Mandala
2013
Mandala: An Art and Literary Magazine
May, 2013 Northfield Mount Hermon School Mount Hermon, MA 01354 i
Table of Contents Tea Party ............................................................ San-Han Hung ............................Cover Epilogue ............................................................. David Rowland ..................................1 Untitled.............................................................. Tung Nguyen ......................................3 Big Brother......................................................... Anonymous ....................................... 5 Lobster Trap Buoys ............................................. Craig Sandford ...................................7 The Stories We Tell About Ourselves .................. Anonymous .........................................9 Brown University Tour ....................................... Caleb Lee .........................................10 The Blood of the Earth ...................................... Kevin Reilly ......................................11 Mirror of Air ...................................................... Bea Dowdy .......................................13 Every Night My Teeth Fall Out .......................... Lauren Scott .....................................14 Jellyfish............................................................... Craig Sandford .................................15 What’s the Matter with High School .................. Anonymous .....................................16 San Jacinto Steam ............................................... William Roberts ................................18 Caption For an Image of the Mount Hermon Class of 1890 ........................................................................... Peter Weis .........................................19 Leeks .................................................................. Jay Merrill ........................................20 Drawing of Dan ................................................. Scott Kim .........................................21 The Reckoning................................................... Cicatriz ............................................23 Shoe Shiny ......................................................... Mark Yates........................................24 Scott’s Ghost ...................................................... Scott Kim .........................................25 Fiddleheads ........................................................ Jay Merrill ........................................26 The Sunset ......................................................... Lavonne Aghetto ...............................27 Colrain Landscape .............................................. William Roberts ................................28 Saturation .......................................................... Isabelle Lotocki de Veligost ................29 Abstract Self Portrait .......................................... Caleb Lee .........................................30 Fences ................................................................ Asha .................................................31 given one billion: a calculation ........................... Peter Weis .........................................33 Time is on Our Side Because It Moves Slow (These are a Few of My Favorite Things) ........................................................................... Lauren Scott .....................................34 Gulls and Birch .................................................. Mark Yates........................................35 End Quote ..................................................................................................................37 Shark fin on Shadow Lake .................................. Kevin Reilly ......................................38 Samuel Mao ....................................................... Scott Kim .........................................39 Acknowledgement .......................................................................................................40 Editorial Staff ..............................................................................................................41
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I dream of painting and then, I paint my dream. Vincent van Gogh
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Epilogue (spoken by Prospero) Good friends, all things must end at last: summer’s warm breath or winter’s blast or mortal life. Yet ever new, fresh green of spring comes gleaming through, and humans revel in the chance to shed the past and join that dance which living is. I here have sought to make amends for what I wrought in giving up my magic arts. Thus one age ends, another starts, and grows like any simple flow’r, day by day and hour by hour depending on our care. May we plant each the garden we would see, here and hereafter. For the rest, if this our tale has not transgressed against your senses, show your love for us as for the gods above by clapping hands. Thus ends the night. May we meet soon in lasting light. David Rowland
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Big Brother Though I was no more than 20 feet away, I felt distant, as if I was sitting behind the set of a television sitcom, listening to someone else’s artificial family drama. I felt pathetic staring down the darkened staircase and analyzing each shadow for movement, gauging the distance of the voices in case someone appeared and found me eavesdropping. On the other side of the wall my parents were talking about me. They played a game of ping-pong with their speech; Dad says he’s worried, Mom agrees, Dad raises a concern, Mom responds, back and forth, back and forth, until I realize that I am crying. Hot tears rolled down my swollen cheeks like raindrops on a car window and I breathed slowly and silently, straining to hear the next rebuttal. A new voice appeared, my brother Jeremy’s, offering his own sentiments on what to do about me. “You should tell her that,” my father said. “I can’t. She won’t listen to me,” Jeremy said, “she hates me.” I hate him. He said it, so it must be true. I couldn’t hear whether my parents protested, the sound of my own breathing concealed any sense of their reactions. I was operating on my basic human instincts. Get up, don’t make a sound, lift foot, put it down, forward, forward, forward, close door, under covers, silence. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t think about what my brother said. If I did I would have to decide if he was right about me hating him. It’s better to be avoiding, it’s better to hide behind walls than confront any semblance of truth, I thought. The fighting started when I was a tattle-telling child in the backseat of my mother’s Previa. Being six years older than me, my brother did many things that I did not like. He did things that made me feel ashamed. I felt the need to share his mistakes; he had to be held accountable. Jeremy did not take this well. I avoided, out of fear, being alone with him. During painful car rides when my mother’s presence was the only thing protecting me from the fits of rage I imagined might occur, I pretended to look out the window to evade his glowering eyes. To this day, I flinch when he touches me. Eventually, I reached an age where I did not equate loyalty with the reporting of another’s indiscretions, but rather the absence of it. Let me be clear: any loyalty I had to my brother was strictly because of our blood relationship. I loved him because it would be wrong not to. He and I both knew that our relationship was different from the relationship I had with my other brother, Ben. I am not a cold person; there were attempts made on both sides to reconcile our differences. Kind gestures and soothing tones helped warm the ice between us, but these were infrequent occurrences that were usually followed by a polarizing fight, sending both of us back to the corners of our ring. Two days after I found out I hated my brother, I was forced to go on a bike ride with him. I could tell that this would be a polite encounter from the way he spoke: polished, calm and optimistic. He reminded me of smooth jazz: not too daring, not too risky, just calm. This was a rare glimpse at the adult he so often claimed to be. He let me ride in front. Breathing heavily, I pushed down on the pedals as the crunch of shifting gears eased some of the burden. I pedaled slowly, so slow that if I had stopped I might have rolled right back down again. I looked at the view ahead: thick green trees with a strip ripped out down the middle to make room for the black pavement. Along the route there was a road that I had been on many times with friends. I had a choice to make: continue on the main road
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or peel to the side. I was tired and my other choice, staying on track, sticking to the plan, involved a steep hill. Up, down, left, right, play it safe, take a risk. Laziness or some subconscious instinct caused me to diverge. After two miles of bumpy terrain and drawn-out curves, we arrived at the little clearing on the side of the road that signified the entrance. I half expected him to brush the place off as stupid, but he was surprisingly open to the idea of our adventure. Skeptic, but open. Beyond the clearing, shrouded by the shadows of trees, was a long set off wooden logsteps that lead down. The faint sound of gurgling and the ever-present chorus of frogs filled the air as we descended in silence. “Wow,” he said when we arrived at the bottom, “this is cool.” Cool. Cool was the water when I broke the surface, ducking my head under to be with the fish and silt, if only for a moment. Cool was the electric dam, a manufactured cascade of water, hidden in the middle of the woods in the hill town. Cool was the pounding stream against my thighs as I sat in the crevice of the dam, gazing at my brother on the other side of the veil of water. We sat on the rocks for a while, just contemplating life and drinking in our surroundings. Nothing was said; nothing needed to be said. There was a tacit level of respect between us. Earlier I had shown him around the fragment of river where the water ran slow and deep pockets allowed for swimming. As we explored the riverbed, I saw a kindred adventurous spirit that allowed me to relate with him more. I had never visited there with anyone besides my friends; to us, it was our spot, a place nobody else knew about. The fragility and mystique of the place, a hidden trove for swimming-hole lovers and nature enthusiasts alike, suggested that it was a well-kept secret. Now he was a part of the secret, because of me. By showing him the side of me that goes to abandoned electric dams and contemplates nature, I became vulnerable. In a sense, he was vulnerable too. He knew that I would be watching for his reaction; if his eyebrow twitched, if he had a sharp intake of breath, I would begin analyzing in my head, coming up with some excuse. For a moment, we let our invisible masks drop to the ground with a satisfactory thud, revealing something new, something genuine. I felt safe. It had been a while since I felt safe alone with him. Then it was back to the bumpy road, back around the curves to the black strip of pavement. We chattered about socially acceptable things: friends, school, summer. The conversation was benevolent and general, our moment had not changed that. On the surface, nothing seemed to have changed at all. After the bike ride was over and the doors were shut, our behaviors rarely shifted from what was tried and true. We were kind to each other, we were polite. But, something had changed. I do not hate my brother. I will never hate my brother. He is my brother. I love Jeremy, the person, not Jeremy, the brother. I respect him because he deserves respect. Though he may not be my hero, he is, and will always be, a part of my life. Anonymous
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The Stories We Tell About Ourselves; or, Justice for the Sikes’ Girls Were you dear three really braiding hats fingers cracked bleeding on the porch floor blind father drilling you with paradigms when the fat man and his brother (or sometimes it’s his cousin) drove up in gawking wonderment the hollow-hidden cabin too close to the road even then to shield your maiden modesty from the lances of philanthropy? Daily we drag you from Attic shadows chain you center stage in dumb show heedless of your innocence. Who gives a good goddamn what’s truth your naked virtue’s sweet for selling bought and sold ten thousand times a dozen. In Jesus’ name we pray it does not cause you grief or shame to see your names in print. Maybe today we plant the hedge Anonymous
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Mirror of Air “A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves.” —Willa Cather, O Pioneers! She was in love with the idea of love, with someone holding her heart and giving her value. She was in love with the customs and the stories. She saw life through a mirror of air, She felt the mirror closing in on her, but it was what contained all the beauty she had ever breathed. It seemed too large and deadly for her to comprehend, but she wanted to. Her own eyes betrayed her. She was at the mercy of her senses, She was the product of all she had ever read, all the notions that were told to her. She saw it askew; where the fault lay she knew not, but for her entire life she could never tell if what she felt was real or not. Bea Dowdy
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What’s the Matter with High School? You arrive nervous and apprehensive, your palms sweaty as you stand in the long line of future classmates, friends, enemies, and people whose names you will never learn. They make you take a picture and you swear that everyone is staring at you with your straight-out-of-braces smile. In the stale afterglow of the camera flash you realize that the braid you spent an hour perfecting in front of the mirror is lopsided and your subtle makeup mortifyingly conspicuous. They corral you into a large room where students are queued, their faces fading into an anonymous blur until you can barely make out the features of the person directly in front of you, asking for your registration forms. She is older, a teacher or administrator, and she has no idea who you are. Her smile is kind with a hint of relieving familiarity despite her being a stranger. But, then the line is moving and you are walking away, away, away, and your mom is whispering something embarrassing, your face is stinging from the sweaty heat, and the smell of lemon cleaning spray and pencil shavings hangs in the air. “We are worried that you won’t make friends,” my parents might have said, they did say, in so many words. How can I respond to that? How do you convince someone you have a skill that you aren’t entirely sure you possess? Sometimes I imagine that everyone, all of my friends, family, and teachers, is an actor, paid for by my parents or some distant creature, so that I can go on living this illusion, thinking that I have some semblance of social skills. I imagine myself as the star of my own Truman Show. Is that normal? Proba-bly not. And now school has officially started, and it is just great, just great. There’s just this one thing, but I am not too worried, not one bit. They say it’s a rite of passage, these cry-ing in the bathroom type of days, these lunches spent making forced conversation. I ha-ven’t figured out who “they” are, yet. I like to pretend that one day “they” will march into one of my pity parties, wipe the tears off my face, and inform me that I have completed my high school initiation. Suddenly I would have it all: friends, grades, boyfriend. The golden trifecta. In other words: happiness. Though, as the days pass with no sightings of the notorious “they”, I am left to wonder what these beings know that I don’t. I lied: school is difficult and tiring; it’s stressful and taxing. At least my friend situa-tion isn’t entirely terrible. I have found a group of people who, at the very least, I can eat lunch with without feeling the need to constantly reintroduce myself to the table. It’s not that I necessarily like all of them, but it’s better than being alone, right? Right. That is the key to survival here: never look lonely. Take long, brisk strides and look straight ahead; people will think you have somewhere important to be. If you have to stand in a crowd-ed room alone, by all means bring your cell phone! When someone catches you people watching with that forlorn look, quickly open your phone and put on your best ‘typing-an-importanttext’ face. Now you exude popularity, or at the very least social adequacy. A year has passed, yet I still keep a tally in my head, a huge poster proudly displaying the number of days I have gone without breaking down into tears. It says: 42. Then all of the sudden, the numbers begin to spin like a slot machine and 3 bright red zeroes glare at me as I sit crying under the stairwell. I have an essay to write, a book to read, math problems
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to solve. But I can’t do it, so instead I sit here letting the warm liquid roll down my cheeks, hugging myself and trying to calm the tremor, the hiccupping move-ment of my chest, as I attempt to breathe through the tears. What’s the matter with high school? Placed in this maze like lab rats, we are commanded by society, by media, by our parents, to find friends and a group so that we can say we “belong”. But really, what does it mean to belong? A seat at the lunch table or a familiar face in the daily farrago of noses, eyes, and chins that float past you seemingly disconnected from their anonymous owners? And if that weak suggestion of friendship is what we are meant to aim for, how then do we make the jump to meaningful relation-ships and camaraderie? There is a scene in the quintessential American high school flick, Mean Girls, which depicts a high school cafeteria as if it were a savannah in Africa. It as-serts a stereotype that has existed in our society for countless years, decades perhaps, that high school is a thing to ‘survive’, like a natural disaster. It perpetuates this idea of every man being for themselves, except when working with others is beneficial to their own personal cause. It is this fundamental attitude towards high school, towards peer-to-peer relationships, that bothers me. According to the Mean Girls mentality, I belong. I have what the English language calls “friends”; I have a seat at the lunch table. Yet, five months before my graduation date, I am struggling to come to terms with the fact that, after graduation, I will never see many of these “friends” again. My peers, like robotic clones, admit defeatedly that they are likely to follow this predestined path set before us of losing touch, moving on. I stare at these strangers and wonder why we are buying into all of this. Then I think of my progression through high school, my own struggles to find friendship, and realize that I, too, have been following the path. I realize that sadly, I, too, will likely continue to lose contact with these “friends” after graduation. And that I, too, have bought into this mold, this crap, this: high school. Anonymous
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Caption For an Image of the Mount Hermon Class of 1890 Just look at their shoes. I think it was my friend’s dad A real observant sort Once said If you want to know everything about a man Just look at his shoes. Yeah my friend’s dad Spent his life conducting Maybe ten thousand job interviews; Figured out How to size up a man’s character Just by looking over his Buster Browns. Made his career out of it you could say. Just look at their shoes. You wouldn’t hire them. Just look at their shoes. Twentysomething – Already worked to death. Peter Weis
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The Reckoning
What he touches he taints. Thoreau
Fires seen from a distant plain. Creosote fumes score your eyes, as you enter the smoke filled dugout that splits your soul
I am the shadowed mesa I am your scarlet fear I exact delayed justice that splits my soul
Cicatriz
The Sunset It is late when I leave the Library. As I shut the door the cold engulfs me, And the wind howls about me. Shivering, I pull my coat tighter, And press my books closer. Home is a long way off. As I plod down the road I look up for an instant. The sun is setting, Sending blood-red and gold shadows to light my way. Home Science, the Chapel, Marquand, even Stone, Come alive in its rays. Perry is a flaming mirror, And all the trees are bathed in scarlet. Unmindful of the cold, I stand and gaze As though I could never stop. Slowly the moment passes. I promise that I shall never Forget the splendor of the sight. Shaken, I speed home, But something of the beauty stays with one, And I feel a little awed and apart. Even while I talk and joke and laugh. I know, and hold the image in my heart. Lavonne Aghetto ‘44 This poem was featured in the Northfield School for Girls 1944 graduation program.
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given one billion: a calculation given: a locked box holding untold sums in gilt-edged securities, equities, treasuries, half-clipped coupon bonds. given: in round numbers twelve thousand gold Napoleons. now YOU do the math. two thirds her second treasure she hurls heavenward; buys a husband one daughter two sons, spends half her balance on tears for two lost souls, laughing ever over her locked box holding untold sums in treasuries and equities saved against one silvered moon. add unmarked grave. now then what’s left of love? tell me plus or minus. Peter Weis
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The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. Friedrich Nietzsche
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Acknowledgment The staff of Mandala extends its heartfelt thanks & best wishes for the future to those faculty & staff members who will be leaving the School at the end of this year.
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Editorial Staff San-Han Hung Min Kyung Kim Jessica Yijia Tusi Philip J. Calabria - Faculty Advisor
Layout, printing and binding by TigerPress, Northampton, Massachusetts Printed with soy ink. Environmentally friendly printing since 1985.
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Mandala
2013