IBCoMagazine Issue 3 | Rosy Reminiscence | 2022-2023

Dear reader,

With the long-awaited arrival of spring and the scent of blooming flowers lingering in the crisp air, we cannot help but feel a refreshing sense of upliftment. The sun comes out to greet us more often and stays to warm us for longer, while the freezing February winds are fading swiftly somewhere in our memory. Along with the magical renewal of nature, we too use springtime to awaken ourselves from winter hibernation, to gain a flourishing novel energy, and of course, to wonder and reflect – on what has been, on what has passed.

In this third issue of our community’s magazine, we aim to slow down, to dive into these reflections gently, to saunter in the reminiscence of the past. Although nostalgia is a theme we visit frequently, this time our team of creators put on their rose-tinted glasses and take an aware perspective of romanticization upon individual and collective memories. This way, we cannot help but especially think back to the first decades of the new millennium era – our 2000s and 2010s – the years of our carefree childhoods, angsty teenhoods, our first experiences with love, loss, loneliness, growth, and change.

With an encompassing visual aesthetic of floral symbolism mixed with the familiar practices of scrapbooking, doodling, and journaling, Rosy Reminiscence hopes to take you on a pleasant journey down memory lane and leave you feeling a nostalgic warmth.

Lovely reader, remember that there is no wrong in putting on those rose-tinted glasses sometimes! Take time in enjoying this spring, breathe in the scent of tulips slowly, listen to the birds’ melodies, soak in the sunlight, and romanticize your present.

On behalf of the editorial board, Dameli

Mukasheva

Written

Illustrated by Isabella Restrepo Vargas

Photographed by Aniela Jewtuch

Designed by Iryna Lizenko

by Līga Aija Lagzdiņa

The kitchen is a quiet sunlit room. An impatient pile of letters stacked on the countertop. I browse through the letters, until one catches my eye. The handwriting is mine, but I don’t recall ever writing it. I put my nger between the seal and slowly tear at it, ripping the paper.

“I write this letter as a reminder. A collection of thoughts, so I don’t forget. I have a hard time keeping track of details. Once gone I realize that every detail, every memory could have been preserved. To start with I never knew much about stars. I knew the universe is vast, and we ought to die. In the boundless space you taught me how to see constellations, patterns I never knew existed or needed. Previously unappreciated and unknown. Later this felt bittersweet. You saw the same moon as me. The moon provoked irritation in me. I began to hate the stars. On August nights I shut the blinds. I could not think of anything uglier than the night sky lled with meteor showers. I did not wish on a shooting star.

Birthdays felt useless. The candle’s wax melted into the chocolate icing. I refused to blow it out. How many birthdays have I spent like this? Eventually I did stop. Now I blow out the candles, and I look at shooting stars. I make wishes, as many as I can. I am not sure what changed. I still point out the big dipper. With no resentment anymore. As I write these lines I cannot stop thinking of the fragility that memories carry. The eeting nature of time. I am unsure if there will be another lifetime for us. If so, I will savor life next time, and I promise to not say the wrong things.

Just like that day at the beach. One of those heavy hot days when everyone is at the sea escaping the heat. Your hand in mine. It ts nicely. Your palm is sweaty with the summer air. We chat. You listen and I talk. I don’t believe in regrets, but I do wish I would've asked you more and held your hand tighter that day. Or any day, for that matter. I should have lingered longer. Now I choose to love you deliberately. It is a steady ame. Even without you here.

I try to nourish a ame inside of me too. Antagonize myself less. I don’t write about yearnings and longings. I never allow myself that. I told myself to stop whining. The loud thoughts crawl under my skin and hide between my ribs. There are days when I notice the spring and the sun. The music makes me dance and that is more than enough. Some days I can't make myself. Then I count the hours. If they are heavy, I count minutes, and other times seconds. Between the small gaps of seconds I hold on.

This letter does not have a conclusion. I have not found a balance between holding on and letting go. I still hate the night sky when I cry. The vastness still scares me. I sometimes do end up antagonizing myself. Growth is delicate. And I have been learning to love this world on hard days.

Writer: Vu Hoang Ngoc Trinh

Photographer: Melis Zavlak

Designer: Grace Nguyen

I have never spent any new year on my own. And by ‘new year,’ I do not mean Western New Year, since Western New Year is not truly my notion of ‘new year.’ What I mean is Vietnam’s Lunar New Year, or as we prefer to call it, Tet.

I have never spent any Tet alone. Tet always starts when my school holiday starts, usually a couple days before yours. So it is my recurring, everlasting mission to clean all the vases, mini sculpturesgifts from your beloved local artist friends, three colorful statues depicting the gods of fortune, wealth and longevitytogether with the insanely detailed patterns of our wooden sofa, and countless decorate plates that grandma collects as a proof of all the countries she had set foot on, in our living room.

A couple days pass by, and now your vacation starts, which means we have to clean our house from head to toe, inside out, top down, bottom up - in every order you can think of.

Then, before we can even catch our breath, it is already the morning of Tet’s Eve. You wake up at 5 in the morning, then wake me up at 8 to help you with the cooking. That is, matchlessly, the most chaotic scenario I have ever been in in my life, like a carelessly organized scene in an apocalyptic movie, where everyone just runs around in circles and screams. My head spins, but my hands act in a mindlessly synchronized motion. Amidst such a merciless battle of eggs, herbs, chicken, vegetables, noodles, rice, we always manage to triumph.

When everything is almost done, a huge pot of herb is boiled, so we can use such divine water to purify ourselves of the past. That means neither to forget nor to forgive, instead just sweep everything under the carpet with the false hope that not having to see it means we can suddenly and magically forget and forgive. We will then pretend that we have never screamed at each other’s face, that you have never made me cry unstoppably, and that I have never made you cry even harder.

After washing and bathing, we eat the last meal of the year, while watching the traditional comedy show which makes fun of literally all events happening in our social life the year before. I always think they can make a good one with just our family as their material.

And then comes the moment that turns the last digit of our socially constructed definition of time in the form of a year. I play ABBA’s Happy New Year, your favorite, before going back to my room to play New Year’s Day, mine. We talk a while, eat some snacks, then someone says let’s go to sleep, and I again go back to my room, but I cannot sleep with so many unsaid feelings in my stomach, so I text my friends until we really fall asleep.

I hate our lavish meals with thousands of dishes that we can never finish in Tet, instead, they last at least one month after. I hate that you love Happy New Year because you don't know what they sing, and I have no heart to tell you about that. I hate that I hate our passive aggressive silence, still, ironically enough, deep down I wish it could work, I wish it would erode our pain, erase our bruises, so my heart doesn't have to feel like it’s being torn apart every time I think I love you.

This year is the first time I spent Tet alone. No lavish meals, no Happy New Year, no last-year-unresolved screaming and crying - or yes, yet it has already been washed away, not by the herbs, but by our tears at the airport. Just a call, and you said you did not bother to cook as much as we used to, because I wasn’t there to eat my favorite dish.

And I, for once, understand our lavish meals. And I, for once, long to forgive and forget all our screaming and crying and silence, just to hold on to this memory, so this feeling of being loved could hold on to me as tightly.

Photograph by: Thanh Nguyen

Design by: Preslava Ploshtakova

Our missinghearts

They told me I would be okay. They insisted. But a parent can’t protect their child from everything. After all, pain is necessary at times, inevitable, and molds us into the people we’re destined to become. When I think of my childhood, I often let the bad memories overshadow the good because it’s easier to linger in pain. 2-3-4 AM, past traumas circle in my head, and I toss and turn hoping they’ll fade so that I can finally rest. It always comes back. I don’t mind it as much anymore as I used to because as I’m getting older, I start to understand that childhood memories shape you, and in some ways, protect you from not getting hurt twice over the same thing. It builds character.

I remember the days in the early 2000s when my brother and I would knock on doors in our neighborhood and find kids to play with. We’d have a box of marbles that we’d play with until the sun set when we’d be called in for dinner by our parents. Carefree moments like those are what I miss about being young. There was less responsibility and fewer moments of criticism from people around me. Don’t get me wrong, this whole ‘adulting’ definitely has its perks, and to grow old is a privilege really, but some part of me will always want to

return. Just to feel that different kind of happiness in my heart I had then.

With this growing pressure of performance and excelling in every little thing that comes down my path, I probably feel more lost than ever. I’m comparing my past and present to others when in fact, theirs are wholly different from mine. As the saying goes, comparison is the thief of joy.

But those demons have already had their time and now, I will use them to create a different future instead. At the end of the day, I get to decide what happens, and because I’ve learned from my past, my heart now knows better. The scars etched into it have helped make it stronger. It reminds me of the person I used to be, the person I am, and though I may not feel like the same person I once was, when the pain pulls my heartstrings in different directions, maybe it all comes back to complete me.

Though sometimes, when the room is dark and I’m surrounded by the pieces of my heart, it feels harrowing because I’m afraid for people to see all of it, all of me. But just like time, the feeling passes. The scars fade. The pain subsides. And maybe one day that missing piece in your heart wasn’t missing at all.

Bloggers' Column

I recently bought a camcorder because I found some videos of myself as a kid that were taken on our old camcorder. For some reason that time feels like it's separate from current days. If I compare those video’s to the ones I have on my camera roll today, it feels like finding old pictures of your parents. All of a sudden I got this nostalgia for the 2000s aesthetic of that time. The big televisions that made the humming noises when playing, cd’s that you weren’t allowed to touch because they wouldn’t work anymore when scratched. The TV cabinets filled with dvd’s, the music, the fashion and the list goes on. Between now and back then it feels like two separate realities, but really thinking about it's more like two sides of the same coin. Those things are coming back, arguably they never left. The 2000 defined the world so significantly, we feel the need to still reminisce about it. Maybe that’s why I like using my new camcorder so much, it's a way to travel back to those times and look at the world through that 2000s point of view.

Gauri

Photography by Aniela Jewtuch

Designed by Monique van Daalen

Nostalgia is fictitious. It’s a form of storytelling that helps us in understanding and forming our own identity. In times of crisis, we return to childhood to seek the familiar. The familiar is known, comfortable, and warm. It’s the Wii game you keep returning to because you know how to beat the final boss, it’s the movie you watched hundreds of times to the point of internal recitation, it's’ the smell of a specific food you ate before school growing up. However, it’s also the pain, and the yearning or those moments. We are shaped by those rosy memories, but we are myopic towards them. The movie you keep returning to has a great message, but maybe it has an iffy representation of women. The game you played is nostalgic, but the game mechanics are weak and the story less engaging. The specific food can be cooked, but it will never be experienced again in its original context. Nostalgia can be a valuable tool for forming your current identity, but we should never let it destroy us – after all it is a story we tell ourselves to remind us of who we are.

Mayra

To me, the early 2000s are a bit like a fever dream. Maybe it’s the nostalgia and my tendency to romanticize things, but when i look back to those times it’s like seeing everything with a filter: my memories get pinkish and orangish, it’s suddenly summer and 2010 hits start playing. The memories don’t really feel mine, it’s more like watching someone else’s life, or a tv show. I do remember perfectly how everything felt though, it’s such a distinct feeling. And the more I think about it, the more nostalgic I get because I realize that I won’t ever feel like that again. There was something magical in getting to experience two worlds at once: the end of the 90s and the beginning of the world as we know it today, the perfect balance between analogue and digital. The excitement of growing up and constantly discovering new things is unmatched. To this day, I still look for that comfort that those years brought me everywhere I go. I feel both so grateful and cursed that I got to experience the 2000s.

Federica

that ended last Tuesday FOREVER

An open beer bottle obediently rests in my jacket pocket as I confidently march into the bar. I bet a 17-year-old version of me still lives in the surveillance tapes of this place – profanely dancing to a Katy Perry song or kissing a boy whose name I never intended to memorise. However, the bar stools have forgotten the folds of my jeans.

I timidly scan through the crowd in hopes of finding a familiar face. I see her. Other bar-goers suddenly turn irrelevant as her ocean eyes meet mine. Even today, in a room full of people, I can only see her. She seems to be illuminated by an invisible stage light blending everything, that is not her, in the background. She appears taller and more gracious, her freckles are masked by a layer of foundation, her lips are plumper, waist smaller. Nevertheless, her aura has conserved its addicting essence and there is still a drop of familiarity in the way her eyes gaze into mine.

The World stops spinning and the clocks are static as I am rehearsing a blunt “hello” and “I meant to call you” phrases. Before I am able to run our upcoming conversation in my head, I feel a light tap on my shoulder. It's her.

‘Hi!’ Her voice was still intoxicatingly sweet, yet soaked with confidence and a pinch of pomposity. ‘I meant to call you when I came back.’ I cringe after these words have stumbled out of my mouth. I had never intended to call her.

‘Where do you live now?’ I desperately search for questions that would entertain her. ‘Still with my mom,’ she whispers while her gaze is focused on the bar floor.

Her to each couldn’t. precious was When blanket fall ‘Do be passionately. ‘Every way,

25 April 2012

She rests her head against my shoulder and cries silently. I can feel the wetness of my shirt, it is rather unsettling. However, I have promised to be there for her forever so I suffer in silence.

‘When I grow up, I won’t live with my mom. I will move away as far as possible – to a place where flowers bloom all year. Will you come with me?’ she asks with tears still running down her rosy cheeks. ‘Always!’

‘Did you finish your studies? You did law, right?’ I knew she dropped out. I don’t know why I asked. I guess I had nothing else to say.

‘No, I dropped out. I work at a store now,’ she seems slightly disappointed with her own answer, ’‘remember how we almost ended up studying in the UK together? I wonder how things would have worked out.’ There is sadness in her eyes and for a brief moment, I wonder if those are tears I can detect.

17 June 2018

Have you been to our old summer house recently? I saw it on the market again,’ I am genuinely curious about her upcoming answer. I have been wanting to repurchase the house for a while now. ‘Yes, it just got sold. The place is a dump, though. I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to live there willingly.’

August 2013

Her tiny hand melted into mine. We counted coins to figure out whether we could afford the luxury of each having our own chocolate ice cream. We couldn’t. So we passed one around like an infinitely precious commodity. The grass in the backyard was so tall, all of the barbies lost their shoes in it. When the sun went down, we lay on a checkered blanket and gazed into the stars while trying not to fall asleep.

‘Do you realise that for the rest of our lives, we will be looking at the same stars?’ she said passionately.

‘Every time you look at the stars, think of me, that way, we will be together forever.’

Written by Justīne Kozlovska | Photographed by Aniela Jewtuch | Designed by Lindy van Dijken

The pencils fell in between the cracks of a wooden table. We draw our future. Cussins with flower prints in our bedroom, her making breakfast, and me silently watching as she chopped onion. The way our bedrooms would be connected to a shared closet and kitchen would be too small for both of us. Our coexistent future was manifested by eating 5 pedalled lilac flowers. We always wished for the same thing – to be together forever.

‘What happens if I don’t get in?’ she asked. ‘I won’t go without you.’

We have run out of things to say. I let her know that somewhere someone urgently needs me, therefore, I must leave. As we say our goodbyes, the casual “love you” almost slips out. I choke on those 3 words because I don’t deserve to love her anymore. I feel bad for the promises I failed to keep, and I can’t keep wondering if she feels the same way. I think she does. Maybe in a different dimension, she still finishes my sentences and steals the last fry from my plate. My love for her still lingers in dusted pictures and wine-drunk stories. However, forever was never meant for us. We were too impatient, always read the last page of a novel first, and ate dessert before dinner. Some forevers have an expiration date – ours was this Tuesday when I met you in a crowded bar.

Wri en by Radina Kirilova

I ustrated by Isabe a Restrepo Vargas

Designed by Iryna Lizenko

Rose skies glasses

I think the sunset is my favorite part of the day.

The way the colors splash in the sky always captivates me - because it’s never the same. Today, it’s a warm shade of pink. I’m sitting outside, taking it in.

I’ve been noticing how I’m starting to listen to old songs I loved back in my high school days. I guess it’s something about the nostalgia of it all. Takes me back to a different time. A better time?

What is it about nostalgia? Thinking back and missing something that has gone. The golden years of high school, the carefreeness of student life, the innocence of childhood. All those romanticized ideas of a perfect time that has gone. It’s always something that has gone.

But there’s a lot that hasn’t. You’ve known people for ages and they still show up. Those friendships that have lasted for 2, 5 or even 10 years have stayed with you and you haven’t even realized they never left. Why focus on what has left when there’s so much that could’ve, and didn’t?

There’s a lot that just came in. Change is constant, you just need to pay attention. Every interaction, place, moment represents a slight change. A new opportunity? There’s so many people around you that haven’t been here for long, that you get to explore life next to again. You’re building something amazing again, unconsciously.

And if we don’t look you don’t know it as always notice after. And whelmed by the goodness forget the bad of it. shouldn’t.

We block bad memories protect our own world. stops us from giving back. It hasn’t always we keep painting in

And that’s okay. That’s

The terrible moments terrible, that’s why nostalgia why it feels so comforting. also appreciate the bad those break-ups don’t more, right? And neither people you’ve had falling didn’t deserve to stay

skies and rose glasses

look around, we miss it. But as it’s happening. You And you get so overgoodness of the past, you Which you sometimes memories from our brains to world. This sometimes giving ourselves a pat on the always been the pink picture our minds.

temporary heartbreaks hurt because they matter, but you’re so grateful they’re gone. You wouldn’t have been the best version of you without dropping some people here and there. I don’t think everyone deserves to see you flourish from up-close, it’s a privilege to be so close to people who always grow.

And you now think about how everything fell perfectly into place. Those events had a great outcome, didn’t they?

Your past self doesn’t know this yet, though. Don’t tell them, it’s all part of the process.

That’s how it should be.

moments no longer seem so nostalgia settles in. That’s comforting. That’s how you bad moments too. All don’t seem that bad anyneither do you miss some falling outs with. They stay more anyway. Those

The way we appreciate the past once it's passed is very funny. Remember when you wanted out of that high school? No, not always. That’s the beauty of it. You think you’ve already lived what you were supposed to live, and that the good old years are way in the past. But, you’re living the good old days right now too, yet you don’t even know it. And only when years pass, when you’re in a completely different place, and with completely different people, looking completely different, you realize the happiness you felt. But, that doesn’t eclipse the happiness you’re feeling right now. Don’t let your romanticized past distract you from your fulfilling present.

When you take the rose glasses off, you see things a little differently.

I think the sunset is my favorite part of the day.

Maria Seghedin

Photograph by: Aniela Jewtuch

Design by: Preslava Ploshtakova

Wri en by Schania Baez Schipper

Remember the old times?

When we used to play outside

Kick ba on the big grass-covered field

Go to the convenience store

Explore the endless options of snacks

Then go back to our playground, to our big f tba field

We’d stay there until the soft lines of the m n appeared Remember our conversations?

They were fi ed with everything

Ranging from favorite color, f d, and movie, to anything I remember when you revealed Your d pest f lings: raw, honest, and real Rain would pour from the sky

As my mouth denied what my heart felt inside Oh how much I wish I could go back in time

Back to those days we’d be together 24/7

Because we had found comfort in each other’s company at the age of eleven

I remember your wicked smile and tender eyes

And how the tears ro ed down your face because I made you cry I made you cry…

I never thought I’d ever make you cry Be the cause of your pain

The sad expression on your face Made my stomach ache

It was the most awful I have felt towards another human being Years passed and we rejoiced again

We talked like the old times and reminisced about the past Laughed, watched movies, walked in the park, talked about f tba

It truly felt like the old days

Like time had not passed But then you disappeared again Left, without a word said Left, without a glance back And a I have left right now

A I can reminisce about is You Me And Our Memories

Photographed by Thanh Nguyen

Designed by Iryna Lizenko

CREDITS

EDITORIAL TEAM

MARKETING TEAM

BLOGGERS TEAM

Victor Mihai Vencsel

Monique van Daalen

Julia Mayivka

Nimrat Kaur Dameli Mukasheva

Mayra Nassef

Lam Ngoc Do

Federica Pastella

Gauri Ghisai

Polina Leonova

Sofiia Slisarenko Siddhi Patel

Background Photograph by Thanh Nguyen

CREDITS

WRITERS TEAM

VISUALS TEAM

Csenge Nagy-Gyorgy

Justīne Kozlovska

Maria Luiza Seghedin

Līga Aija Lagzdiņa

Esmée Lieuw On

Maya Barakova

Vu Hoang Ngoc Trinh

Sonja Stojiljković

Schania Baez Schipper

Radina Andreeva Kirilova

Aniela Jewtuch

Melis Zavlak

Lindy Solane van Dijken

Isabella Restrepo Vargas

Grace Nguyen

Thanh Nguyen Rea Roitner

Iryna Lizenko

Preslava Ploshtakova

ISSUE THREE 2022/2023