, downtime—are instead all spent in the same place now, with you and the same old cast of characters. And while you claim that this is the way it should be, that in fact it’s good that we have such a tight-knit relationship, you know as well as I do that it is also one of the reasons that students get so sick of you by the end of their first year here.

I don’t mind you as much of they do though. I never really have. Sure, you’ve grown from being just a name on some shirt you gave me on Revisit Day to the ubiquitous presence you are in my life today. But I don’t despise you for it. Because I know that if I am truly to appreciate you, I must take the bad with the good, the pressures of Exam Week with the joys of Surprise Holiday. And 44

it saddens me to think that in just a few short months, you—this wonderful, frustrating, dynamic being—will be restricted to the confines of my past, your vitality confined to some lonely corner of my mind.

Indeed, I know that I say I hate you too often. And sometimes I really think that I mean it. But I know that one day, I’ll look back at my time with you as some of the best years of my life, for you—the one that everybody loves to hate—are actually the one that nobody knows that they love. Only then will I be able to appreciate the finality with which you will have repeated those words I hear you say everyday, for the final time: “Sixth form may go.”

And away we will have gone.

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