Atlas Magazine: The Epiphany Issue

ATLAS

Spring 2023

Epiphany E

piphany in literature refers to an epic visionary moment when a character has a sudden insight or realization that alters their perception or understanding of the world around them. It completely changesthe way they operate in the universe from that point on.

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his is a popular motif in television, film, and literature. We see it everywhere, but it’s easy to forget that this is not just a phenomeon that exists outside of our daily lives.

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t can also be as simple as a thought or memory that crosses the mind as blissfully as a paper airplane cutting accross a bright blue sky. Epiphanies happen on the daily. They’ve happened to us, and we’re certain that they’ve happened to you too.

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elcome to the Epiphany Issue. We hope that you take away from this issue what we learned from creating it.

Specifically, that you too, are capable of being something bigger than yourself, something much larger than life.

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Table of Contents 04. Who We Are 08. Style

Letter from the Editor 04 Letter from the Creative Director 05 Our staff 06

Exposed 10 The Making of a Moment 14 A Query for my Fellow Queers 20 The Power of Pink 26

30. City

The T, The Lifeline of the City 32 Mental Illness, Medication, and Metropolitan Areas 36 Home for the Summer 40 Learning to Belong in Boston Again 46

54. Arts 84. Wellness

Tuning Out on Tuning In 54 Does Pain Make Better Art? 60 Snow White and the Beauty Industrial Complex 66 Heartbreak Harmony 70 Passion Dies (Or Does It?) 78

Sunset Moments 86 No One Wants to Hear You’re Struggling, In Fact, We Forbid It 90 The Runner’s High 94 Musings in the Mirror 97

104. Globe

You Can’t Fight DNA 102 Dying in Japan 106 In My Hometown of Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania 112 No Matter Where I Go 116

126. Closing

Thank you’s and closing 122 Our socials 124 Our website 125

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From The Editor

Dear Readers, Spring is upon us, and yet another semester has passed as life slowly creeps back to whatever we remember “normal” to be. When Erin and I took on our new roles of leadership with Atlas at the start of the semester, we thought about what spring means to us, and to our community. It is a time of freshness and light, new perspectives, a breath of fresh air. It is a time of change.

And so came Epiphany.

Epiphanies are moments of almost divine or spiritual inspiration. They are the sudden realization of an idea that has been ruminating deep within our subconscious.

When I visualize an epiphany, I see the city of Boston bursting, overnight, into blooms of pink and white, magnolia and cherry blossoms. Epiphanies bring us new perspectives and often have a profound impact on our lives. This time in our life, the breath between childhood and adulthood that is college, is filled with these epiphanies and transformations. Every day is a new discovery about ourselves, our life, and our place in the world. I hope that you carry this energy of discovery, growth, and possibility with you as you read this issue.

I am so grateful for the incredibly talented Atlas staff, my other half, Erin, and everyone else involved in making this semester’s issue possible. And thank you to everyone who welcomed me into this role with such kindness, love, and support. This magazine has always held a dear place in my heart and in the Emerson community, and I am honored to be presenting you with our newest issue, Epiphany.

With love, Ellye Sevier Editor-in-Chief

Hello friends!

I used to think that in order to have an epiphany, I needed to watch the sun rise with a cup of hot green tea in my hands. I thought that I especially needed to be in a state of calmness, perhaps even serenity. But even at my busiest and most chaotic, I’ve found myself having epiphanies here and there.

As I am writing this, I happen to be watching the sun bring light over the skyscrapers this morning, and I am so grateful.

But just a few days ago, I was sprinting to the T, late for work, with an old fashioned donut in one hand and my Charlie Card at the ready in the other. Still, I was grateful.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is, not one epiphany is identical. Anyone could say that, it’s not profound in the slightest. But what I hope is profound, is the incredible art that was created for this issue of Atlas in order to portray a powerful sense of individual thoughts, dreams, memories, and beyond. I am so grateful and proud to be a part of such a wonderful and talented group of people.

To Ellye, you are so wonderful, I can’t wait to do this all over again. To the Atlas Community, I am just so blown away. I am so proud to be on this team. You all have always been a home.

Thank you for absolutely everything.

Hugs, Erin Norton Creative Director

From The Creative Director

Executive Staff Editor in Chief

Ellye Sevier

Creative Director

Erin Norton

Managine Editor

Brynn O’Connor

Photography Director

Sophia Roberts

Illustration Director

Sofia Goldfarb

Beauty Director

Angelee Gonzalez

Online Director

Angelee Gonzalez

Style Editor

Ellye Sevier

City Editor

Annalisa Hansford

Arts Editor

Kathleen Nolan

Wellness Editor

Elisa Davidson

Globe Editor Head Copyeditors

Abigail Ross Christine Chin & Emma Shacochis

Social Media Director

Rebecca Calvar

Academic Advisor

Kyanna Sutton

Editorial Style Writers Daphne Bryant Elisa Davidson Lyanna Rose Lily Suckow Ziemer City Writers Christopher Fong Chew Morgan Gaffney Dharvi Gopal Erin Norton Arts Writers Claire Fairtlough Christina Horacio Catherine Kubick Kate Rispoli Eden Unger Wellness Writers Fernanda Cantu Sisel Gelman Hannah Hillis Habeebh Sylla Globe Writers Sydney Flaherty Liz Gomez Annalisa Hansford Arushi Jacob Copyeditors Ellen Hatfield Ocean Muir Minh-Thu (Meggie) Phan

Creative Photographers Emma Cahill Ali Lin Liz Farias Lily Farr Sophia Roberts Visual Artists Dharvi Gopal Julia Lippman Abigail Nash Designers Emma Albright Rebecca Calvar Lily Farr Abigail Nash Erin Norton Sophia Roberts Style & Prodution Renee Mundra Jemma Sanderson Beauty Angy Beare Angelee Gonzalez Izabella Pitaniello Social Media & Marketing Grace Murphy Kelly Chan Paulina Poteet Julieta Crissien Ryley Tanner Annie Douma Cindy Wang Ellisha Jia Danielle Webb Nicole Levine Tian Tian Xia Xi Liang Renee Mundra

Style

Photographed by Liz Farias Design by Erin Norton Makeup by Angelee Gonzalez and Izabella Pitaniello Styled by Liz Farias Assisted by Breazy Rowlands Modeled by Jonah Hodari Bianca Weston

Exposed

By Lily Suckow Ziemer

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bought my first crop top in eighth grade. This may seem like a trivial detail, but I’ll never forget it; everything I’ve worn since connects back to that single shirt.

It was spring break and I was in an H&M with my parents.

My dad had wandered off while my mom remained to compliment or reject the clothes we browsed. Then I saw it: a white and navy striped shirt — reminiscent of what an oldtimey sailor might wear — with flowers embroidered on the ends of the short sleeves. Most notably, however, it was cropped. Ordinarily, I’d look longingly at a shirt like this, then move on, thinking, I can’t wear something like that. I’ve loved clothes for as long as I can remember, and this shirt appealed completely to my style at the time. I don’t know what changed that day, but something overtook my body. I grabbed the shirt and decided to try it on.

My mom was excited (she loves striped shirts) and gave me a short, black, A-line skirt to try on with it. Although she tends toward the side of minimalist, conservative clothing herself, she’s always encouraged me to find my own style. She sewed my baby clothes, hemmed dresses I thrifted, knit the same six-foot scarf each time I lost it, and taught me how to sew. I’m always sending her pictures of clothes, and asking if she can make things I’ve seen online. Even when she’s appalled at how revealing my clothes are, she still pushes me forward to craft my own style, which I am forever grateful for.

All my life I’ve wanted to control how people see my body. Ever since I was bullied in fourth grade for the way I looked, I have had rules about what I wear. Before this special crop top, they were incredibly strict. Shirts had to be long enough to cover my butt, sports bras were a must in order to cover my breasts, and zip-up hoodies (which I wore even in summer) were essential to hide my hips. I hid as much as possible in an attempt to keep people from ever seeing my body again. By eighth grade, “no crop tops” was the most important rule.

Looking in the mirror on that fateful, spring day, I noticed the ways the outfit followed my rules.

The sleeves were loose and went to my elbows, hiding the bumps on my upper arms. The skirt was loose enough to erase my hip dips. And, despite being cropped, the shirt didn’t reveal much of my midriff. To many, this would be considered a failure as an attempt to get out of one’s comfort zone. But to me, it was revolutionary. The moment I slipped on that shirt, I became someone else. I had never worn anything like this. I walked out of the dressing room, proud to show my mom. It was a little uncomfortable, but I was happy. For the first time, I admired something on myself just as much as I admired it on the hanger.

“I love it!” my mom exclaimed. I couldn’t hide my smile and we bought the outfit. I didn’t wear it at first; it felt somewhat sacred. I wouldn’t touch it for fear of the magic disappearing. But, finally, I did wear it on Easter Sunday. It was the perfect outfit for spring and it felt like I was entering a new world the minute I walked out of the house.

If 14-year-old Lily could see me now, she’d be shocked.

At 19, I wear things that expose most of the features I used to want to hide. I barely wear shirts that aren’t cropped, my skirts and dresses are much tighter, and I wear an obscene amount of see-through shirts.

Since my crop top revelation, I have started taking more risks by trying clothes I’d only ever admired from afar. It’s a process of trial and error.

Sometimes I’ll try something new only to hate the way it accentuates my insecurities. But over time, I’ve grown to look past that and appreciate the way I look and dress just as much as I appreciate fashion influencers I see on TikTok. I now feel comfortable actually choosing my clothes. I’ve grown a sense of control over the negative parts of my brain that tell me I shouldn’t dress like I do — the parts that tell me bad things about my body. My style is now a physical manifestation of my rebellion against those insecurities.

To be honest, I would never choose that crop top

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for myself today; it’s definitely no longer my style. Yet it still sits in my closet, and I know I’ll never give it away.

No matter how insecure or elated I feel after putting on an outfit, it will never match the intensity of emotions I felt in H&M that day.

I love c r e a t i n g s o m e t h i n g Getting dressed in the morning is now one of the me out most important and excit- uniquely ing moments in my day.

I love creating something of lots of difuniquely me out of lots of different pieces. I’m most ferent pieces. happy leaving my dorm room wearing tons of jewelry, platform shoes, and worrying that it’s too cold out for the skirt I’m wearing.

Maybe it sounds silly that something as simple as clothing has such importance to me, but I wouldn’t be myself without my style autonomy. If I never took the leap of wearing that shirt, I might have never gotten to this point of freedom and self-confidence. I would still be appreciating clothing from afar but not participating. One shirt changed the way I look at myself, and I am so much happier because of it.

The Making of a Moment

By Lyanna Zammas

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ashion is integral to the crafting of a story in film. Whether it be the expression of a character’s inner turmoil through a closet of muted grays, or simply the color green being used to denote envy or greed, costume design is a visual language storytellers use to communicate with their audiences.

While fashion and costume design play a vital role in the world of cinema, films also have a large influence on the fashion world. Characters’ wardrobes in Andrew Fleming’s witch-horror movie The Craft defined a wave of alternative fashion in the late ‘90s. The Virgin Suicides, a film made nearly 25 years ago now, has continued to serve as inspiration for collections from major names in fashion today. The most sumptuous styling in film makes use of fashion to further the story, enhancing a movie’s lasting power. When designers employ such fashion, they help create something bigger. It is then that an individual piece or a character’s wardrobe is deemed timeless or iconic, thus immortalizing the fictitious worlds they are home to.

Piecing together such a wardrobe to reflect a character’s complex interior world is no easy feat.

It requires the work of a historian as much as that of a storyteller or designer. The characters’ wardrobes must be situated within their exact social and historical moments, all while evoking the desired emotional response. Such work was notably done by designer Deborah Everton on The Craft. The movie follows a girl with magic powers as she transfers to a high school in Los Angeles, where she meets three wannabe witches. The film, exploring themes of depression and self-acceptance (and witchcraft, of course), was a hit with “alternative” girls worldwide.

The bulk of the film’s lasting appeal, though, comes from Everton’s careful styling of the girls.

The most sumptuous styling in film makes use of fashion to further the story, enhancing a movie’s lasting power.

Despite the main characters spending most of the film in uniforms, Everton worked within these parameters to curate timeless costumes that would accentuate the varying identities of the four girls. The magic of Everton’s design is found in those minute details that bring to life both the four main girls and the world around them. For Nancy, played by Fairuza Balk, clothing became her armor. Nancy’s iconic PVC coat and spiky, black dog collar were noticeable staples of her closet throughout the film — her character adorned by accessories that mirror how she engages with and experiences the world as a misfit teenage witch.

In her designs, Everton sought authenticity by sourcing clothing that would’ve been accessible to other real-life teenagers. In doing so, she created a series of looks that conveyed the varying emotions of teenage girls who’ve been rejected by society and, in turn, reject it right back through their fashion and attitudes. This notion was so powerful that it resonated with “misfits” around the world, inspiring them to do the same and subsequently shaping a wave of alternative fashion to come.

In Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, the costume design and styling enhance the film’s dreamlike quality. Following the story of the short yet mystifying lives of the conservative and reclusive Lisbon sisters, the film centers on the repression of female sexuality and the traditional place of women in society. Taking a unique approach to the usually overtly retro style of the 1970s, designer Nancy Steiner centered the girls’ wardrobes around real photographs of everyday people of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Steiner also took into account conversations she and Coppola had about each of the girls’ individual personalities and character traits. In her styling, Steiner externalized the inner turmoil the girls’ experience by outfitting them in demure garments. A dazzling portrayal of ‘70s girlhood, the Lisbon girls’ wardrobes are built upon the quiet fashion of the time period and the suffocating fabric of innocence.

Throughout the film, the four sisters can be seen adorned in dainty lace dresses, barely-there floral patterns, and traditional-yet-ever-boxy school uniforms. The most outspoken pieces in the film are the four “identical sacks” (as the narrator calls them) that the girls wear to the homecoming dance. These “sacks” are a collection of vintage floor-length dresses, to which their mother adds additional fabric to make them even less revealing. With babydoll necklines and puff sleeves, these long, pale dresses speak for themselves — mirroring the repression they face in their day-to-day lives for simply existing as young girls.

This notion is furthered by the styling of the girls’ counterpart, Trip Fontaine. The burgundy velvet suit he wears to homecoming as Lux’s date entirely juxtaposes the lifeless vintage gown her mother placed her in. He stands out next to her, reminding the audience of the striking contrast between them. Trip’s character is free of the expectations and pressures that are placed upon the Lisbon girls, and his dress and attitude reflect such freedoms.

The resounding impact of such careful and intricate costume design on these two films is evident. In an interview with Dazed magazine, Deborah Everton shared her experience of going to a press junket for The Craft in Paris. She describes being shocked to see young girls going to the theater dressed up as the main characters that she had styled. The impact of her design work on the film was felt by audiences globally and had manifested itself into something tangible. Young Parisian girls dressing up like the characters showed how her work had been brought to life.

As for Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, the 1999 film is still relevant today through its cult following and stellar costume design. Just two years ago, the film was given new life in the fashion world by Marc Jacobs’ sub-brand Heaven and their Fall/Winter collection, which paid homage to the film.

The collection takes the film’s dreamy, ephemeral nature and spotlights it with iconic stills of star Kirsten Dunst’s face screen-printed on midi skirts and half-mesh long sleeves. The evanescence of the film speaks for itself through the clothing, and the collection brings a new understanding of what it means to recognize a timeless work of styling by bringing it into the world of fashion.

The relationship that exists between film and fashion is a symbiotic one. Costume design often acts as a sweetening agent that brings to life the characters and worlds that make up a film. Cinema, in turn, broadcasts the fashion of these narratives to their audiences, throttling forward the fashion of time periods long forgotten and immortalizing certain styles and pieces forever, shaping waves of fashion to come. As observed through the design work of The Craft and The Virgin Suicides, it is meticulous care towards such work that fosters the creation of wardrobes that can act as secondary storytellers within a film. Only then can such media reach beyond the bounds of the silver screen and impact the world of fashion around it.

A Query for My Fellow Queers

By Daphne Bryant

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hat does it mean to “dress like a gay person”? How does one even go about doing so? Can you even tell if someone is queer by the way they dress?

Ever since I came out, I’ve asked myself these questions and many more like them. Before, I had been living as a straight girl, and so, naturally, I supposed I had presented as one too. After I came out, I secretly longed to fit into the archetypes that exist in the LGBTQIA+ community in some way so that I would be recognizable as someone who is queer. I’m not alone, and “dressing queer” isn’t a foreign concept. The idea of signaling through style has been around for a while.

There is an extensive queer history surrounding the cultural communication of sexuality in a safe and covert way. Much of what is considered stereotypical queer fashion today was originally used by people in the community to signal their sexual orientation to others during times when saying it aloud might have been dangerous or not socially accepted. Sometimes this was done as an act of rebellion against frameworks that pushed a cis and heteronormative fashion sense, and other times it was done to safely and subtly let others know, “I am one of you.”

Certain style codes and symbols conveyed certain things. For example, in the 1930s, global staples in lesbian coding were tuxedos and short hairstyles. Even now, in the United States there are still specific queer symbols that are used to “identify” a queer person. Many have evolved into even more niches to address a wide range of gender identities and sexualties. Chains and snapbacks are often associated with more masc-presenting folks, the artist girl in red is associated with sapphic listeners, and rainbows are a common way to express queerness for all.

This might all seem arbitrary to an outsider, hidden to the straight eye, but for people inside the community these can be genuine tells. Sometimes I’ll be walking down the street and I’ll spot a super fly girl fitted out in a Carhartt beanie, flannel and cuffed jeans. Even though it’s mostly unconscious (and sometimes inaccurate), I’ll absorb those subtle cues and clock that person as queer. In some ways, embracing these archetypes can be liberating for queer people, and allowing tropes to shape your identity as you go can be exciting.

“I don’t mind [the tropes] honestly,” says stylish freshman Communications Studies major Averie Morren, who loves both traditionally masculine and feminine clothing. “I do find that gay people are more creative with their styles than anybody else.

So if there’s one thing I could ask for, it’s that as I continue to grow my gay identity that my style just keeps evolving.”

At the same time, these stereotypes can also feel othering. Junior Marketing Communications major Nathan Manaker describes his style as “rooted in nostalgia.” His rule of thumb is: “If your grandma would wear it, so would I.” “Coming out as gay helped me feel safer in the way that I wanted to dress,” Manaker says, “but it also started to make me feel like a stereotype. My sexuality, something that was intimate and special to me, was a stereotype.” He reflects on the trope, often found in movies, where a group of girls goes on a shopping trip with their fashionable gay best friend.

“I wonder if, in a way, I was offsetting [tropes like that] by assuming this more reserved style with muted tones. I was more comfortable wearing bright colors when it wasn’t part of my ‘gay-ness,’” he says.

Many people in the LGBTQIA+ community feel an intense push-back against labels entirely, rebelling against society’s framework for queer individuals. Sophomore Business of Creative Enterprises (BCE) major Anna Swisher — a lover of streetwear fashion, L.A. thrifting, and a self-proclaimed “sneaker girl” — expresses her dislike of labels and the assumptions that come with them. “When it comes to style I get a lot of ‘Oh! I’d never guess you were gay, you look really straight,’ and so I think a big part for me is just honestly dressing the way that I want to dress and showing people that it doesn’t matter how you dress. I’ve learned what looks good with my hair color, my eyes, my skin tone, and I love that,” she says.

Junior BCE major Annabel Kavetas, who describes her fashion as a mixed bag with everything from Lululemon athleisure to cottagecore hyperfemininity, has a nuanced and complex relationship with style. Kavetas sets out her rules for her clothes: “[something that] flatters my body, honors my queerness, feels authentic.” But she admits, “All of those boxes are hard to check at the same time.”

There are also people who don’t necessarily identify with the gender binary, which for so long has been a ‘distinguishable’ way to sort queer-identifying individuals. Eliyaju Levinson, who uses they/he pronouns and identifies as gender-queer, likes existing out of the stereotypical box. “In regards to clothing style, my personal style is very fluid and can range anywhere from ‘little toddler boy’ to ‘raging-hyper-fem-lesbian,’” says Levinson. At Emerson, they feel the freedom to experiment with different aesthetics and vibes, and to display it however they choose.

This is a common thread among students: a respect and appreciation for Emerson College’s fashion culture, where the streets are our runway and we are free to experiment with style and take risks. For students like Kavetas and Levinson, Emerson has provided a safe space for queer people and their style, especially. For me, I first felt truly safe to don my six-inch Demonia 311s and miniskirts the second I stepped foot on Boston’s campus. Surrounded by people who genuinely wear what they want to, I feel motivated and inspired daily. Kavetas furthers this thought, saying, “No one’s apologizing for what they’re wearing. If people are wearing something they’re wearing it. They’re wearing the fuck out of it.”

Style is just as fluid as sexuality, and if you are a queer person your fashion is queer, period. The clothes aren’t what make an outfit, it’s the individual that does. There are many different avenues you can go down to express yourself, and style is just one of a million. It’s okay to dispel indicators, and it’s okay to love them with all your heart. There is no one way to dress or present as gay. In the end, it doesn’t matter if you love Doc Martens, color-coordinated suits, wife beaters, flowy vintage garments, rainbow earrings, or if you couldn’t care about fashion at all.

Our style is a spectrum, and it’s all beautiful.

Style is just as fluid as sexuality, and if you are a queer person your fashion is queer, period.

T HE POW ER OF PINK

By Elisa Davidson

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ne random day in December, I learned of the “pink comeback.”

I’d been sitting with some friends, bantering about our childhood favorites: toys, games, colors, etc. I turned to one of them, and said, “You know, I really used to hate pink when I was younger, but it’s one of my favorite colors right now.”

She immediately agreed with me, saying her experience had been very similar. Her story with pink was just as complex, and included a similar intense hate for the color in her childhood. I ended up having the same conversation with five other female friends that same day.

It was obvious to me then: pink is having a resurgence. But why?

What is it about this color that made it go from one of the most hated colors in an elementary schooler’s palette to one of the college kids’ favorites?

Elementary school was an idyllic time when boys and girls played together in the courtyard, kicking balls around, swinging on the monkey bars, and chasing each other in games of tag. It was at some point in the middle, however, when things started to change for me. It all started with pink.

For a while, being a kid felt like it had no rules. I loved running around on the field, playing tag with my friends, and beating everyone in races and games of kickball. Being loud and rambunctious was for everyone, and I, for one, was talented at the craft. However, at some point, we started realizing there were differences between us, that some of us were boys and some were girls. Why was being a girl so much less fun than being a boy? All of a sudden, I needed to be polite, wear dresses, and sit quietly. None of the boys received similar treatment and were allowed to continue roughhousing. Coaching our “girlhood” seemed to be a way for the teachers to keep half of the student population under control. At least this way they could focus on the other, more raucous group.

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As I grew up, it drove me crazy that femininity was societally synonymous with weakness.

I was fed the false belief that you’ve got to just “toughen up” if you want to be heard. Being “girly” wouldn’t get you seen. Being calm and kind — qualities traditionally associated with femininity — felt as if they held very little power in this world. The color pink, buried in my mind as it was, was now suppressed nearly altogether. It was synonymous with society’s treatment of my identity.

My parents told tales of how a “good little girl” should act, and teachers read us stories about “sweet” girls like Angelina Ballerina and Clementine. And of course, the boys’ behavior changed too. Unconsciously adhering to those societal standards and gender roles, they repeated things like “girls are boring and stupid!” and “they only like glitter and pink!”

The dismissal in their tone was clear. All of a sudden, I no longer felt welcome. From this moment on, pink was a trap. It bled into my life, and stained me with girlhood. The color was everything girls “should” be, but I wanted to be so much more. Like for many other girls, pink became a source of anger and resentment for me.

In middle school, in protest of a world that didn’t take me seriously, I dressed in dark blues, bright and alarming reds, and empty blacks and grays. I buried pink, like I buried my toys and my cartoon shows, and I pushed them to the back of my mind.

The wall that I had built between femininity and myself began to slowly crumble in college. Gender norms began to muddle, getting mixed and churned as gender identity became less fixed, queer fashion took hold in my community, and different styles included anyone and everyone regardless of identity. As I looked to my social media for fashion inspiration, my Pinterest boards began to fill up with fun, little poofy skirts and fluffy boots, geared towards everyone.

Leaving behind the world of “boys rule, girls drool,” femininity has started to take on a more loved and appreciated stand in modern fashion and in my life. Going in the opposite direction from our edgy, e-girl and alternative styles of 2020, people around me started dressing in cropped tops, furs, earmuffs, hats with animal ears, and even put cute charms on their phones. Starting on social media — specifically through Tiktok and Instagram — “softcore,” “aliyahcore,” and other styles emerged, all different and more modern iterations of traditional “femininity.” After feeling dark and gray, it seems the world of fashion wanted to lean in a new, lighter direction.

All of a sudden, being feminine has started to feel good to me again. Being a girl is not just being emotional and cute, but it’s okay to be those things too. Wearing what makes you feel good is okay, even important, and having a nice outfit on does not make you less intelligent or strong.

Pink has its own kind of power.

I went home over winter break and looked around my room. I hadn’t been home in a while, and I felt that desire to re-immerse myself in a world that had been completely absent from my mind until now. I started noticing my walls, my decorations, my old clothes. I thought it was funny that throughout the time when pink was my least favorite color, my walls were covered with it.

Now, I like pink. I like hot pink, bright and colorful, demanding you see it, demanding you find it fun and cool. I like bubblegum pink, sweet and gentle, light and fun. I like peach. I like salmon: that mix between pink and orange, reminiscent of bagels with cream cheese and slabs of fresh fish tasting salty on my tongue. I like the pink lip gloss colors my lips, warm and bright.

I like pink.

Wearing what makes you feel good is okay, even important, and having a nice outfit on does not make you less intelligent or strong.

Pink has its own kind of p o w e r .

City Photographed by Ali Lin Design by Rebecca Calvar and Sophia Roberts Makeup by Nicky Xia and Seeso Chen Assisted by Mia Liang Modeled by Anastasia Petridis

T HE T , The Lifeline of the City

By Christopher Fong Chew I step out into the cool morning air, feeling the breeze sting my bare face as I make my way over to the Harvard Avenue T station. The sun is just beginning to rise as I join the many commuters waiting at the platform for a Green Line train that will take us downtown. At Harvard Avenue, there are no platform lights, no light-up signs announcing the arrival of the next train.

Some of us check our phones, hoping the transit app we downloaded might be correct; some of us just stand, waiting, trusting that something will soon arrive.

Eventually, I see the familiar shape of the Green Line trolley appear in the distance, slowly rolling up to the platform, squealing as it comes to a stop and the double doors creak open. As I board, I am greeted with the familiar wood paneling and the beeps of the fare machines as riders scan their Charlie Cards. Taking a seat by the window, I stare out as the city passes by, just one of the many commuters on this early morning train.

Boston’s public transit system is one of the oldest in the nation, opening the first subway line in America in 1897. Revolutionary for its time, and run by an electric motor, this system meant it was possible to have an entirely underground train as it avoided the soot spewed from the common steam engines at the time.

Over a century (and several changes of leadership) later, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) runs just under 70 miles of track and 170 bus lines across the greater Boston area.

It carries about 600,000 riders during the weekdays, taking them to and from work, school, doctor’s appointments, and other important errands around the city.

For the many individuals in the city, public transit is their lifeline. It is the only way to get around the city quickly, efficiently, and affordably. However, accessibility to the public transit system is not equal. For those that live near a train or bus line, traveling around the city is relatively convenient. However, for those that have to traverse long distances to ride public transit, or navigate multiple transfers to their destination, it can be a pain.

Stella Gitelman Willoughby, 22, is a current student at Berklee College of Music where she majors in Contemporary Classical Composition. She is a native to the greater Boston Area, growing up just north in Cambridge. Stella uses the bus to commute to and from school, and takes public transit to and from other parts of the city. When asked about growing up in Cambridge, she replied, “Some of my earliest memories with public transportation were going on the MBTA. I don’t even remember where, probably the Cambridge or Boston Public Library.”

She mentioned how her school would take field trips and use public transit to reach places around Boston and Cambridge. “I think that it helped me be able to learn my city better,” she adds.

As a college student, Stella transits between Berklee and Tufts, where she has cross-registered in the past and still frequently visits to work in the library or visit professors and friends.

When asked about what the T meant to her, Stella brought up the topic of accessibility. How it allows for people of all backgrounds to have greater access in the city. Also for students like Stella who don’t drive, the T is a way to get around the city independently. “I’ve become very attached to public transit and how nice it is to have very well-connected public transit within a city,” she says. “I know a lot of people rely on it for their daily life.”

Li Yin, 18, a freshman at Wellesley College, takes the T to and from the city several days a week.

She often switches between taking shuttle buses that Wellesley provides and taking the commuter rail. Once she is in the city, she often takes the subway or buses to get around. Li, who was born in China, and went to high school in California, also shared her experiences with public transit (or the lack thereof) in the places she has lived. “When I used to live near the LA area, it was very inaccessible because everywhere you had to drive,” she says, contrasting this to her time living in China, where “my school used to be like a 20, 30-minute ride away from my house [via public transit],” which was something she had to adjust to coming to the states.

She added that, “Driving is just a hassle sometimes, because you have to find parking; it kind of clogs the whole city…I feel public transportation in Boston connects the city in a different way and allows students to go places very quickly.” For Li, public transit is essential to a city like Boston, where students make up a significant part of the population. She expressed that “I feel like the public transportation in Boston connects the city in a different way and allows students to go places very quickly, and with an affordable price…I feel that Boston wouldn’t be as good of a city for students without its public transportation system.”

The T is the lifeline of the city.

The bus and rail lines are like the blood vessels and veins that keep the city alive For all the benefits it provides, the MBTA has sadly faced an onslaught of issues in the past few years. The COVID-19 pandemic led to drastic drops in ridership in 2020 and 2021, and the transit system is still recovering. In 2022, the system was investigated by the Federal Transit Authority following several incidents reporting that the “MBTA’s long-term projects jeopardized daily operations and safety.” This led to an order from the authority to address “53 problem areas ranging from staffing and safety management to communications and operating policies, and called for an overhaul of safety culture inside the T.” The agency is still working to address these issues months after the initial report.

In 1997, then-mayor Tom Menino developed a task force to implement Transit Oriented Development (TOD), which has led to the study and development of several projects from the MBTA and other companies.

Their goal is “to enhance their quality of life by turning parking lots and underutilized land near public transportation into vibrant mixed-use districts, diverse housing, and attractive entertainment venues.”

These projects have led to significant urban development with over 50 projects sold or leased by the MBTA in the last 10 years.

For now, we can only wait and see if any of these projects will bring about meaningful change to the city’s infrastructure and development.

As I sit here, staring out the trolley window, I realize how the T is the lifeline of the city.

The bus and rail lines are like the blood ves-

sels and veins that keep the city alive, ensuring that people have a way to and from their destinations. Without public transit, thousands of commuters would be left behind, unable to get where they need to go. The city is alive, and public transit keeps its heart beating strong.

As I roll through the stops to my destination, passengers from all walks of life get on and off. The students rushing to class, parents accompanying their kids to school, grandparents out to run errands, nine-to-five office workers on their way downtown.

For me, that is the beauty of public transit: no matter our age, our background, or where we are from, we are all here together, squished between the panels and seats making our way into the beating heart of this city.

Mental Illness, Medication, and Metropolitan Areas

By Morgan Gaffney

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edication was something I thought about for a while before beginning. My brother had been taking Prozac for years, and it seemed to help him drastically. But if he missed it even for a day, his mood completely changed. I was scared of how much it could affect his demeanor and how much he relied on it. It was frightening how much one little pill could change a person.

I remember a day I couldn’t stop crying and feeling negative about the world, as if life was colorless. These dips from my normal, generally-upbeat mood were few and far between, but they were debilitating. I couldn’t understand why this happened, and couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that no specific thing was causing it. The day that I couldn’t stop crying was actually my birthday: a beautiful, sunny summer day. The leaves were blowing in the soft, warm wind, making the sun glitter and shimmer through the trees reflecting. The birds were chirping, the stream in the woods near my house was bubbling and flowing; all I could hear were the beautiful, calming sounds of nature, yet tears continued to uncontrollably stream down my face.

I really scared my mom, who worries and takes it to heart if she can’t make my sadness go away. But in that moment, the reality was that nothing was going to make my sadness go away except waiting it out. That day, my sixteenth birthday, is when she knew we had to do something for my mental health.

My parents got me on a bunch of waiting lists for therapists, and after a few months, one responded. I remember being so anxious to see my new therapist for the first time, I sobbed uncontrollably in our first

appointment. I thought I surely scared her off for good. However, during my next appointment she said I didn’t frighten her, and that my reaction was a normal response to starting something new. I began seeing her regularly, and after a few months, I really felt like talking to her was helping my anxiety and depression. I would go through rough patches, but for the most part, I felt mentally leveled out, up until last year.

During my sophomore year of college, my anxiety began to ramp up around the end of the first semester, creeping into all areas of my life. There were a few outside, personal factors that might have been affecting its increased intensity, but it was unlike anything I had felt before. Instead of short spurts of heightened anxiety every now and then, it was constant. It felt like when your ears are ringing for no reason: sometimes you can ignore it, but there is always that continuous noise. Sometimes, it’s all you can hear.

I struggled for the last year and a half, while still seeing my therapist, which helped in some ways. She validated the way I was feeling, which was reassuring, and vocalizing my feelings to someone took a weight off my shoulders. But this only slightly soothed the dread I felt at all times.

When colder weather and darker days rolled around this year, I felt my seasonal depression sneaking up on me, which only made my anxiety worse. It was especially hard in Boston, where I don’t get to partake in the winter activities I grew up enjoying in Vermont like skiing, sledding and snowshoeing. Boston was so cold, windy and gloomy without any picturesque, snowy landscapes that resembled home. I knew it was time to make a change. I started taking a selective serotonin uptake inhibitor (SSRI), a medication to treat depression, anxiety and other psychological disorders.

Within weeks, I noticed changes. Life felt welcoming every day; the world

looked brighter; problems that came up were less stressful. I could not believe how much had changed in such a short time, and how I had lived for so long in the state of constant anxiety I was in. This was what I was missing. …

Depression and anxiety are common in people everywhere, but a higher rate of people can experience these mental health conditions in cities like Boston. The busyness and fast pace of city living can be extremely overstimulating, causing people’s bodies to constantly go into fight or flight mode. This can overwork the psyche, and make people more vulnerable to mental illnesses like anxiety, depression or psychosis. The uncontrollable noise and movement can make it hard for city dwellers to cope with stress, and sometimes leads to anger management issues or substance abuse. The noise and bright lights can also contribute to a lack of sleep which affects energy and overall function of the body, further putting residents of urban areas at risk.

Kate Gustafson lives with depression and anxiety, and saw her mental state worsen when she moved from her small town to Boston for college. When talking about the energy of the city, Gustafson says “everybody’s kind of down,” and that “energy radiates.”

Michelle Mele, a native to Raynham, MA, used to notice her anxiety ramp up when she came to visit Boston.

“I can definitely see a difference. If I wasn’t medicated right now, and in Boston, I’d probably be crying on the floor at the moment,” she says.

In addition to higher levels of mental health concerns, a higher-than-average amount of Boston residents experience seasonal depression. Thriveworks, a national mental health organization with many locations in Boston, conducted a study analyzing trending Google searches in correlation with weather patterns over the last several years. They looked specifically for searches related to seasonal depression and mental illness to narrow down when the worst of seasonal depression would be experienced by people this year; they found that the first few weeks of November are the worst for

They made life livable.

those who suffer from seasonal depression, when the weather is just beginning to get a lot colder, and the sun begins setting earlier.

Boston is among 15 cities with the highest rates of seasonal depression. Seasonal depression can cause a lack of motivation, irritability, general bad moods, and high stress.

This can affect college students especially who have school work and extracurricular activities to complete, coupled with finals as their semester comes to an end in the month of December.

“There’s a lot of just being in the dark inside, which triggers the loneliness and anxiety,” says Juliana Ferolie.

“If I’m going to have a really bad episode, it’s going to be during that time,” says Leah Kaliski, referring to periods when her mental illness especially affects her overall function during the cold, dark winter months.

Antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication work to increase the activity of neurotransmitters, molecules that transfer information throughout parts of the brain and body. Increasing activity of neurotransmitters like serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine—all neurotransmitters linked to mental well-being—can reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.

When Gustafson got to college, she knew she wanted to make a change to help her anxiety and depression. A few weeks after beginning to take medication, when doing her laundry—a task that used to feel draining and stressful to her—she realized it was helping her cope with her mental illness.

For Tarby, the effects of the medications helped her anxiety almost immediately. “The first time I took it, I was actually able to go to sleep at a decent time,” she says. “I woke up and I felt like it still had an effect on me, because I didn’t wake up with a high heart rate.” Tarby’s anxiety affects her most at night, making it hard for her to sleep, so she sees drowsiness as a side effect of her medication as a benefit.

Mele’s anxiety hindered her from participating in many social spaces, such as a workplace. In high school, when she decided she really wanted a job, she tried medication to help her operate in such situations; after a while, she could feel herself become more outgoing. “It wasn’t like I was a different person, it was just more of myself,” she says.

Kaliski could “see color again,” when she started antidepressants for her mental illness. “They made life liveable.”

Home for the Summer

By Dharvi Gopal

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n three months, I’ll spend my first summer hundreds of miles away from home. Which means that home will become a city 700 miles from what that word used to mean, because home is wherever my feet land at the start of June.

When people ask where I’m from, I think of the first house that felt like home: the long, cramped hallway and saffron living room with a green futon couch, and the sun-baked wood of a porch that looks out over nothing. I think of the plastic white step stool in a bathroom that barely fits one person, but was still used by four people, and a baby, for years. My memory drags me out to the fig tree my brother and I helped plant, the one that grew taller than we did.

In my dreams, I am in this house more often than the bright new house almost double its size that I lived in for three years.

My memory drags me out to the fig tree my brother and I helped plant, the one that grew taller than we did.

My family moved to that first home, on Dimmocks Mill, after I turned eight. My first home, not my first house, and the first of either my parents ever owned. 1819 Dimmocks Mill Road, Hillsborough, North Carolina. It was just after my birthday, and my last party in the house before that, on Apple Lane, was a picnic set on packed cardboard boxes instead of chairs. Five little girls ate cupcakes and drank tea, and I wore a navy blue dress with white lace flowers. We moved between October and November, and my first memory of visiting Dimmocks Mill is rooms filled with brown and stacked with airplane models. My parents brought my brother and I when they viewed the house, a long rectangle on one acre of land surrounded by the tallest trees I’ve ever loved. The house looked nothing like the one we had visited a few months later. My dad and two of his oldest friends spent every day working on our house for as long as it took. They ripped up brown carpet and painted over brown walls, and we each cast our votes on which

less-brown granite countertop we liked best.

We hadn’t been there for long by the beginning of the year. My parents invited two or three other families to watch President Obama’s inauguration on a fold out couch in front of a tiny TV. I sat with a bunch of other kids, who are now my family, and somehow knew this was history. That day in January is one of my few memories from Dimmocks Mill that was set in wintertime. When I think about that home, meaning when I think about my childhood, it is always summer. I grew up in heat and sunburns and clay that hardens and cracks and grass that wilts under a blow up pool that occupied our Augusts. I lived at least ten winters in that house, but none of those are what I think about because there are no fireflies or lasting light in wintertime, and most of all no creek.

The creek in the woods behind our house was more my home than the tiny space we crammed ourselves into for close to a decade.

This creek didn’t belong to us, but didn’t really belong to anyone — the state maybe, which couldn’t mean less to a 10-year-old.

I used to take the little path my dad cleared the summer he lost his job, and run to the biggest rock there was and count crawdads.

I grounded colors out of stones and painted over broad leaves that floated down the tide to someone or something wherever my creek ended. Every part of the little girl I was remains in those trees that made up the woods, and in those rocks that made up a channel that swelled with thunderstorms, flooded its banks, and spilled with my secrets.

Those Dimmocks Mill summers happened later in my life, when I was so unsure of myself but positive I was becoming something, the way many young teenagers believe the most important parts of life are happening to them. My summers then were weeding garden beds, weekly farmers markets, and the day camp I was supposed to be helping my mom with. My mom ran a summer camp out of the studio across our backyard

every year that promised around a hundred dollars, which, to me, could buy anything. In return, I sweated in a sandbox and cleared children’s plates, waiting to win capture the flag at the end of the day. I was fast as a kid, and competitive enough to want to prove it. We played a couple games every day during pickup while the little kids had to stay inside, and one day our friend Caroline’s older brothers came with their moms to pick her up. Caroline and her brothers “had two moms,” as my own mother would say, which meant an awful lot to a kid who knew hardly a thing about herself or why that meant so much.

When there weren’t camps, summer was spent on the back porch that burned and splintered in the heat. Summer was popsicle drips and a towel laid out next to a frosted mason jar of iced tea.

I could spend the whole day on that deck, until my skin was pink and the slats of wood left marks on the backs of my legs. I followed pools of sunlight from one end of the deck to the next, tracing the sun’s path over me.

One warm day, I paced those sunspots on the phone with my best friend, a girl with bright blonde hair who I haven’t spoken to in years. I walked back and forth, letting my feet burn and blister as

she gushed about how the boy she liked had kissed her for the first time just hours before.

My first kiss was years later, in my most recent house on Butler Road in my turquoise bed, close to midnight. I laid next to a girl with pitch-black hair who I convinced myself I didn’t love for months. We fell in love and kept it a secret, and then didn’t anymore and loved each other less. But that was not in summertime, which may be the biggest difference between Dimmocks Mill and Butler Road. Butler Road is mostly winters.

It was winter when I learned how to fall in love, and chose to, winter when my heart was broken on the very first day of the new year, and winter when I finally felt like living again. It is mostly winter when I leave school to go home, to Butler Road, and our house is filled with lights and plants and our dark blue kitchen glows. My room stays almost exactly the same — the one I fell in love in and had my heart broken in and also started living again in — but the walls are bare and the air is stale. Butler Road is home because my family is there and because it’s a place to come back to, but only for a sliver of the year.

Now I live in a place that is almost always winter — real New England winter — and it’s as far from those Dimmocks Mill summers as I can get. I’ve spent two winters in this city and left as soon as the leaves turned green again. This year, I’ll stay to see the trees fill up again and the sky turn blue for the first time. I’ll learn where the sun pools at different times of the day and find moving water to tell my secrets to. Home will be a studio apartment and a girl with light brown hair and the best heart I’ve ever known.

This year, I’ll make summer my home.

Learning to Belong in Boston Again

By Erin Norton

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could make a whole playlist of songs that were ruined by my freshman year.

Not only can I associate them with specific people or moments, but they’re tied to deeper roots. Pressing the play button on just one could pull up a system of memories, tightly woven and impossibly knotted. It’s impossible to escape the all-consuming emotions that come with just the first few notes of a song because suddenly, I find myself back in the same place I was a year ago.

What comes to my mind most often is a dorm room full of faces I’ve tried to forget, and specifically how a snowstorm in January bound us together. The cool blue haze coated the room as if in a dream. Remembering the familiar smell of dorm room carpet, laundry detergent and takeout stings my nose. How could a memory so potent also evoke strange feelings of comfort? In the present, we cross paths on the street, in various hallways and in the dining hall, and it feels like I’m reliving a nightmare.

I wanted to believe in the longevity and realness of our friendship. Still saved on my phone are screenshots of text messages from each of them that made me laugh until my stomach cramped. Still saved in my camera roll are pictures of everywhere we went together: Veggie Galaxy for my birthday, SkyZone to cheer ourselves up during midterms, and their suite where we simply enjoyed each other’s company. Also saved on my phone are messages from a randomly-generated number that were sent by people who had once been family, be-

littling me for the things they once praised me for. Suddenly, my camera roll, similar to old playlists and little pieces of memorabilia left behind, all places full of rich memories, became an emotional minefield. At first, moving forward seemed like an impossible task: in our friendship, they promised me forever, a distorted version of the future I desperately held onto. But in a split second, everything I had ever confided in them was used against me—my vulnerability, honesty and care were each weaponized. I learned to hate myself for being so trustworthy.

Trauma has the unfortunately clever ability

to seep into the cracks of life. But experiencing it in a place far away from home is isolating. I remember the first time I felt it creep into my skin like some unshakable thing. Never before did I spend so much time keeping myself occupied in my own room, suddenly too timid to leave. In those moments, I constantly questioned myself and my emotions—was what I was feeling real? It was bizarre that the people stuck in memories had better authority over my feelings than I did at the time. I tried my best to avoid reliving the nightmare that they’d created for me. But time after time,

my efforts to remove myself and move on were ruined by their seemingly inescapable presence in my life. Perhaps this is from my own mind’s inability to forget. Maybe it’s from catching a glimpse of their face and wondering if that laugh came from them.

As someone who thought that a life completely different from their own growing up was the ultimate antidote, experiencing trauma in a place I pinned all of my hope on was one of the most devastating experiences. I spent half of my adolescence yearning for experiences that I could never have had in my home town. College was the perfect opportunity for excitement: a real life, parties, friendships that would last a lifetime.

Growing up, I often found myself in a cycle of confusing familiarity with hurt. Every time I experienced some sort of hardship, I blamed it on the unchangeable factors that were all I knew at the time. I blamed my home town because it was all I knew and I hated it. I applied for Emerson wondering how I could ever experience sadness in a place that held so much hope and excitement. I believed in the absence of pain in a future life. Constantly placing such high ex-

pectations on the future locked me into a cycle of not knowing when I’ll experience authentic joy again. In just a year, I rewired my brain to believe in a life that holds wounds just waiting to happen at every corner.

Being unexpectedly hurt away from home can be an extremely othering experience.

Never before had I ever felt so removed from a place after I experienced what I did. But as the months have passed and I’ve physically removed myself from the source of the trauma, I’ve taught myself ways to ease the hurt.

Recently, I picked up an old habit that should

have remained constant in my life: journaling. The more I wrote and transferred onto a piece of paper, the more I felt like I belonged again. Suddenly, I felt myself believe in the power of my words. The feelings that I once questioned so heavily were my own again.

Trauma silences everyone who experiences it, and I am determined to not let that happen to me. But in times when I feel like a piece of paper couldn’t hold everything I need it to, I found comfort in quietly speaking under my breath until my body felt lighter. Talking to others and making new friends along the way has added a tremendous amount of light to my life in places where it once felt so dark. I couldn’t be more grateful.

This past year may have been filled with doubts, dejection and reflection, but at the same time, I’ve taught myself to celebrate the little successes that come with healing. I’ve learned to embrace the present especially. I may not be able to revisit certain memories or moments, but I like to think it’s a sign that they’re not meant to be revisited anyway. Each new day is filled with new songs, new pictures and new experiences. While they can’t rewrite what’s already been put into the past, I find comfort in going to bed grateful every night knowing with confidence what is behind me and what is to come. Everything is constantly changing, and always for the better.

Arts

Photographed by Lily Farr Design by Lily Farr and Abigail Albright Assisted by Renee Mundra and Jena Roseman Modeled by Khatima Bulmer Jessica Zhang

Tuning Out on Tuning In

By Eden Unger

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ore and more, we identify ourselves by the media we consume. If you haven’t listened to/watched/read the latest thing, good luck making small talk or keeping up with social media.

I know I’ve spent my fair share of time checking out artists, shows, and movies I wouldn’t otherwise be interested in just to stay informed, and you probably have too. Look in any corner of the internet, turn over a proverbial rock, and an army of devout fans will come scurrying out. Almost every content creator and piece of media has some sort of devoted following.

Being a fan is no longer an act of passive enjoyment or engagement; it’s a behavior, a trait to be incorporated into one’s sense of self. At this point, doing so has almost become a source of cultural capital — to know more about a particular creator or piece of media is to have more clout to wield against the less-informed. And the price we pay for not buying into this practice goes beyond falling out of touch with the cultural mainstream. It can feel really alienating, too. What effect is the commodification and commercialization of our very identities having on our sense of self?

According to scholars, this trend can be traced back to the rise of consumerism and the growth of marketing and advertising over the course of the past century and a half. Ronald L. Jackson II, a professor of communication, culture, and media at the University of Cincinnati, calls the sense of identity that results from increasing commodification and consumerism the “commodity self.” In other words, “one’s own subjective identity arising from the commodities (goods or services) one purchases and uses” (106). People are seen as consumers rather than individuals, and over time this has contributed to the merging of “commodity and consumerism with subjectivity,” giving rise to this new “commodity self,” rather than an individual identity based on somebody as a person (Jackson II 106). Joseph E. Davis, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, says that because we make sense of ourselves through the “choices we make

from […] the market,” these choices, be they movies, shows, music, fashion, food, or otherwise, become the means “by which we perceive others and they us.”

One of the most prevalent effects of the commodification of our identities is the conflation of the media one consumes with the person themselves. The result of this is that the morality and quality of the media comes to stand in for the morality and quality of the person consuming it.

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Music is an obvious candidate when talking about media with wild amounts of wild fans. Taylor Swift, the third most streamed artist of all time on Spotify, has over 42 billion streams to her name. A single person can generate multiple streams, however, so it’s not as though 42 billion different people have streamed her music. With that said, she currently has more than 80 million monthly listeners on Spotify. On October 22, 2022, Twitter released “The Swift Report,” an evaluation of Swift’s impact on the platform that says a lot about both the artist herself, and music fans the world over. According to the report, Taylor Swift had been mentioned in 329 million tweets since 2010, and when “Red (Taylor’s Version)” came out in November 2021, the tweets about Swift outnumbered those about football and basketball, combined. The word for Swift’s fan, “Swifties,” had been tweeted 18 million times over the 12 years preceding the report.

You can’t talk about music fans without talking about BTS and their army of fans, who appropriately refer to themselves as ARMY (which stands for Adorable Representative M.C. For Youth). In 2021, BTS were “the #1 most tweeted-about musicians in the U.S. for the fourth year in a row,” according to Rolling Stone. When their single “Butter” was released, BTS fans generated 300 million tweets over a one-month period from April 24, 2021, to May 23, 2021. And if that wasn’t enough, five million tweets were generated in a single hour between midnight and 1 a.m. on May 21, 2021, when the single actually released.

Since the invention of the internet, and particularly the creation of social media, we’ve all gained a new facet to our identities: our online self. Because this version of ourselves is entirely curated, rather than organic, the most prominent components of it are frequently the things we like and want to show off that we like.

F i l m / T V It would be impossible not to discuss the Walt Disney Company in an article about how the media we consume has come to represent a person’s identity. Disney is one of the driving forces between the monopolization and sanitization of cinema. Additionally, regardless of how one feels about the Disney company or the movies, they likely don’t think very highly of so-called “Disney adults.”

If you’ve made it this far without encountering a Disney adult, consider yourself lucky and think about buying a scratch-off. Disney adults are grown people who, in the generous words of NPR, “spend vast amounts of money and time on Disney-related products and experiences.” Think of the sort of person who incredulously, but a little too seriously, says, “What! You’ve never seen [insert movie here]? I don’t know if we can be friends anymore.”

I’m not personally a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe; however, I’ll admit that I’ve seen a few of the films for the sake of keeping up with popular culture, moreso than out of any personal interest. They are inevitable. Appropriately, and unfortunately, the franchise is owned by Disney. Four of the top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time are Marvel movies, and eight of the 10 highest-grossing superhero movies were also made by Marvel. Going once again by Twitter metrics, in 2018, “Black Panther” became the most tweeted about movie of all time at 35 million tweets, until it was surpassed by “Avengers: Endgame” in 2019, at 50 million.

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Gamers are a group that one might not necessarily categorize the same way as music stans and diehard Marvel fans, but I think it’s an important example. People who make a hobby of playing video games and think of them as a facet of their identity sometimes call themselves “gamers.”

There’s no set level of being “into” video games someone must meet to call themselves a gamer, but the nomenclature is telling; it reinforces the idea that what you consume is what you are.

Videogames have a huge community that’s not limited by language barriers, like music and film often are. PUBG Mobile, a mobile version of the battle royale PC game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), has reportedly been downloaded over one billion times outside of China since its launch in 2018 (Li). Riot Games, the developers of League of Legends — a game for which the world tournaments payout over $2 million — tweeted in November 2021, that in the month of October, they had reached 180 million monthly players. That’s like if more than half of the population of the United States each played the game once. And it wasn’t a one time thing either; in 2022, Esports.net reported that almost every month of that year, more than 150 million active players had played the game each month.

Ultimately, the driving factor behind the commodification of identity has and continues to be corporate greed, and the ability of corporations to worm their way into every facet of public life and monetize it. While the process requires buy-in from consumers, it’s an inescapable product of the capitalist system we live under, rather than the result of individual choices.

Our commodity selves aren’t who we truly are, but it’s really hard to separate ourselves from them. Not liking or engaging with a popular piece of media doesn’t necessarily make you better than someone who does though. If you make it into some sort of litmus test for morality, you’re just reproducing the system. It’s important to be aware of our place in society, and how we make sense of ourselves in relation to others — don’t limit your conception of self to the things you consume. We’re more than that, we’re not just consumers, we’re human beings.

Ultimately, the driving factor behind the commodification of identity has and continues to be corporate greed, and the ability of corporations to worm their way into every facet of public life and monetize it. While the process requires buyin from consumers, it’s an inescapable product of the capitalist system we live under, rather than the result of individual choices.

Does Pain Make Better Art?

By Christina Horacio

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got into college on the basis of an essay I wrote about expressing gratitude for the intensity of my emotions. The 2018 film Thoroughbreds sparked my interest in their importance. The film follows two friends, Lily and Amanda, who set out to murder Lily’s stepfather. In the end, Lily plans to frame Amanda for the murder, on account of Amanda’s pre-existing reputation of being a sociopath. Lily asks Amanda what purpose her life has if she cannot feel. It is this question that prompts Amanda to allow Lily to frame her for the murder, sending her to the psych ward indefinitely.

I wasn’t Amanda. I existed on the opposite side of the spectrum. Like Lily, I felt too much.

Everything seemed to overwhelm me. I was either consumed by an urgent restlessness or too encumbered by my own despondency. Examining Amanda’s numbness and realization of her lack of purpose caused an epiphany of my own: perhaps these overpowering feelings are what qualify me most to perceive reality through human eyes. After all, this innate ability also meant that I experienced joy just as deeply, even if it wasn’t as frequent. I concluded that I was lucky, for it is these feelings, as Lily proposed, that make life purposeful.

Now that I’ve been on antidepressants for three years, I’m struggling with—or rather, fearing— the idea of my writing not living up to its previous emotion-riddled state. When I read old pieces of mine or scroll through excerpts in my notes app, I can’t help but feel that I’ve lost that certain poetic touch that my pain routinely seemed to add. The subject matter hasn’t changed all that much—I still predominantly write about my own struggles—but I can’t seem to grasp the same attention to detail. My previous suffering supplied a depth that is specific to emotion so strong that it’s tangible.

Being on antidepressants masks that. I can only feel it at a distance. While the medication has enabled me to function, I often wonder what the caliber of my writing would look like if I stopped taking them altogether.

Believing that suffering produces my best work is not exactly a niche opinion. Emily Rice, a junior journalism major, says, “It’s a stereotype, but every writer is afflicted with pain. There’s just something stewing in there all the time. Writing is simply just the means of taming the beast.”

As Rice points out, the stereotype is true to a degree. A lot of us fall under the “tortured artist” category. We are constantly attempting to understand and morph our pain into something beautiful, to “tame the beast,” as it were. But I figure that there must be a reason why so many renowned artists are the most depressed people, or why some of the greatest works are tragedies and dramas.

Junior media studies major Marisa Drogo explains that she believes it’s because art is often used as a tool of release.

“When things are good, there is no outlet that I need to [use to] relieve myself. Art is very grounding for me, and [usually] I need grounding when I’ve gone through something painful or have something to work through,” says Drogo.

Rice, in agreement, adds, “You never want to release happiness.

You just want to hold on to it.”

Art begins with the urge to create. It’s difficult to find that urge when happiness can feel so fleeting. Many of us just want to savor an experience rather than immediately turning to illustrate it.

Intensity exists on both sides of the emotional spectrum, but the difference lies in the desire to vent, to splatter it all over the page in an act of catharsis.

Rice explains that the most profound pieces she has written have been borne from past trauma. “It really helped me to compartmentalize not only the memories, and why those have stuck with me, but how they’ve impacted me now. I love that I have it as a tangible thing for me to look back on and know that I’ve [grown].”

Satisfaction and healing can drive us to create, making our work especially gratifying. While this is undoubtedly positive, we can often equate meaning or depth exclusively to art that contains suffering. There’s an increasingly popular notion, as ridiculous as it may sound, that happiness is overrated.

“When I am writing creatively, I want nothing about it to feel perfect. When I write from a place of happiness, it pulls me more toward the idea of painting a perfect picture. And to a degree, it’s just not relatable, and almost boring,” says Rice.

The idea of happiness being overrated is enforced by consumers just the same. There is a growing obsession with the expression of sadness, especially within music. Rice attributes this to a need for consolation through shared experience: “How openly do we really

talk about pain in our everyday lives? Music is such a form of escapism. You [can] listen and feel like ‘Oh, the Weeknd also got dumped.’”

Consuming this kind of art allows us to interact with and process our own pain without having to actually have that conversation aloud. While this is important, the demand for music of this nature can negatively impact the artist. How many times have we seen people celebrate musicians’ breakups in anticipation of an especially good album? People cheered upon hearing of Adele’s divorce. Some even criticized Lorde’s most recent album, Solar Power, for lacking the depressive attributes of predecessors

Melodrama and Pure Heroine.

In her documentary driving home 2 u, Olivia Rodrigo admitted: “I’m terrified that since I’m not gonna be devastated for the rest of my life, I’m no longer gonna make a good album.” When the audience agrees with the notion that your work is better when you’re in a bad place, it’s hard not to believe them.

“Having expectations for artists to always produce something based [on] their emotions can get a little bit rocky, because you’re kind of praying on their downfalls,” says Drogo.

This overwhelming sentiment gives impetus to an internal war. Drogo acknowledges that some of her best work comes from when she’s feeling the worst—but at what cost? “Would I rather feel bad and create good, or feel good and create [nothing]? That’s something that I have to wrestle with a lot.”

Using art as a means of coping can be beneficial, if not life-saving. As Rice points out, it can be a tangible testament to growth. But it can also keep us stagnant—perpetually trapped in crisis or a state of melancholy. Not only do we risk wallowing for an unhealthy amount of time, but we practically invite more pain in. The more we believe that we can only create within these specific parameters, the more we will manifest our own misery.

But how do we get out of this bubble? It sounds contradictory, but there can be a sense of comfort in sulking and bearing that sadness onto the page or canvas. In order to leave this comfort zone, we need to reprogram how we think about our own art and ability to create. Art that is made from a place of joy doesn’t have to be one-dimensional or corny; it can be just as thought-provoking as art made from a place of anguish.

Stepping out of the bubble doesn’t need to start with creating right away. Exposing yourself to media that conveys something other than sadness can enable more confidence in creating from a similar headspace. Even watching sitcoms like Schitt’s Creek has shown me that there is a way to write joy in a way that can be just as impactful to an audience. While that can be difficult to immediately emulate, I have recently found that journaling about a particularly good day or even a small moment has made me less apprehensive of my ability to write from a happier place.

It is a continuous effort to not fall into old patterns. This is not to say that I will stop writing about my own pain. Even with the medication, I still feel like I am not exactly happy most of the time. They always say, “Write what you know,” and that’s what I’ve done thus far. But if we limit ourselves strictly to what we know, we learn nothing. I might not know happiness as intimately, but I would certainly like to try it.

Snow White and the Beauty Industrial Complex

by Claire Fairtlough

D

o not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.”

Aging is a privilege. A privilege that is often forgotten. Women who are on social media today are constantly bombarded with TikToks about anti-aging products that don’t work and Instagram posts that highlight new body parts that they should be insecure about. Women’s bodies go in and out of fashion every season, and right now, the big trend is anti-aging.

Social media plays a massive role in this, but it’s not the only factor in why most women are so scared to age. The fear of aging has been around way before the rise of social media, with media depictions and advertisements drilling in the belief that it’s imperative for women to do everything in their power to look as young as possible. I’ve seen TikToks of girls warning their followers about smiling “too much,” because that will give them wrinkles. There are a plethora of beauty influencers who promote overconsumption with their 12- step skincare routines, which consist of lotions and oils specifically promoted as preventing wrinkles. This influx of social media has created a shift in anti-aging discourse that I believe to be relatively new. Instead of wanting to reduce the appearance of wrinkles that we already have, the beauty industry is actively pushing to prevent getting wrinkles in the first place. Not only are there products for when you’re older, there now are products that are created with the purpose of “aging gracefully.” The desire to look younger is no longer being advertised: the goal is now to never age in the first place.

It’s clear that this fear of natural aging is more profitable than being comfortable in one’s own skin. The selfconsciousness that many women feel about their bodies changing can often lead to them projecting their insecurities onto other women, instead of the systems that encourage their self-loathing. An example of this is the “Snow White” syndrome.

Everyone knows the story of Snow White. She’s a beautiful princess (at the mature age of 14!) who suffers at the hands of her old stepmother, who’s envious of Snow White being “the fairest of them all.” The stepmother used to be the fairest woman in the kingdom, but was ultimately replaced by someone younger than her. This envy that the stepmother feels, leads her to do anything in her power to get rid of Snow White. Snow White Syndrome is a term coined by author Betsey Cohen, who utilizes her social work and psychiatry background to deconstruct our society’s current understanding of beauty standards. Cohen uses the fable of Snow White to demonstrate how envy is weaponized against women, turning fellow women against each other.

The envy that many older women feel toward younger people is intentionally constructed in favor of the beauty industry.

It makes sense for cosmetic and skincare companies to push this narrative. If women believe that their worth and value is solely based on their appearance, the more products they will buy. Cohen attempts to articulate that aging is beautiful, and that instead of fearing it, we should be celebrating the privilege that is to be alive. Despite all of the flaws in the world we live in, it’s a rare and wonderful thing to be alive. Why should we feel ashamed of displaying it?

It’s not just fables that have women feeling this way. In fact, the trouble behind anti-aging products has almost nothing to do with the products themselves. The issue lies in the impossible dream that’s being sold. The celebrities with glowing skin, the images of smooth creams being the solution to all of our problems, the deep-seated belief that youth is currency. This message, mainly marketed to women, takes advantage of the natural fear of our own mortality. The finitude of our life gets turned into the popular belief that women’s value is solely based on their appearance. Of course, the commercials will never state this. They will say that with these products their skin feels smooth, supple, and radiant. The scam is supposed to be empowering. Women are supposed to believe that it’s a powerful thing to look 20 years younger than their actual age. That means they’re doing something right. That means they’re healthy.

The reality is: every person gets older. We are never as young as we used to be, and the beauty industry wants us to believe that’s

Despite all of the flaws in the world we live in, it’s a rare and wonderful thing to be alive.

Why should we feel ashamed of displaying it?

a bad thing. There is so much emphasis on “aging well” that 18-year-old girls start to consider getting preventative botox. It’s never been about being healthy. It’s always been about being the one to achieve the impossible. We obsess over celebrities that have “aged well.”

Jennifer Aniston has been championed for “aging well,” with a plethora of images on the internet comparing her 2023 self to her days on Friends.

Hollywood’s recent victim of ageism has been Alexa Demie.

When people learned that Demie was 32 years old yet playing a teenager on Euphoria, the internet went into a frenzy.

Fans couldn’t believe that a woman at the age of 32, an “old woman,” could successfully play a person that looks like the targeted audience of the show. The fear of getting old has gotten so bad that I truly wonder if some kids on TikTok believe that a 28-year-old is an elderly hag.

To make matters worse, the reason for these “older” celebrities aging well is always explained to be that they’re “unproblematic,” as if how they look has anything to do with their character. Through all of this media consumption and celebrity obsession, there is something sinister beneath all of it: something that Oscar Wilde tackled in 1890 with his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Anti-aging culture reads very similar to virtue signaling with the belief that those who look “good” for their age are also “good people,” while someone who looks “bad” for their age must’ve been doing something wrong.

That being said, I don’t believe that being interested in skincare and beauty products is inherently a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look your best, and there certainly isn’t anything wrong with taking care of your health. However, there’s a distinction between wearing sunscreen everyday in order to avoid skin cancer, and avoiding smiling to prevent wrinkles.

Wrinkles aren’t preventable, no matter what the advertisement promises. How one looks has nothing to do with their character, and no amount of preventative botox will change that.

Heartbreak Harmony

by Kate Rispoli

I

t was summertime when a friendship I thought would last a lifetime dissolved like sugar in tea, without all the sweetness. For days, for weeks, for months, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the way everything went down. Something that was so beautiful to me just vanished in an instant. Gone.

Yet, through the eyes of everyone else, the mystery of what had happened did not seem to be as much of a mystery as I had thought it was. As I sobbed in the middle of a mini golf parking lot, my friends let me know that they had sensed a problem longer than I had. As I choked back tears in my family’s favorite Irish pub, my mom told me she never had a good feeling about this friendship.

I suppose it’s easier to look at other people’s relationships with unbiased clarity. I can look at the dynamics between people I’ve seldom fully observed and make my own decisions on the state of their relationships. The same judgments applied to the music I listened to, pushing me to jump to conclusions about everything interpersonal that an artist could reveal. Artists could wax poetic about their beloved, only to subtly reveal every little thing that made this particular partner not-soright, and I could see myself in that.

I could listen to the lyrics of these songs about relationships that just weren’t right, while also seeing myself in their position. I could listen to an artist sing about how they had been hurt by someone and feel pity for them while also thinking, “Hey… This all sounds quite familiar.” It was through the words of artists I had never met that I came to see that what had happened had been for the best.

I can’t prescribe one solution to overcoming a friendship breakup. Mine happened two years ago now, and I still find myself questioning what went wrong, and how it could have all been different. The thoughts don’t weigh as heavily as they used to, though, and I do think that I can attribute that to the help of my playlist.

“I saw the wing of a bird on the road. It was early, I was walking alone. And I found it lovely, and I found it sad. I don’t know how you’d find it, but I wanted to ask.” — “Everything” by MUNA As a teenager with a heart untethered from my brain, I loved my best friend more than I loved myself, and I didn’t see anything wrong with that. I placed her atop a pedestal; I saw her interchangeably with the sun. My world revolved around her.

Every thought that crossed my mind was one that I wanted to share with her. In a Cape Cod candy shop, when one of our favorite songs came on over the radio, there was no hesitation to keep me from texting her just that. It was then that I saw a notification that she had stopped sharing her location with me.

It was a knife to the chest, knowing that I was never held in high esteem by her for a long time, thinking about how I was likely a second thought to her in many instances.

Yet, at the same time, while I may have been an afterthought to her, she was undeniably

too prominent of a thought to me. One person shouldn’t be all consuming; it’s utterly unhealthy.

While she may have been everything to me, I didn’t see what was wrong with that until she was gone, and I felt empty. I still had friends, I still had loved ones and passions and dreams, but they had all taken a backseat to her. For years, while she had been everything, I had been nothing, and I didn’t really see that until the friendship dissolved.

“Unpacked every single word you wrote and I overanalyzed it, front, back and beside it.

Where else can we go? There’s nothing left here to decode.” —“decode” by Sabrina Carpenter Our friendship ended through ghosting, my texts suddenly unanswered after one of our long drives around town over fast-food french fries and early 2000s pop music. For every word I sent that summer — which, frankly, may have been hundreds — no response came. I felt forced to go back and reread every past text from the weeks before everything fell apart, to see if there was something I had missed.

I told myself it had to be me: I was missing something, and finding it would help fix things. Of course, nothing was fixed. I was relying on her old words to tell me something new, and that’s just not communication. If there was a problem — which there certainly was — given her absence in my life for years, it was her responsibility to say it, not mine to search for it.

I found myself bending over backwards for someone who couldn’t give me the bare minimum of truth, and it wasn’t until I realized (too long after it all) that it was on her to tell, not on me to ask, that I was able to stop looking back on old messages and delete them instead.

I could listen to the lyrics of these songs about relationships that just weren’t right, while also seeing myself in their position. I could listen to an artist sing about how they had been hurt by someone and feel pity for them while also thinking, “Hey... This all sounds quite familiar.” It was through the words of artists I had never met that I came to see that what had happened had been for the best.

“You weren’t there in my dreams, I could finally sleep. I felt good, but it sucks, I don’t hate you as much.” — “Too Well” by Reneé Rapp She showed up in my dreams after it ended. It was always the same dream: she and I would be talking like everything was normal, like she hadn’t dropped me like a bad habit, but there would be a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that something wasn’t right. I would ask her what happened, how did we get here, but she would never answer. And then I’d wake up.

Out of the blue, the dreams would return, though not half as prominent as they were two summers ago. She wasn’t the only thing on my mind anymore, and even though she would linger somewhere in my subconscious for years to come, the end of our friendship no longer felt like the end of the world.

I would never get the answer to my dream question, and that would be okay. Of course, moving on was never permanent. The dreams would come back, every once in a while, and I would be thrust back into the beginning of the cycle, missing her then hating her then realizing that my life was better without her. For now, I’ve been able to hold onto the latter feeling for longer and longer, but knowing that falling back to square one happens to everyone is a feeling that has been one of great comfort.

“Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it. I’d like to be my old self again, but I’m still trying to find it.” — “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift It took me too long to look back at the friendship that I had mourned and realize that it was all too unhealthy. The songs about breakups, though they may have been romantic while mine was platonic, spoke to me in a way that they certainly shouldn’t have.

And then what? Where do you go after realizing that something you missed so much, something you cried over for far too long, was something that you were meant to be without. I suppose you pick yourself up and create yourself anew.

I would say I’m still doing that. For a friendship that spanned half a decade and then some, it’s hard to go back to the person that you were before it all. Then again, maybe I don’t want to be that person anymore, someone who can fall into such an unhealthy trap and see no wrong with it. There is an old self of mine, but I think she should stay in the past.

I don’t think Taylor found her old self again, nor would she want to. I’m sure Renee still wakes up from dreams of the past, but that doesn’t mean she turns back to it. Sabrina stopped looking for hidden undertones and seems happier for it, and Katie seems to have understood that someone can’t be everything. Thanks to them, their beautiful words and their lovely words, I can accept that all too.

E

very liberal arts major is familiar with that dreaded conversation that looms over every awkward dentist appointment or family gathering. The one in which a student is tasked with explaining their course of study to a difficult-to-please grandfather or Ivy League-accredited doctor, which almost always results in such endearing responses as:

So what do you plan on doing with that? Or, What’s your backup plan?

When young adults are faced with the frightening notion of attending college, many are confronted with a highly dramatized choice: to pursue their artistic passions academically or leave them in the past forever.

For many kids, this choice is simple: they deem the social stigma and job insecurity surrounding artsrelated careers enough of a deterrent for them. Some students, on the other hand, find it extremely difficult to let go of an artistic passion that has formed so much of their identity.

I grew up loving the arts and the theatre. From the age of ten, performing with people I adored and telling stories I adored onstage quickly became my favorite thing in the world. This was a passion I treasured, which brought me immense joy and some of my most cherished memories. When the time came to select a college major, I naturally thought I would pursue a career in the theatre, as I couldn’t imagine my life without it. This choice came with a particularly disheartening realization fairly quickly into my freshman year:

This wasn’t meant for me.

I fought this feeling for quite some time. I loved theatre so much: how could I feel out of place studying one of my greatest passions? It wasn’t until my sophomore year that I decided to make the big switch. I decided to alter my course of study to something outside the realm of performing arts, just to see if I could fix this odd lack of fulfillment that plagued my coursework. I joined the Creative Writing program to see if it was a better fit for my academic self. It was.

Passion Dies (Or Does It?)

by Catherine Kubick

It was then and there that I realized what you love and what you study don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Despite this epiphany, I still suffered from issues with my identity as I averted my focus away from theatre for the first time in my life.

At a liberal arts school like Emerson College, it can be hard to gain the courage to pursue opportunities outside of your designated major. It is common for one to feel pigeonholed or defined by the title of their major. Theatre-centric extracurriculars and clubs, in particular, can be intimidating to non-performance students. One may feel estranged when they attempt to keep their passions alive outside of a professional environment or academic setting.

Extracurricular activities in college are meant to serve as the foreground to prepare students for professional endeavors, but they are also meant to encourage personal growth and creative diversity within students.

Emerson student Rebecca Sherman (’24) shared some anecdotes about her personal experience switching from her Writing, Literature & Publishing major to a personally designed major through Emerson’s IDIP (now referred to as the IDS) program. “As an IDIP major, my major entirely revolves around my passions. I’ve been fortunate that I not only got to develop my own course structure, but focus on my passions and interests across different departments.”

The ability to structure your own course of study and not be constrained by the label of a specific major really has worked in Rebecca’s benefit, as she expressed that the WLP major didn’t fit her academic and personal needs, so she created her own curriculum in order to provide a further outlet for creative fulfillment.

Sydney Lowry (’24) also changed her course of study. Lowry began as a journalism major, later transitioning to a double major in Writing, Literature & Publishing and Theatre Education.

Lowry cited her missing the environment and camaraderie within the Performing Arts as the reason for her change of study: “I missed having the opportunity to be creative and the community that comes with being a part of theatre.”

A college or university is inherently a place of self-discovery. It is a time in young adulthood when we can and should be encouraged to try new things and develop new interests, while also maintaining our old ones within safe spaces. There is a widespread belief that we must enter college with a single end goal in mind and that our entire life’s journey must be meticulously planned out.

The ideology that one should “stay in their lane” and not explore extracurricular endeavors that deviate from their course of study can be felt all too often in schools dominated by the arts. Clubs, activities and organizations are there so we can expand our identities and horizons within an academic institution without necessarily being in an academic setting like a classroom.

When the time came to select a college major, I naturally thought I would pursue a career in the theatre, as I couldn’t imagine my life without it.

This choice in turn came with a particularly disheartening realization fairly quickly into my freshman year: This wasn’t meant for me.

Lowry continued to emphasize the struggle that one may feel when joining an extracurricular activity that does not correspond to their course of study. Lowry specifically points to the world of college theatre: “I think that, especially in terms of the performing arts, the extracurricular activities could strive to be more open to nonperforming arts majors. While I’ve noticed a lot of growth in the last few years within student theatre, it can feel really daunting to audition for shows as a non-performance major. As Emerson is such a creative and arts-centric school, I wish there were more opportunities for students who didn’t choose to major in performance to have the chance to showcase their talents.”

This assessment was much different from those who had experience in the Creative Writing and Writing, Literature & Publishing side of Emerson, as Creative Writing major Rachel Tarby (’24) mentions how she feels that there are “many WLP and creative writing extracurricular options” at Emerson.

Lowry maintained the frustration that came with auditioning consistently as an underclassman and having no luck in the start: “There have been semesters where I haven’t been cast in anything, which can feel really frustrating when I’m not a performance major and don’t have access to those experiences through classes.”

Facing the realization that our passions don’t always equate to a career is frightening, and can completely alter someone’s expectations of themselves and their identity. The process of changing your major is an immensely exciting (albeit stressful) one. The notion of starting something new is incredibly thrilling, especially when you allow yourself to realize that the passions you have set aside will always be a part of you.

You may also open creative doors and opportunities that perhaps weren’t there before.

Rochester Institute of Technology student Caroline Robbins (’24) detailed her major switch from her school’s Fine Art Photography program to the Advertising Photography program: “I knew I wanted to do photography, it just took some time and learning to realize the specific path for me within that passion.”

I have recently found several outlets that have allowed me to keep my cherished passion for theatre alive, which I am immensely thankful for. I am fortunate to be contributing to two current student-led productions as a dramaturg, while finding a performance outlet by participating in a student-led cabaret last semester. These opportunities have filled a massive void in me, especially as a Creative Writing major who may not always be a first choice in some of these performance-oriented settings.

It is vital to remember that veering your course of study away from the things you love doesn’t have to be a death sentence for your passions. As college students, we must be welcoming and not jump to restricting our creative interests based on what field or course of study we are pursuing. As a community at Emerson, we must be fervent in keeping an open mind and heart to those who wish to flex their creative muscles in any extracurricular setting that lies outside of their given major or course of study, whatever their passion may be.

Wellness Photographed by Sophia Roberts Design by Emma Albright Makeup by Angelee Gonzalez Modeled by Breazy Rowlands Aminata Marshall Lauren Ishikawa

Sunset Moments

by Sisel Gelman

I

’ll confess that I’ve struggled to write this reflection. It might be because I’m still living in this unique chapter of my life, and therefore, I do not have the distance to reflect on it. But the more I think about it, this freshness is precisely why I should write about it.

There is power in preserving a moment today to give way to an epiphany tomorrow.

Before coming to Emerson College, I was rejected from 36 undergraduate programs. I spent two years in limbo—caught between my high school days and an unknown future—as rejection letters piled at my doorstep.

Without a single hint as to what my future held, I lived day to day. I couldn’t fathom a concrete future for myself. I had nothing long-term to look forward to. There were even moments during the rejection process when I was convinced I would never be admitted into college.

Now that I am a senior at Emerson, I am once again experiencing the anxiety of an uncertain future as I wait to hear back from graduate schools.

I once heard a woman call these transition periods sunset moments. The metaphor is this: there are moments in our lives where we are caught between two eras, and there is nothing to do but “watch the sunset unfold.” We can’t hold onto the day, and we can’t rush the night. We are caught in the “now” as it presents to us in its honesty: a mixture of change, fear, excitement, loss, rewards, and the endless ticking of a runaway clock.

Sunset moments are commonly associated with words such as “inevitable” and “loss of control,” because they have a bad reputation for being stressful. This stress could be attributed to a lack of mindfulness. The secret to experiencing these sunset moments with grace is to live simultaneously with one step in the past, one step in the present, and one step in the future (as hard as that sounds). One must learn to balance reflection, celebration and planning to extract the best out of an experience.

Celebrations are traditions that mark the passage of time. They can be as big as having a final dinner at a favorite restaurant or as small as throwing a

massive party. The important part is to enjoy them wholeheartedly and to imbue these experiences with meaning so they serve as a doorway between the two eras. Celebrations prompt reflection, which guides growth and an appreciation for the journey that has already been taken, which leads to mental preparation and anticipation for the next adventure to come. Together, celebration, reflection and planning allow a person to find gratitude in looking back and finding joy in what has been, remaining present in what is, and looking forward with excitement for what will come. If one of them is missing, a person could potentially feel resentful during this transition period.

I confess, again, that I’ve been struggling to celebrate, reflect and prepare.

In less than a month, the ten schools I applied to for graduate school will respond with either an acceptance letter or a rejection. In less than a month, I will have to make a decision that will change the course of my life, and embark on the arduous journey of enrolling, packing and moving across the country to start anew.

It doesn’t help that as of today, I have already been rejected from six of those ten universities.

College has done me well. Despite the natural downs in the rhythm of life, I have been surrounded by immense joy during my time here. I have been happy. I have been in love. I have built a life here, and I can’t believe it is about to end in a few months. Even as I write this article, I can see one of my friends singing in the mirror as he brushes his teeth, and I mourn the loss of this home we share.

I might be selfishly burdened by the fear of starting from scratch. I don’t know if I am prepared to go through the lonely period of introductions, orientations, and

finding new friends—and a new partner.

My partner and I have chosen to break up on the last day of school.

It’s not that we don’t love each other anymore; rather, he’s chosen to stay in Boston and I have nothing keeping me here. As he says, “You’ve got to go be a best-selling author.” Isn’t that the dream?

I’ve wanted to write since I was a child. It is the life I hunger for, but it is a very different life from what he wants. And that is okay. We are not all meant to follow the same path.

Deep down, I know that the passion I have for writing is greater than the sorrow of parting from my loved ones. I know that graduate school is the next step I must take in my journey toward professional and personal self-realization…even if it frightens me…even if I tear up every time I feel time moving too fast.

I celebrate. I reflect. I prepare. And I am still caught in the sadness of mourning this current life of mine.

That’s the thing I struggle to remember: here is joy. I sit in an uncomfortable unknown that holds immense power through the promise of possibility. As the Jewish saying goes, “This too shall pass,” and when it does, I will look back on this angst with much love. I will have enough perspective to understand why everything happened the way it did. I will welcome this epiphany with open arms.

I think quite often of the fig metaphor in The Bell Jar. In it, life is portrayed as a fig tree in which the pursuit of one fruit equals letting another rot. The fig metaphor highlights the fear of seeing one’s life wash away, while also secretly celebrating the abundance of choices.

It’s a privilege and an honor to imagine myself thriving as a writer under so many different scenarios.

As of today, I’ve already received two acceptance letters. These pockets of joy keep me going. These are moments in which I feel invincible. Unstoppable. I burst into song and dance. I see the curious synchronicities in my life. I feel the pieces come together in a way that is sublime and beyond my mortal understanding. I imagine my future with joy, and I take great pleasure in having crafted it with my own hands. And suddenly the title sunset moment takes on a new meaning. Not only are sunsets temporary, but they are also beautiful. Not only is this period of my life coming to a close, but it was also beautiful.

We are caught in the “now” as it presents to us in its honesty: a mixture of change, fear, excitement, loss, rewards, and the everticking of a runaway clock.

No One Wants to Hear You're Struggling , In Fact,We Forbid It

by Habeebh Sylla

N

o one really talks about those dark emotions that tend to invade us from time to time. It feels taboo to utter them out loud or to share them with a cherished friend. So instead, we add those feelings into the already-full crevice that holds all our dark, depressing feelings until it consumes us bit by bit. We allow it to eat us up inside from fear of letting too much information slip from our lips because then, we would have to admit that something is wrong. It’s unfair that our emotions are held to such an unreachable standard, to the point where we’d rather mask our true emotions. God forbid if we want to cry or scream in public—the world will look at us like we’re monsters.

I’m not even going to pretend to understand what depression is, even though the word has been thrown all around me for some time.

Whether it was from a casual mention from a friend or through the media, every time I would hear the word, it wouldn’t process. The impact of it failed to reach my ears. When someone would tell me they were depressed, I just took it as something people said as a way to communicate that they were stressed.

Not being able to understand the true meaning of depression allowed me to skip the full weight of that word. The first time I heard it mentioned was in movies and TV shows: the characters suffering from depression were portrayed in a zombie-like state or unresponsive to the happenings of the world. At that time, watching these fictional characters being depressed didn’t affect me; after all, it only existed in my TV. Since there was no one to educate me on it, I didn’t notice some signs within myself. Who was going to tell me you could suffer from depression and still be active in your day-to-day life? The shows I watched failed to show the side of depression that completely seized a person mentally, while physically, they were still active due to their moral obligations. I didn’t know if depression was the right word to describe what was happening to me, but it sure felt like it.

The past two semesters, I had a particularly hard time with self-esteem and feeling excited about any plans with friends. It was more than feeling sad or tired: it always felt like I had a dark cloud over my head that I couldn’t shake.

Sometimes, my dark mood lasted for a few days, especially since I isolated myself to spare

“uring that time, I realized how easy it was for your brain to trick you.

To feel like friends don’t reach out or include you in plans enough. To feel like while life is going on all around you, you’re alone in this bubble of isolation. anyone from my withdrawn attitude. It was hard to communicate how I felt because I couldn’t find the words to explain it. My parents never talked about mental health in our household, so it felt taboo to discuss.

It was also hard to gauge if people around me felt the same way. During that time, I realized how easy it was for your brain to trick you. To feel like friends don’t reach out or include you in plans enough. To feel like while life is going on all around you, you’re alone in this bubble of isolation.

The environment of my dorm contributed to this behavior. I cooped myself in my room because I didn’t want anyone to see how I was feeling and I couldn’t handle any interaction for some reason. I preferred to be alone and let myself be suffocated by those feelings. There was no solution or realization that this could be depression. I just took it as me “feeling down.” I continued to attend classes and get my work done. I took care of my hygiene and fed myself.

The only thing that had been affected was my mindset—until I went home for winter break.

During winter break, those feelings escalated due to staying home for long periods and not even going outside to get fresh air. It got to a point where I was always irritated and annoyed, and all I wanted to do was lie down.

My sister helped put things into perspective for me when we had a candid conversation that justified everything I was feeling at the time. In her room, I poured out the feelings I had been keeping to myself; when I told her that I was worried it might be depression, she reacted in such a simple way: “Oh, yeah, I had depression in high school.” Somehow, those words absolved me of feeling alone in this: the one person I looked up to experienced similar emotions. It felt like I could breathe, could share everything freely. My sister opened up about how she felt depressed during high school, but since there wasn’t an outlet for her to express her feelings, she kept these feelings to herself without anyone noticing—including me, since I was younger at that time.

The issue is that I don’t want to label myself as depressed because of the negative connotation that sticks to it. Immigrant parents don’t want to hear about you struggling with your mental health. They may not know the right tools to help you. Or even worse, they don’t want to play with the idea of their child being “crazy.”

As I get older, I realize the physical and emotional toll that poor mental health can take on your body. It’s not easy to ignore the thoughts and continue my day; in fact, I shouldn’t be ignoring it, because these issues will come up again. It’s how I choose to deal with them that will make all the difference.

The Runner's High

by Fernanda Cantu T

here is a sense of aliveness that can be found in all kinds of terrains. It reveals itself on city roads, where pavements are hot and sticky in the summer sun. It follows valleys rising and falling, offering a sense of majesty and wonder as individuals conquer each peak. It is unveiled on beaches, with rolling waves and soft sand, providing a sense of peace and serenity as feet leave imprints in the sand. On treadmills, with their monotonous beat, it offers a chance to escape the chaos of the world and focus solely on the journey.

The runner’s high: a tantalizing and enigmatic entity that beckons runners with its promise of euphoria. It is a mythical creature, both alluring and elusive, that draws sprinters into its grasp with the siren song of endorphins and adrenaline. The runner’s high is a prize sought after by runners everywhere, a reward for those willing to push themselves to their limits and beyond.

The allure of this experience is irresistible.

It is a surge of positivity and an unshakable sense of wellbeing that cannot be replicated by any other means, a reward that is earned through hard work and determination. Most

are drawn like moths to a flame, unable to resist its pull.

The runner’s high is also a fickle master, an entity that is not easily captured. It is elusive, slipping through the fingers of even the most experienced runners. It is never guaranteed.

Some may never experience the high, while others may find it only once in a great while, ter uncovering a source of inspiration, pushing to dig deeper, and finding inner strength and resilience within.

For those who do experience it, it is a fleeting thing, a moment of pure bliss in which the scenery around you becomes a blur. The only sounds you hear are the rhythm of your breath and the pounding of your feet. You feel one with nature, as if the world around you is moving with you in perfect harmony. But just like that, it quickly passes into memory.

Despite its elusive nature, runners continue to chase this high, driven by the thrill of the chase. The pursuit is an addiction, a constant reminder of the beauty and power of the human body. The rush of endorphins, the pounding of the heart, the sound of their own footsteps, these are the things

that keep runners coming back for more. They crave a moment of escape, a reprieve from the chaos of life. The flow state, when the mind is free from the constant barrage of thoughts that often accompany modern life, provides the much-needed break from stress, depression, relationships, and other responsibilities. This is the chance to find comfort and peace within, to reflect and connect with one’s self. It is more than just a feeling. It is a symbol of their strength, a testament to their willpower, and a testament to the human spirit. When the experience hits, they are reminded that they are in control, that they are creating their own reality. It is a representation of the power of the mind and the body working in perfect harmony. It is a reminder of the magic that exists within each of us, waiting to be unleashed. Through this, runners are reminded that they are not just a collection of bones, muscles, and flesh, but a living, breathing being with the power to change each day. This high is a mystery, a wonder, and a reminder of the greatness that exists within us all. A runner’s high is not just a physical experience, it transcends into the mental and spiritual realms. The sense of accomplishment carries over into other areas of her life. It is the prize that awaits those who are willing to chase it, and the reward for those who never give up.

So runners continue to lace up their shoes and hit the pavement, trails, or sand, driven by the promise of euphoria. They run through anything and everything, knowing the high is waiting for them just around the next bend. And when they finally capture it, they hold it close, savoring every moment, every sensation, and every rush of endorphins. They know that they have earned something truly special.

The runner’s high is also a fickle master, an entity that is not easily captured. It is elusive, slipping through the fingers of even the most experienced runners. It is never guaranteed.

Musings in the Mirror Hannah Hillis

M

agic mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all, the Evil Queen asks. Her vanity is unabashed—she lets her mirror control her autonomy, her anger. While most mirrors are not sentient, the intimacy of a conversation with one can still fundamentally change our outlook. Who are we talking to? Is it ourselves, a version of ourselves…or something different entirely?

Literature and film tell us that mirrors are a symbol of arrogance, but also self-awareness.

These two ideas contrast each other, though, when vanity is usually a sign of some kind of delusion. Contemporary movies like I, Tonya and Black Swan show this duality, both using mirrors to show an obsession with the self.

Any symbolism on mirrors can agree on one thing: there is a shock to seeing and interacting with the external self. Some psychologists argue that if a person were to see their clone on the street, there would be zero recognition.

Isn’t that strange? We—women especially— spend so much time primping and looking in mirrors only to not even recognize our outward appearance. It makes grounds for the argument that what we see and experience in a mirror is not fully external, or even real. but rather a construction of our internal self.

As I write, I can look up to see the mirror posted on my wall. A little reflective panel, stuck with Command Strips, surrounded by various postcards, stickers and memories. Every time I take a second to think of a word or a phrase, I look up to meet my own eyes— not purposefully, but instinctively. There’s an

awareness that isn’t usually there: being forced to know that you aren’t just a set of eyeballs and a brain can be a bit of a shock sometimes. And that’s just when I’m feeling neutral. I can’t forget to mention the millions of times I’ve seen (and taken… rarely) mirror pics of mascara running, tear tracks, accompanied by a peace sign to make sure everyone knows the picture is taken with a sense of self-awareness.

Crying or experiencing any type of negative emotion while looking in a mirror brings me a different level of sense of self.

Sometimes it can even make me stop crying—Who the hell is that sobbing in the mirror? Get a hold of yourself!

Looking into a mirror in any emotional state, I feel like the Evil Queen in a way that I don’t want to be. It feels vain to look at my reflection any time I can, yet I don’t think I can stop. In talking with other women my age, I sense a similar dichotomy in them as well. It’s no secret that throughout a history dominated by the patriarchy, women were mostly expected to be both beautiful and modest. We are the villains for staring in mirrors––an awareness of physicality is vain, obsessive and lacking proper morals.

The strange part is that I rarely see people of other gender identities grapple with this the way I do the people that were socialized as women. It seems, for the most part, unique to the feminine experience. This hyperfixation on the external is both expected and shamed by society.

What isn’t discussed are the times when vanity is more neutral than evil.

In excess, of course, it is blinding and dangerous, but for the normal girl with a mirror on her desk, awareness of self is not some villainous, vain thing we avoid—it is an analysis. A check-in on the physical. A reminder that we are here. That should be a positive thing, even in moments of tearfulness.

I look at my mirror again and see someone staring back. Around this little panel of glass is all the memorabilia I have collected. The mirror, without the symbolism and deep thought, is simply another part of that journey, an extension of all of the art and memories I have acquired. My presence on this wall isn’t all too different from the sketches and stickers—it is my eyes telling me that I, too, am part of this collection of myself.

We are the villains for staring in a mirror––an awareness of physicality is vain, obsessive, and lacking proper morals.

Globe Photographed by Emma Cahill Designed by Erin Norton Styled by Jemma Sanderson Assisted by HiuChing Yan Modeled by Kelly Chen Aminata Marshall Jennifer Novo

You Can’t Fight DNA

By Arushi Jacob

I

t is a warm, sunny day and there’s a light breeze blowing through the outdoor dining area of the Mexican restaurant where we are eating dinner.

My mother and I are trying our hardest not to scream at each other. It’s 2016 and we’re discussing — or rather arguing about — our upcoming trip to Paris. We’re fighting over something trivial, something I can’t remember now, maybe about what time to get to the airport or her refusing to step foot in the Catacombs. The only things I do remember? The two orders of tacos on the table: a veggie with extra guac, and a shrimp drenched in their spiciest salsa. She glares at me as I steal her glass of water, already finished with mine.

She says something about how her straw is going to taste like shrimp now. I roll my eyes, used to her vocal disdain over my refusal to be vegetarian. I am 13, and to me, my mother is overly fond of rules, entirely too cautious, and hopelessly practical. I tell her often, like I did on that warm, sunny day, that I’m not convinced that we’re biologically related. She huffs in response and resumes our conversation, folding her napkin over and over into a neat little square. I ball up my tissue and listen to her make arguments that I fundamentally disagree with. We are so not related.

S i x years later, I am 19 and doing a semester abroad my sophomore year of college, which has been one of the most jarring experiences of my life. It’s been a period of realizations, all of which I’ve been writing down in a little notebook: not all cheese tastes good, trains in Germany cannot be trusted, clubbing in Spain is more exhausting than running the Boston Marathon. The strangest of all of these epiphanies? I’m turning into my mother.

There were small changes at first, like ordering piña coladas at least once a week, adding a couple Dean Martin songs to my “currently listening” playlist, or giving into the urge to buy overpriced bouquets at flower stands on the road. But from the very beginning, I felt like my mother and I have been as different as two people could be. She’s patient and realistic with a need for organization while I am restless, emotional and downright chaotic. She can’t stand music with any instrument stronger than an acoustic guitar, I need everything I listen to to have bass strong enough to reverberate through my skull. She plans meticulously, I act spontaneously. She believes in immediate action, I leave things to the last second. The list never ends.

The times our differences feel more evident than ever are when we’re traveling. Over the last two decades, my mom and I have traveled all over the globe, crossing oceans and continents. We’ve strolled through every glass street in Manhattan, spent hours wandering around the Louvre, and

to do with a friend’s sprained ankle in Amsterdam … If I should buy another leather jacket … What she does when she’s feeling nauseous on a bus …

Everyday I grow, I grow up, I grow into my mother. I get to airports hours before I need to. I have my closet organized by color and purpose, and a million different lists on my notes app. I refuse to wear backpacks in crowded spaces, or sit in a seat opposing the direction we’re going.

spent even longer in the Singapore sun. When I think of traveling, I think of my mother.

Armed with a sturdy pair of sneakers and a sling purse I have a deep loathing for, passing a Ziplock bag of Goldfish between us, she always seems so sure of everything — where we are, where we’re going, what we’re doing.

It always seemed so much easier to let my mom take control of what we were doing, for the simple reason that she would do a better job. Now without her beside me to make the decisions, I’ve found myself thinking exactly like her. And I love it. Despite all of our differences, my mom is truly one of my best friends. My friends call us “the less problematic Gilmore Girls,” a two-woman team that’s more a friendship than a typical mother-daughter bond. I trust my mom implicitly, and when she’s not there I can hear her voice in my head. When that voice is indecisive, I call and ask her advice all over again. What

I go all the way to Venice, determined to see my mother’s favorite city before it sinks. It’s freezing cold and my friends and I have no idea where we’re going. We’ve been weaving through the maze that is the streets of Venice, distracted by the bright and flashy store windows. We’re all exhausted, but I can’t find myself to be anything but happy. Venice is beautiful, chaotically so, and I don’t ever want to leave. I sent a million pictures of the city to my mom, making her promise we will visit together some day. “So you really like it that much?” she texted me.

“I love it,” I responded.

“I knew you would,” she said. “We’re the same.”

Everyday I grow, I grow up, I grow into my mother

Dying in Japan

By Sydney Flaherty

I

don’t really remember what the bowling alley looked like the night I almost died. Like most things I saw on my trip to Japan, it appeared behind a foggy window — blurred by excitement, homesickness, and translation.

I remember the dim fluorescent lights and putting my hand on my heart, swearing I couldn’t feel a thing.

It was my first time away from home since summer camp in fifth grade. I’d spent my eighth grade year applying to and preparing for this trip: a two week exchange program with 15 other middle schoolers in Michigan. We left the last week of February and lived with host families throughout the Shiga prefecture of Japan.

I spent the mornings with my host sister, Mayu, at school. After lunch I went on trips with the other students. We visited elementary schools, museums, and gardens. I ate dinner with my host family and slept upstairs next to a space heater.

I have always been anxious. I used to cry every morning before being dropped off in first grade, faked illnesses to get out of presentations in fifth grade, and still struggle to speak up in class. But my biggest fear has always been sickness. My mouth goes dry at the mention of vomit; I have lists and tests to ensure I’m okay. Are my palms clammy? Would I eat cake right now? I have routines and worries and Clorox wipes at the ready.

It was all worse in eighth grade.

I designated a large section of my suitcase to medications and memorized doses in preparation for my trip. I downloaded Netflix shows and made a playlist of songs to calm myself down just in case. I wrote a list of “things to do if I feel sick” in my notes app.

First item: “take five DEEP breaths.”

It felt like I was about to go swimming in the middle of a hurricane, filling my head with survival tips, shaking hands holding an oxygen mask. At the last minute, I packed a whole box of Oreos in my suitcase. I figured, if I felt I was going to vomit I could just eat a lot of them so that it would taste okay.

Because of my diligent preparation, the first few days of the trip went well. The jet lag made everything blur into a tired haze and our filled schedule kept me too busy to think about how far I was from home. When I felt nervous, I had a thousand different strategies to distract myself. By the third day, I’d finished the box of Oreos.

What I remember most clearly from those first few days was an overwhelming need to prove to myself that my anxiety didn’t control me.

That I could do whatever I wanted — could travel to Japan and live with strangers — despite all of it.

I remember feeling so proud of myself.

And then I was under that bowling alley’s fluorescent lights and everyone’s voices got a little too loud. It was after dinner. We’d gone to a conveyor belt sushi place and our group couldn’t fit on the couch in front of the lane, so we all took turns standing. When I try to remember that night, everything looks covered in smoke. I think that’s how it felt when I was there, suffocating and a little out of control.

In eighth grade I had a fear of death, and I was constantly checking my pulse. It seemed like if I could just feel it under my finger — feel my life like that — then I could prove that I was fine. Definitive evidence. This had always worked for me. On the plane ride to Nagoya, I checked at least 15 times throughout the 14hour flight. It was another skill I had packed, another life vest to cling to.

In the bowling alley, I couldn’t feel it. With each passing second my grasp on my neck got tighter and tighter, slowly suffocating myself while smiling for photos with the other students. I lost track of my breaths, my palms began to sweat, I felt a pounding in my head.

“Sydney! It’s your turn!”

My back was turned to all of them. I nearly dropped the bowling ball; it was too heavy and I could feel it slowly slipping through my fingers. I knocked down four pins and returned to my seat.

I felt a little like a ghost. I thought maybe I had already died. I watched the conversations about our plans and respective host families float in front of me, above me, and stared straight ahead, my eyes unfocused.

I decided I was having a heart attack, or maybe experiencing the warning signs that I was about to have one. It didn’t help that my right arm was going numb. My breath hollowed and lungs emptied. This is it. I fought the urge to text my parents goodbye. I didn’t want to scare them; it was 4 a.m. over there. I could feel my eyes become glassy and tried not to blink to dry them out.

It was my turn again. I dragged myself in front of my peers and knocked down eight pins, followed by a chorus of “good job.” I missed the last two and “oh well”s filled the air. I sat down next to Mayu.

“Sydney, you are good at this.”

Could she tell I was halfway in the grave? Was my skin turning brittle and gray? Could everyone see it? “Thanks, you are too.”

“Show me Michigan.” She handed me her phone with Google Earth pulled up.

My hand shook as I typed in my address. I showed her my house and middle school, the beach I went to in the summer, my favorite restaurant. My voice steadied and I forgot for a second about my impending death.

A small group formed around us, and then

we were all exchanging streets and neighborhoods on each others’ phones, a collage of homes. I laughed and didn’t even think about the stress that action might put on my heart.

I didn’t end up dying that night.

I survived, and without all the checklists and precautions I had brought with me. I didn’t even need English or my room or my parents.

I just needed someone next to me, someone who could tell I was acting weird.

For a while I thought this meant my anxiety was solved. I had conquered the worst situations: if I could stay calm in the bowling alley in Japan I could stay calm anywhere.

I was wrong. Over the years I have been dying in my room, in my high school’s hallways, in my sister’s car. I’ve been dying a lot. But I’ve tried to never let my fear, this looming sense

I ressurect myself every time

that everything is about to go wrong, stop me from doing what I want. I resurrect myself every time.

I think a lot of people look back on their eighth grade selves as naive or dumb, but I’ve always looked to my eighth grade self as a role model, a reminder of how I couldn’t let my worries win. A reminder of how I didn’t.

Because, if I was dying, at least I was dying in Japan.

In My Hometown of Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania

By Annalisa Hansford

M

y body naturally wakes up at eight or nine a.m., when the sunlight pours in through my bedroom windows. I am not greeted by the alarm sound I have associated with dread. I make breakfast in the kitchen, cook vegan scrambled eggs on the stove, reheat a frozen croissant in the oven, and pour myself a glass of orange juice. I take in the silence of suburbia. I don’t watch Netflix as I eat, like I usually do in Boston, but take in every moment of this silent morning. I savor every bite of my scrambled eggs seasoned with onion and garlic powder. I chew the flaky and buttery piece of my croissant, still warm and crunchy. I slowly sip my glass of orange juice, appreciating its sweet and sour flavor.

In Pennsylvania, I have no academic responsibilities. My only obligation is to exist in a way that benefits my soul. After eating breakfast, I ground myself by listening to my “healing” Spotify playlist. This playlist consists of Hozier’s acoustic guitar strumming, Still Woozy’s relaxing bedroom pop tunes, and Lizzy McAlpine’s soft vocals. Listening to this playlist puts me in a cozy headspace and reminds me to have empathy for every version of myself. When I’m in Boston, I’m so consumed by schoolwork, student org responsibilities, and social commitments that I often fail to find the time to relax and recharge.

Starting my morning by listening to this playlist reminds me to look after myself and to do things that are essential for my physical, emotional, and mental well-being.

August sunlight. Sometimes I get distracted by the vibrance of the blue hues stroking the sky above me. I become entranced by the sky, staring at it and daydreaming about what summer in Pennsylvania brings me: farmer’s tan, cotton candy sunsets, and backyard wildflowers.

On days when my mother is off from work, we drive to the closest Lowe’s in town, and buy as much gardening soil and plants as we can fit in our Volvo. We buy flowers of every color: bubblegum petunias, orange lantanas, yellow daisies, and white snapdragons. We spend the afternoons with our fingers coated in dirt, digging a home for our plants and flowers, as the sunlight beats down on our skin. I learn to take care of myself by tending to the plants in my backyard. Summers in Pennsylvania In Boston, I am always promise growth. As I reading, but never for watch the bubblegum pepleasure. I read required tunias expand and stretch books for classes, and paginto the yellow daisies next to es and pages of fiction, poetry, them, I come to terms with the and non-fiction submissions for literidea of growth, the idea of taking up ary magazines. I read because I have to, not space and outgrowing what was once expected because I want to. When I’m back home in of me.

Pennsylvania, I revive my love for reading. On summer days, I lay my Snoopy sheet over the After working an eight-hour shift at my local blades of grass in my backyard. I rest on my grocery store, I drive around my hometown back as I read, my skin bathing in the warm to decompress. I roll all the windows down in

As I watch the bubblegum petunias expand and stretch into the yellow daisies next my mother’s car, letting the summer breeze to them, I ruffle through my hair as I blast the songs I used to listen to growing up. At red lights, I become mesmerized by the scenery around come to terms me: children riding neon bikes with their friends, couples eating ice cream as it drips off with the idea the cone onto their hands, teenagers drinking slurpees outside the only 7/11 in town. of growth, the For so long, I wanted to escape the smallness and slowness of this town. Life moves at a idea of takslower pace in Pennsylvania, but my teenage self wanted life to speed up. When I moved to a city for college, I began to realize how ing up space much I needed those moments of leisure that Pennsylvania provides. In Boston, life goes and outgrowfrom one thing to the next, and sometimes I don’t get a chance to catch my breath. I never thought about how much I appreciated ing what was Pennsylvania until there was a forced distance between us. I’ve learned that space from the once expected places I love is necessary to fully appreciate them. Growing up, Pennsylvania was the last place I wanted to be, and now it’s the only of me. place I want to go back to.

No Matter Where I Go

By Liz Gomez

R

ain splashes against the foggy windows of my tour bus. I faintly hear Dominick, the bus driver, curse, “Damned Irish weather, can never catch a damn break. I’m sorry, ye guys. The weather is not in ye favor.”

My family and I have been in Ireland for over six days—six days filled with various adventures. From Dublin to Killarney, there’s been no moment for rest or even to breathe. The Emerald Island stands before us, arms open, ready to divulge its greatest secrets.

This trip to Ireland has loomed in the distance since my brother and I were in middle school. My mother—one hundred percent Irish—always dreamed about a trip to her homeland. I can remember her planning the trip when my brother and I graduated from eighth grade. At a restaurant after the graduation, my mother raised her glass of red wine to call for a toast to our achievements and promised a future trip to Ireland, after our high school graduation.

If only she were sitting next to me now.

In the early morning of October 7th, 2018, during my freshman year of high school, my mother unexpectedly passed away due to a complication with her heart. I could never bring myself to ask my father or the doctors what specifically caused my mother’s death. It didn’t matter if it was heart failure or sudden cardiac arrest. She’s gone, and no medical terms or diagnoses can make her death less painful.

I had thought my mother would always be by my side. I believed she would be there when I got my driver’s license, when I was accepted to my dream college, when I graduated from high school, and when I traveled to Ireland. I trusted her love and support would always comfort me through my darkest days.

But she’s passed, and I must endure a life without her. My mother’s death had a profound, life-altering effect on me—and I will never again be that naïve eighth grader who believed death wouldn’t soon affect me.

Dominick’s voice pulls me from the nightmares of my past, “Well, we’re almost there. I’d suggest grabbin’ ye’s ponchos.

It’s raining like hell out there.” I snatch my poncho and camera from my backpack and prepare myself for the site—the place where everything will come together: my mother’s death,

my grief, and our relationship. The Cliffs of Moher—undeniably one of the most beautiful places in Ireland—will be the answer to my pleas of grief, and my desperation to be with my mother, to feel as if she is standing beside me, bright with life. No other place could bring me closer to my mother.

With its plunging cliffs, emerald grass, and saltfilled breeze, the Cliffs of Moher is where I’ll feel something new and different.

All I want is to have a moment with her where I feel her embrace and love. To realize her presence with me. And maybe the Cliffs will help me do that.

The tour bus halts. We exit the bus into the pouring rain, and there they are before us, the Cliffs.

The sight is even more breathtaking than I imagined: the gray clouds, the vibrant, green grass, and the turbulent sea.

I could not have asked for a more beautiful moment. Grief distorts your happiness and love, adding wind, rain, and violent storms to my landscapes of peace. The only way you can survive is by finding the beauty in the terrifying, the light in an abyss. My clothes stick to my freezing body, and I cannot feel my fingers or toes. The harsh wind is deafening, the rain slaps across my face, and the roar of the ocean vibrates the air around me.

Now is the time. I can finally have my moment with my mother. I race up the sleek path toward the highest point of the Cliffs of Moher, weaving through crowds of distracted tourists.

The past three years have slowly dragged me away from my mother. With each passing day, I forgot an aspect of her—the sound of her laugh, the way her eyes sparkled when she smiled, the warmth of her hugs. I need my mother’s memory to stay with me; I can’t lose her again.

My lungs are burning, and my glasses are foggy with sweat and precipitation. I am in a daze, but I

can’t stop. I am so close to my moment with her. The physical and emotional exhaustion will all be worth it if when I get to embrace my mother, remind her how much I love her, and tell her I will never forget what an amazing mother she was—and always will be.

I reach the top of the path and the cool breeze of the ocean returns life and excitement to my sore and soaked body.

Suddenly I feel the warmth of the long-forgotten sun. I quickly turn around and view the full beauty of the Cliffs of Moher. The ocean is green, and the rocks plunging into the ocean are an ominous gray. This is it. This is the moment. This is the time.

I take a deep breath—filling my chest with the salty air of Ireland. I grasp my mother’s necklace that I always wear and close my eyes, allowing my mother to fully consume my mind. I imagine her smiling face looking at me—her eyes filled with love and hope and vitality. I imagine her whispering in my ear: I love you, Lizzy, and I am so proud of you.

And I wait. I wait to feel my mother’s presence. I wait for our relationship to strengthen into an unbreakable metal—an undeniable force. I wait for my ‘movie moment.’ I wait, and wait, and wait. Then… nothing. I don’t feel any profound emotions. I don’t realize anything new about my relationship with my mother. I don’t change in any way. All I feel is cold, tired, sore, and heartbroken.

The scenic, beautiful Cliffs of Moher bring me nothing new. They don’t dispel my grief. They do nothing. My vision blurs, and I feel streams of tears flow down my face. I slowly make my way back to my family—back to the undeniable present. …

No matter where I go, grief will always follow me. I might be lying in my bed or standing before Ireland’s most beautiful landmarks. It doesn’t matter. The loss of my mother will remain as that dense fog, obscuring my memories, emotions, and actions. At first, I was heartbroken. Will life always be this hard, this unbearable? Will I ever be able to look toward the sky and see the sun behind those stormy clouds? Yes, life is unbearable at times. Some days I’ll be consumed with grief and loss, unable to go to class—to normal life. Some days I’ll forget the sun, for the clouds will be pouring rain onto my hope and strength.

But other days I’ll find myself willing to and capable of rising out of bed—rising out of the abyss of grief. Other days I’ll find myself looking up to the sky and seeing the sun’s rays break through the dense storm clouds of loss. Some days, life is easier to live. …

I race toward the tour bus with a lukewarm cup of hot chocolate in one hand and my camera in the other. Already inside, Dominick is yelling at us to get into the bus. I climb the steps, strands

me, and I am in no position to refuse.

In the last moments of consciousness, I remember a faint image of a woman standing before me on top of a tall hill. Her arms are wide open; warmth and love radiate off her.

Her face is blurred with time, but I know it is my mother. “Don’t worry, Lizzy,” she says, “there’s no need to rush. I’ll always wait for you. I’ll always be here for you.” I rush to her and feel her envelope my shivering body. She holds me tight.

Then, I allow myself to succumb to the dreams of my past.

of wet hair plastered across my face. My poncho is ripped and sticking to my drenched grey sweatshirt. My shoes squelch with each step. My heart is broken and tired. I am broken and tired and cold and wet.

I just smile at him, though, and sit down in a window seat. I grasp my mother’s necklace and realize water is running down my cheeks. I can’t tell if it’s the remnants of the storm outside or the storm of grief materializing inside of me.

I rest my head against window and my hands grip the necklace until my knuckles grow white. Dominick starts the engine, and I watch as the Cliffs of Moher disappear into the fog of Ireland and the fog of the past. I close my eyes and listen to the rhythmic sounds of my surroundings. Sleep beckons

Other days I’ll find myself looking up to the sky and seeing the sun’s rays break through the dense storm clouds of loss.

Some days, life is easier to live.

Thank you!

Without the help of the whole team, Atlas would simply cease to exist. We would like to thank the entirety of our team, models, and helping hands. We would also like to acknowledge Kyanna Sutton’s incredible input and advice. Thank you for being a wonderful academic advisor for Atlas. To everyone, we are so grateful for you and we are looking forward to many more incredible years of Atlas Magazine!

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Atlas Magazine Spring 2023