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In This Issue

n+1 Reasons I Love You

Ellie Jurmann 4

Attempting to Write About Writing

Victoria Yin 2 Elliana Reynolds 5

My Dad Loves to Ride His Bike

Books to Have and to Hold Naomi Kim 7

Dyke Sunday Amelia Wyckoff 6

postCover by Joanne Han

FEB 12

VOL 27 — ISSUE 2

FEATURE

Attempting to Write About Writing what is asian-american literature and what does it mean?

By Victoria Yin Illustrated by Connie Liu

W

hen I write, I don’t usually start with a plan. I

order to fit in from a young age. I abandoned my ancestral

Reading it now, I can’t resist the urge to cringe. I

start with an idea and then proceed to avoid

language and chose to solely speak English in an attempt

chose to present myself as a first-generation Chinese-

outlines, bullet points, and topic sentences. My

to live a facsimile of my white peers’ lives in Des Moines,

American first, because I thought I was a first-generation

fingers gently tap at my keyboard and the fully formed

Iowa. That commitment shattered after a trip to Western

Chinese-American first. Doing so overshadowed other

letters magically appear on the screen to spell out the

China when I was a teenager. Standing in the middle of

important aspects of myself and further reinforced the

wrong words as often as the right ones. I simply write.

my grandmother’s living room, I saw a package of thin,

idea of a unilateral identity story.

But when I’m writing, be it an academic essay, short

golden-brown crackers: the exact brand I had loved when

Just as for many others, nothing has had a deeper

story, or news article, I can’t help but wonder: who

I last visited years before. The gesture touched me, and I

or more painful effect on my life than my identity.

am I to write this? And what do I even have to say?

was guilted by the fact that the language I had chosen to

Writing on the subject directly is difficult because

My college admissions essay was titled “You’re

forget was the only one I could use to speak to her. I made

identity is something that I struggle to pinpoint or

White Until You Aren’t.” I wrote about my decision as

a vow to myself to understand and embrace my culture,

define. It constantly shifts and changes, composed

a first-generation immigrant to ignore my heritage in

language, and heritage from then on.

of my fluctuating experiences and perspectives.

Letter from the Editor Dear Readers, In spite of myself I think that I am beginning to miss Bombay. I’ve only been in Providence a month, and all I did while I was home was complain about being home.

My friends and I would say “the snow will fix it; Providence will fix it.” Logic dictates that I should be repulsed by the thought of Bombay, and yet I’m not. Maybe it’s something about it being Valentine’s Day week and my beloved being so, so far away, but I’m looking out at the icicles forming off the roofs on Wriston Quad and all I can think of is the Bombay streets after the rain. The streetlights always shine off everything, so things are all black yellow red and you’re in a car going so fast to somewhere you don’t want to be but you’re singing out the window and it almost feels like home for a second.

Something about “home” being half a world away, suddenly, makes Providence seem unreal. Here, the snow falls thick and fast, and then slow and wafting, but always coating things in the most unrealistic lining. Even when I walk through it, I cannot believe that it is real. The Providence streets look like a postcard, or so many gingerbread houses covered in icing sugar that I’m watching through the TV screen as a twelve-year-old in India, longing to live somewhere it snows in a house with a staircase and a fireplace. And here I finally am.

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Thoughts of an identity that is not (or not entirely) American seem to be in the air this week – in Feature, our author talks about her experience as an “Asian-American” creator of color. In Narrative, one author celebrates Valentine’s Day with a love letter to math, while another writes about dealing with guilt following her father’s traumatic brain injury. In Arts & Culture, one author provides us with timeless romance novel recommendations, and another writes about k. d. lang’s music and their mother.

Finally, in Lifestyle, one author writes about their experience attending Brown as a remote student, while another, in keeping with the theme of the week, provides us with “a single’s guide to Valentine’s Day.” It’s almost time for a long weekend, for Valentine’s Day, and for cold, cold weather. There’s so much sunshine somewhere else, and here there is stale snow on the ground, icy and hard. But I know that new, soft snow will fall, for me. It seems, suddenly, as if the universe is conspiring to keep me happy, to keep me sane, as if it needs me here and it needs me to love. The snow is fixing it. My skin is already clearing up.

With love,

Aditi Marshan Copy Chief

Valentine-Themed Academic Paper Titles 1. A Hot Foucault: Navigating Sexual Power Relations over Tinder 2. Hacking Neural Networks: A Novel Methodology to Make You Fall in Love with Me 3. Bare Bones: Excavating My Meager Love Life from the Literal Dirt 4. You’ve Got Me Speechless: Intimate Communication Following Broca’s Aphasia 5. Forever and Hallways: High School Romances in Contemporary Media 6. Bee Mine: Social Cues in the Waggle Dance 7. Sex and Softboys: A Musical Survey of Sad Girl Indie’s Heartbreak Hall-of-Fame 8. Et Tu, Brutgay?: Love and Friendship in Julius Caesar 9. And They Were Roommates: A History of Lesbian Lovers Friendzoned by Historians 10. Books and Boobs: Anatomy in Literature

FEATURE

But I try to navigate it anyway, because I don’t have

shouldn’t be limited to that category.

agrees with the critiques. It’s possible, too, that her

a choice. Writing is a very personal creation, a self-

When asked by a New York Times reporter

marginalized identity makes her an easier target to

portrait drawn with the alphabet. Everything I write,

which “immigrant fiction” pieces have influenced

attack. The mixed reception of Kaur’s poetry shows

particularly personal nonfiction and fiction, is the

her, Pulitzer prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri

yet again that writing to an audience about one’s

result of an internal wrestling match as I attempt to

responded, “I don’t know what to make of the term

experience isn’t all that easy.

properly express myself and therefore my identity.

‘immigrant fiction.’ Writers have always tended to

Creating work about my identity becomes more

write about the worlds they come from.”

Just as there is no singular Asian-American or Pacific Islander experience, there is no one way to

difficult when readers expect people of marginalized

Before I arrived at Brown, I hadn’t explored

express and write about it. It’s questionable what

identities to write about it, talk about it, post about

the world of Asian/Asian-American writing. I was

the umbrella term “Asian-American literature” even

it—to explain the experience to people who haven’t

unfamiliar with Amy Tan and Jhumpa Lahiri. I didn’t

captures. The lines are blurred. Some define the term

lived it themselves. Our lives and circumstances must

know that writing about food was a trope, or the

as literature written about Asian-ness without having

be distilled into singular narratives, or told in a way

distinction between cliché and nuanced identity-based

to have been written by an Asian author; others define

that stirs up discomfort without directly attacking

writing. I didn’t remember reading anything relating to

it as literature written by those of Asian/Pacific

the systems that create or perpetuate our struggles.

the Asian-American experience in high school, which

Islander descent. But then, even the definition of

Our pain can be made just palatable enough; our

allowed me to write about my own experience freely

Asian itself has recently shifted to be more inclusive

anger, I posit, less so.

but naively, unknowingly falling into stereotypical

of South Asians.

Ling Ma, the author of Severance, a book about

patterns and narratives. VISIONS, Brown’s Asian/

Hanya Yanagihara, author of A Little Life, said in

a first-generation Chinese-American woman whose

Asian-American literary magazine, rejected my

an interview with The Believer, “Where it becomes

life is upturned by an apocalyptic pandemic, echoed

writing samples two separate times. One was about the

difficult is defining what, if anything identifiable at all,

this in an interview with the Chicago Tribune: “I

evolving relationship between a daughter and mother

makes an Asian-American book an Asian-American

resented that expectation. I had been told, even by

and of communicating care through food. Another was

book, other than the fact of its creator being Asian.

a faculty member, to write about ‘where you come

a longer piece about the ghost of an Asian woman who

And I’d argue that there is nothing identifiable

from’ and I was like (expletive). I felt there was this

spends three days mourning and ruminating on her

beyond that.”

cultural expectation to write about your otherness—

life in New York City.

to explain yourself.”

I agree with Yanagihara’s sentiment. While I

My third submission from last semester, titled

search for Asian-American representation in all forms

Wanting to write about identity, but not wanting

“Mother,” a metaphoric piece about the self-sacrifice

of media, it’s hard not to become frustrated by the

to cater to expectations: the tension between the two

of an Asian woman, was accepted. Perhaps I had a

constant categorization of experiences and narratives,

makes writing about identity difficult and is redolent

better understanding of how to present my writing

especially of the marginalized. We don’t have a

of “stereotype threat.” Claude Steele, who coined the

appealingly—but in doing so, I questioned whether I

“Straight” or “White” genre on Netflix because we don’t

term, said in a speech at Brown that when minority

was further contributing to the curation of a particular

need to. While labels are sometimes helpful, I believe

groups are exposed to a stereotype, the anxiety created

narrative, one in which our identities can be explored,

we need to think more broadly about the impact that

by that negative assumption causes “cognitive stress.”

but never too closely. Categorizing writing as “Asian-

labeling by identity might have on promoting identity

The desire to break the mold of the stereotype must

American literature” can be limiting even as it is

over personhood for marginalized individuals.

coexist with concerns about perpetuating it further.

empowering, given the diversity of experiences that

It’d be naive to say that I fully understand my

This distress can negatively impact performance by

rigid expectations for “Asian-American” narratives

undefinable Asian-American identity, which cannot

adding a layer of cognitive conflict not experienced by

may constrain.

be separated from the medley of my other identities

non-marginalized groups, Steele added.

Rupi Kaur, a best-selling Indian-Canadian

and experiences, many of which have yet to be

When I write about myself or create an Asian-

poet whose work quickly garnered international

processed. It would be senseless to claim that I could

American character, I want to express a part of my

attention, writes poems related to her identity and

fully explain it through words. It is impossible for

identity that I grow into every day, but I also want

experience. Kaur has come under fire by several

a lovely reader like you to glimpse the words that

to avoid the label of an Asian-American piece and

critics for commodifying her marginalization. In a

fully encompass my Asian-American experience and

its resulting limitations. Balancing the two desires

Buzzfeed Article, Chiara Giovanni argues that “the

identity, because, unfortunately, they don’t exist.

forces me to put thought and effort into what I’m

Western metropolitan literary market’s demand for

I can try really, really hard and maybe I’d come

creating and changes the way I write. In my day-to-

confessional writing that is colored by just the right

really, really close. But that’s not the point. The point

day life, I am already taken at face value firstly as an

amount of postcolonial authenticity, ensuring that

is that no matter what I write, I shouldn’t be worried

Asian woman, and I don’t want my writing to suffer

it is exotic enough to be attractive without making

about perpetuating or avoiding tropes about Asian-

that fate as well.

white Western readers uncomfortable, plays a major

American literature or stereotypes about Asian-

part in her success.”

Americans. I should feel no pressure to write anything

Severance came into my life last summer, and I was drawn in by the protagonist, Candace Chen, as

I personally understand many of these criticisms

besides what naturally appears on the screen when I

she languidly moves through her life in New York

and even agree with some of them. In my opinion,

type. Yet, somehow, the act of scribing parts of myself

City as a book publisher. The book’s impact on me

Kaur’s virality represents exactly the type of

down, of trying to pinpoint a palatable identity, is one

was far greater than other novels I’d read because Ma

immigrant and marginalized story that people are

that I’m inevitably and repeatedly drawn to. I want

gave me a character I could identify with, not just on a

comfortable with and want to consume. But her

to bring greater awareness and representation to my

personal level, but on a cultural and generational one.

simple-versed poetry still remains a form of South

experience and experiences like mine. I want to give

It inspired me to write about the Asian-American

Asian representation, even if she has been criticized

myself the closure that writing often brings.

experience. I hesitate to say it is an Asian-American

for her delivery. She is an international best-selling

piece, because although Ma tells that story, its scope

author, after all, indicating that not everyone

But I want it to be without any strings attached.

“We passed by so fast that I didn’t get to fully experience your height.”

“Why are there little car horns? *face lights up* Oh it’s jazz.”

February 12, 2021 3

NARRATIVE would reemerge… until you showed up for me.

Don’t get me wrong: I still struggled with disarray on a daily basis, and I do even now. But when I sat in the eye of my hurricane of a bedroom, working on math problems, in awe of the thorough and multistep techniques used to get through to you, everything clicked: if your order brings me calm and consistency, then there’s no need to exist in a binary of absolute order and absolute chaos.

Instead, I can find (and have found, to some degree, thanks to you) a balance somewhere in between.

n+1 Reasons I Love You a love letter to math

by Ellie Jurmann Illustrated by Naya Lee Chang Dear Math, I think it’s about time I formally introduce myself to you. I’m Ellie, and whether you know it or not, you’ve completely changed the way I look at and understand the world. I often find myself lost in thought, enamored by your ceaseless beauty and your ability to make sense of a reality that’s stricken with the convoluted and chaotic.

I may be coming on a bit strong, but I need you to know exactly how great an effect you’ve had on my life, because I love you for it.

Back in the days when counting to 100 was the epitome of genius, I sat in my first grade classroom and saw you written on the whiteboard in your simplest form. You defined many of my earliest discoveries: that my fingers could go "one, two, three, four, five,” to tell you that my age is “this many,” that scoops of ice cream could be numbered to explain why dad’s bowl was always fuller than mine, and that any hour in the morning that could be numbered on one hand was definitely a bad time to disturb my parents. Math, you were here all along, but until then you weren’t more than an idea floating around in my head. You made sense of bags of pennies, attributed values to known truths. While 1+1 was only the beginning, my interest in you already knew no bounds.

I was told I should hate you, but practicing my times tables made me feel alive in ways I hadn’t before. I’d been waiting to learn them since about a year prior, when a kid in my class asked the teacher when we’d begin studying multiplication. As much as I wanted to move ahead of the class, soak up any new secrets you felt like sharing with me, I also wanted to bask in the thrill of learning 4 post–

each concept for the first time. I’d sit for hours on end, thinking about how clever it was of you to turn 12 + 12 + 12 into an equation that is triple the value of 12. Your orderliness and many rules were unlike anything I’d ever known. And when I saw that 12 x 3 rectangle, I saw a picture frame containing some fundamental truth—a small fraction of reality that would someday become the key to understanding the unknowable about our existence. The relationship I had with you back then was simple, so the meaning of life and the essence of the universe (or even universes) needed to remain indeterminate for a bit longer. I was excited to take the time to figure you out, and to hopefully figure myself out along the way.

As I walked into my room—shoes in the middle of the floor, papers everywhere, no open counter space to be seen—I laid down on my carpet and opened my math book. I then went through the steps of long division: writing out the problem, seeing how many times the divisor fit into the first digit of the dividend, subtracting the difference, bringing down the second digit, and so on. This problem-solving process was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever encountered: the numbers, regardless of how arbitrary they were, gave me a sense of order that was integral to unraveling my world of disarray. I found magic and harmony and balance in you, a welcome juxtaposition to my disorderly state.

It reminded me of the true goal of math: to reveal the greatest, most universal truths of life through depictions of our worldly experiences.

Time and time again, I was lectured about how my room wasn’t neat enough, how my sleep schedule wasn’t uniform enough, how my communications over text weren’t reliable enough. Naturally, I felt defeated.

Of course I hated these things about myself, too. In fact, I often became so “all over the place” because of my persistent need to make things perfect—the cycle of realizing that nothing will ever be perfect enough, pitying myself for even caring, feeling guilty for losing control and letting my chaos seep into the lives of the people I care about, then vowing to be better. The problem is, I had a hard time maintaining any amount of order that was not an extremum of it. So, old habits

Later, I moved on to algebra and calculus, some of your more advanced topics. It had grown increasingly clear to me that though you bring out the best in me, I wasn’t supposed to love you. You were apparently supposed to make me cry and question the value of the American education system (which, don’t get me wrong, is very messed up. How could they do you so dirty with that anti-individualist Common Core hogwash?) While my classmates groaned, asking our teachers with the utmost sass, “Why would we ever need to know this?”, I sat at my desk, thinking to myself, “Why wouldn’t you want to know this?”

Frankly, I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that most people see you as a bunch of equations and lines and curves, when I see Malevichian art in you—an image so clear yet so abstract at the same time. To most students, your cardioid curves may seem like a waste of effort and not worth studying, but I see your heart in them. You remind me that everything I encounter— buildings, door knobs, paperclips—can be broken down into little infinities and be plotted, graphed, and analyzed. Despite your objective and quantitative nature, the number of methods I can use to understand you is nearly boundless. When dealing with myself, however, I’m not always as forgiving. I constantly feel the need to narrowly define myself and my purpose in this life. I feel this enormous pressure to choose between you and the humanities, you and literature, you and fuzzier, warmer studies, even though these are hardly opposing forces. I don’t always know my end behavior, what I’m trying to express, or what my function is. In the realm of all things real, there are still times when the answers to your questions are undefined.

Since my elementary school days of writing works of fiction (when I’d written a superhero version of myself with math whiz superpowers), you’ve always been a constant in my life. It’s true, you’re my art form, my muse, and my best chance at understanding how the world works. I’m so in awe of your beauty, and I hope to keep discovering the multitudes of truths you contain.

And while there are problems to which even you don’t have clear solutions—including those derived from my personal qualms about my identity—I still try to find some sort of wisdom in your expressions. As such, if I were to make a graph of my life, where x exists on the interval [birth, death], I would find that all x-values on this interval could be divided into infinitely many points that are an infinitely small distance apart from one another. I could then try to guess where my life is heading based on the direction it’s taking at any one moment, although I don’t know much else about the in-betweens of now and the end of my life. It seems like, maybe for once, I should ignore all of the calculating that can be done, and instead focus on the infinitesimally small moment that is right now.

Thank you for everything, Math; I owe the sum of all that I am to you.

Love, Ellie

NARRATIVE

My Dad Loves to Ride His Bike

the intersection of guilt and love

by Elliana Reynolds Illustrated by Elliana Reynolds content warning: Violence, car accidents, neardeath experience I took a nap that day. It was warm. The very last day of April. I had begun a relationship earlier, around 2 a.m. I was happy. Euphoric even. But that unadulterated euphoria was nipped right in the bud as darkness descended on my house. My mom was in the living room, her voice oozing panic. I ignored it for a bit. And then she texted me, “Can you locate your dad?” I opened the Find My Friends app.

Location not found. *** My dad loves to ride his bike. On the weekends, he would wake up around 5 a.m., eat a banana, and hop on his bike by 6:30 a.m. He would track all of his bike trips on the Strava app, competing with other cyclists to see who could go the fastest on X stretch of trail or road.

It was an obsession. He was incredibly competitive about it, reporting people if he thought they cheated and even braving the cold Lake Michigan winters.

My mom was never really a fan of his deep interest in cycling, but I was. It made me happy to see him so passionate about something, especially because most of his life revolved around my autistic younger brother, so I always entertained him when he showed me his “King of the Hill” records on Strava. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so happy to see him cycling.

On April 30, 2020, my dad’s bike ride took longer than usual. He must’ve left around 3 p.m., the time I started my nap, and it wasn’t until the sun set around 8 p.m. that we noticed he wasn’t home. Too late. Far too late. We couldn’t locate my dad like we usually could, and he wouldn’t pick up the phone. My mom called anyone she could, anyone that might know where my dad was. Eventually, my older brother and sister-in-law relayed to my mom an accident that had happened around 4 p.m.: a cyclist had been hit by a car and an emergency helicopter had taken them to a nearby hospital. Critical condition.

My brother picked up my mom—buried deep inside an overwhelming panic attack, barely able to talk—and drove her to the hospital. When she left, I stood there, shaking with anxiety. I hope the cyclist is Dad. But also… I looked at my younger brother, face blank, unable to comprehend the direness of the situation. What will we do without him in good health?

The cyclist was my dad. When he was doing what he loved most, a car failed to yield. Did my dad go flying? Was he wearing the cycling shoes that kept his feet fastened to the pedals? How painful was it?

Broken bones. A traumatic brain injury.

Hospitalization and rehabilitation for months.

The driver never faced any serious charges. *** The night after the crash, I Facetimed my new boyfriend. I drank soju as we talked, both of us radiating happiness and delight as we discussed our lives and joked about anything and everything.

Absolute bliss. Laughter. Shy smiles. And then a sudden stop. He mentioned my dad, asking where he was. I don’t really remember what I replied. A simple “he isn’t here right now”? After we hung up, I went to my bedroom and stared at my ceiling. How can I be enjoying myself so much when my dad is in pain?

The guilt I felt whenever I was happy would continue for months. Not only was my dad suffering, but so was my whole family because of my younger brother. My brother isn’t just autistic; he has a developmental and speech delay and bipolar disorder.

When structure falls apart in his life, so does his mood, his ability to stay calm. My dad’s absence obliterated any structure. Day after day brought a new episode.

He threw CDs, books, containers of water, and whole pieces of furniture. One night, I was Facetiming my boyfriend as my aunt watched my brother downstairs, and the next moment I was breathing sharply, tears cascading down my face as my brother angrily sprayed the whole house with AXE body spray, stabbing the walls with a knife after the can ran out.

Somehow, we went to sleep that night, but not without my brother pulling my hair and biting my hand as I tried to separate him from my mom. Many similar incidents would follow. And so would my guilt whenever I retreated to my locked room and the comfort of my boyfriend’s company. *** Mid-June, my dad came home—finally some hope for peace. In the backyard, he sat on the bench before coming inside. I ran outside to sit next to him, smiling nervously. But there was no peace. “Why is your mom being such a bitch?” I stared at him in shock. Soon, I sat alone on the bench, the hot June sun burning down on me.

My dad was no longer himself. He was shorttempered, demanding, obsessive, unapologetic—all a result of his traumatic brain injury. My brother didn’t take well to this, and within a matter of moments, my house became even more volatile than it was before. Countless fights between my dad and my brother, a living room bare of anything to throw other than the furniture, my mom crying, my sisters crying, me crying.

A month later, I flew out to see my boyfriend on Block Island. I went to see him to tell him I love him, but it would be a lie if I didn’t say one of my biggest motivations was getting out of the house.

The predictability of his day-to-day life soothed me, but after only six short days, I had to fly back home.

Everything was the same when I returned. I sobbed at the contrast between my home and the calmness of Block Island. Eventually, I left for school two weeks early, my boyfriend worriedly inviting me back to his home before we moved in.

The morning I left, my mom bought doughnuts and my older sister made eggs and avocado toast.

Sunshine fluttered into our house, reflecting off the surface of the muggy pool water. I smiled as I talked

to my family, waiting for my grandpa to pick me up and drive me to the airport. My smile was soon replaced by a frown of anxiety. Again, I was escaping, leaving my family behind; even as I felt happy, guilt gripped at my throat, choking me. I wished I could take them all with me. *** Whenever I asked my mom how her day was, she never went into details, just words like “fine” and “decent.” But my older sister would tell me the truth, like how my younger brother shattered our glass back door. Hearing this from her only made me cry, helplessly and guiltily. A thousand miles away, I couldn’t do anything to bring peace to my home, and even if I had the chance to return, I didn’t want to. You’re really selfish, huh? was all I could think to myself. Ungrateful, a bitch, a coward.

Eventually, my brother went into a residential facility after a series of incidents and updates to his Individualized Education Program. This should’ve made me feel relieved. And it did. For a moment, a window opened, fresh air wrapped around me, and every muscle in my body relaxed for the first time since April. But, again, guilt engulfed me. As my mom went through the transition process with my brother, I couldn’t do anything to ease her anxieties, to comfort her. I couldn’t watch Korean dramas with her, drink coffee with her, or massage her back. I could only text her, I’m sorry. *** My dad still loves to ride his bike. It makes me really anxious. Will he explode this time? I think the same about his temper. I never know what’s going to throw him into a mood. Will he yell because he ran out of diet soda? Will he storm up the stairs because his headphones broke? But even if he isn’t like how he was last spring, I still love him. I love sitting in the basement with him watching Shameless. I love listening to him talk about old music and play his guitar. I love my brother, too. When he came home for Christmas, he was much calmer than before, and he gave me hugs and urged me to put on his favorite anime movie. Still, even with this relative calmness in my house now, I continue to swim through a lake of guilt. Am I still escaping? Am I still being selfish, only caring for myself?

You’re not.

In the morning, I text my dad and mom separate good morning messages. My mom sends me a picture of the sunrise on her way to work. My dad sends me a picture of the dog sleeping next to him on the couch as he watches the morning news. I smile from a thousand miles away.

February 12, 2021 5

ARTS&CULTURE

Dyke Sunday

k.d. lang as a coming out lullaby

By Amelia Wyckoff ILLUSTRATED BY Lucid Clairvoyant We listened to the same five mix CDs over and over again in the car. I have my parents’ playlists memorized to this day; I can’t hear Neil Young without thinking “Track 7!” I remember Roy Orbison’s “Crying” vividly, featuring k.d. lang in harmony with her vast, blue vibrato.

“Crying” was the first song I’d ever sing, belted from my car seat at age four while we drove to Christmas Eve at my grandparents’ house. My dad leaned over to my mom in the passenger seat, saying, “She can really sing!” k.d. lang, a Canadian singer-songwriter popular in the 90s and early 2000s, has a voice like denim and smooth ceramic. She’s like Frank Sinatra—if Frank Sinatra had twang and was really, really good at eating pussy. Her voice is expansive; she drops her jaw and the sound fills you right up. She wears suits (the threepiece kind) and once sported a shaggy middle part that fell just below her eyebrows. She’d push it up and away from her face when she sang a particularly big note. My mother introduced me to k.d., who would later introduce me to masculinity. The irony of this only struck me much later. I didn’t know what k.d. looked like when I was a little kid (if I had I’d probably have realized I was queer a lot earlier), but she’s made sporadic appearances throughout my 21 years of life. In the past month or so, she’s taken up residence in my Spotify library.

My mom and I got along. We weren’t best friends, but we understood each other. I told her about boys, and when I cried, I turned to her for a hug. When my first boyfriend broke my heart, she fed me the “there are a million fish in the sea” line, and I trusted her. I fell asleep as she played “Sweet Baby James,” her favorite lullaby, on the CD player I hadn’t used since 2009.

When I broke up with my prom date two years later, I told my mom I liked someone else. After two weeks of sneaking around with Cierra, my mom figured out that something was different from her perch on the living room couch.

“Who do you like?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“Is it a boy?” “… No?” Her face fell and my stomach fell with it and my brother’s tutor rang the doorbell and my mom made small talk with her for what felt like an hour and I sat on the couch and dragged my finger through the puddle of condensation pooled off of my iced tea, making Olympic Rings on the wooden coffee table, and when she came back, she said everything that any “What To Do When Your Previously Straight, Consistently Straight-A Child Decides That She Wants to Fuck Everything Up and Come Out” pamphlet would tell you not to say and I promised her I wasn’t a lesbian and she told me I had to tell my dad and I laughed because I would never tell my Republican, 65 year-old dad what my Democrat, 55 year-old mom couldn’t hear and then I went upstairs to my brother’s room and cried and he went downstairs and got so angry he threw a chair at the window and then he told me he would never forgive her and I went to my room and cried about making my family hate each other and when I stopped crying I heard k.d. lang playing from behind her slammed door (“Helpless, helpless, heeeeeeeeeeeeeelllplessss”) and I wondered why my mom was listening to a dyke. *** We didn’t not talk for three weeks, we just didn’t talk. When my mom played music in the car, I pressed 6 post–

skip on k.d. I couldn’t bear the thought that my mom was thinking about k.d., which meant she’d think about lesbians, which meant she’d think about me. I really, really didn’t want her to think about me. Every time we were alone together, she reminded me to tell my dad because she “didn’t like lying to him.” So I stopped being alone with her, and she told my dad anyway.

My mother and I have never talked about the debacle that was my coming out, despite paying a therapist to practically beg me, every other Thursday for the past four years, to start the conversation. And it’s fine.

No, it really is. She hugs me when I cry, and she tells me she loves me. We still listen to disco and we laugh a lot. I call her most weeks to keep her updated (and I often tell her as little personal information as humanly possible). *** I rediscovered k.d. lang on a long drive in October.

Somewhere in the back of my mind “Helpless” was playing, and I followed the instinct and clicked. I fell into her whirlpool voice easily, scrolled to “Outside Myself,” and closed my eyes.

I have been In a storm of the sun Basking, senseless to what I’ve become A fool to worship just light When after all, it follows night I’ve been outside myself for so long Any feeling I had is close to gone I’ve been outside myself for so long, so loooo-ong….

There is no way to describe this that isn’t cliché, so I’ll just say it: She spoke to me. To be “Outside Myself” was a familiar concept; when I look at my body in the mirror, I place an arm over my head to show off my armpit hair and adopt a wide stance, my hips thrust forward. I pose and twist and dress this body I’m in, hoping a collared shirt, a thick belt, or bare fuzzy legs will embody my queer self in a way that feels seamless.

I’ve always been intimidated by dykes. Maybe it’s the softness of my face or my affinity for the color pink, but I don’t think I’ll ever look like k.d. in a suit. I see butch women and I am in awe of them—which means I keep my distance. k.d. let me in. She is strange and alone and full and empty at the same time and she does it all with that incredible haircut and very shiny shoes. I started wearing muscle tanks and ripped jeans, and I put my hands in my pockets a lot. I still don’t wear flannels; my masculinity is more of a neon goth David Bowie than k.d.’s dapper cowboy. It’s a work in progress.

I crave k.d.’s easy masculinity even if I don’t emulate her particular style. The clean lines of her crisp white button-downs and bandana neckties come through in her voice. She sings like an open plain, and I want to walk with her into the Canadian mist. I want to saturate the open air with an energy that protrudes and announces and demands. I want her pure sound; I want to be driving through the woods with my mother at age six, certain that I’d grow up to have spiky hair and a flat chest and wear a tux at my wedding. It’s more likely that I’ll wear a pink dress and four earrings and armpit hair, but I still want people to look at me and think dyke—not woman, not femme, not that-guy’s-girlfriend or I-want-to-fuckher-later. When I listen to k.d.’s “Wash Me Clean,” I feel something like her hard, strong individuality pour over me with the waterfall of her sliding minor notes. *** I made a playlist called “Dyke Sunday” for Sunday mornings, and I’ve been listening to it every day. The music feels like home and I, ironically, feel the presence of my mother. She was living in New York City when “Outside Myself” came out. Like me, she had short hair and a penchant for denim jackets, as evidenced by the pictures on my grandfather’s bookshelf. We look alike, with our leather pants, eyeliner, and loud, sharp voices.

I hear k.d.’s songs like surrogate lullabies, songs I hope my mother will one day sing to me. She hasn’t done it yet, but k.d. can. Her dark, open vowels fill the void I pretend I don’t have. I hum along, “Constant craving, has always been…”

The other day I found two of k.d.’s albums on cassette tape in a thrift store. I bought both of them. One for me, one for my mom, for Christmas.

Dyke Sunday Outside Myself k.d. lang Me & My Dog boygenius For Her Fiona Apple Constant Craving k.d. lang First Love/Late Spring Mitski Gloria: In Excelsis Deo Patti Smith Jenny Sleater-Kinney Season of Hollow Soul k.d. lang Moon Song Phoebe Bridgers Pynk (feat. Grimes) Janelle Monáe Brand New City Mitski Night Shift Lucy Dacus Georgia Brittany Howard Let’s Call It Love Sleater-Kinney

Books to Have and to Hold

literary love for valentine’s day

By Naomi Kim Illustrated by Anna Semizhonova I kind of feel like college is breaking up with me.

I don’t want to graduate and leave college life behind, especially not in the middle of a pandemic. But college keeps telling me I need to get ready to move on. What?

In my heart of hearts, I feel like I’m still in March of my junior year. Definitely not a senior. Definitely not ready to move on. (Cue Taylor Swift’s “Right Where You Left Me” from Evermore). I guess, really, that this long breakup started last March, given that nothing since then has been as it should be.

The good news is that unlike college (and unlike some people), books don’t tell you to suck it up and move on. They don’t tell you that your time is up, whether you’re ready or not. They’ll never reject your love. So here are six books about love to love forever, at Brown and beyond. *** 1. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han: Although many people are familiar with the Netflix adaptation of this novel, the book will always have a special place in my heart because I read it as the campus shut down last year. In the absence of classes and any semblance of normalcy, I took refuge in this light-hearted rom-com romp of a YA novel. It turned out to be exactly what I needed in the midst of all that chaos—a welcome and comforting source of escapism, complete with a happy ending. Lara Jean Song Covey has always written secret love letters to her crushes, though never with the intention of actually sending them. However, when the letters are mysteriously mailed out, she finds herself playing the role of Peter Kavinsky’s girlfriend. Peter is

trying to make his ex-girlfriend jealous, and Lara Jean needs to cover up her crush on the boy next door—who just so happens to be her own sister’s one-time boyfriend.

TATB has everything from a fake dating scheme and solid sister relationships to a popular Netflix movie adaptation with Asian American representation.

2. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein: Platonic love deserves more love, and Code Name Verity gives it its due.

The heart of this cleverly told, heartbreaking YA novel is the strong friendship between Julie and Maddie, a relationship that highlights the endurance and courage of women during World War II. Arrested by the Gestapo and forced to write a confession explaining her mission, the British spy Julie takes the opportunity to tell the story of how her friendship with pilot Maddie came to be. Julie writes: “It’s like falling in love, finding your best friend.”

I read this book right after getting my wisdom teeth removed in 2017, and I was so engrossed in Julie and Maddie’s story that I forgot my pain entirely. That’s really saying something.

3. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene: If happily ever after isn’t your thing, look no further than this novel centered on the writer Maurice Bendrix, his lover Sarah Miles, and Sarah’s husband Henry. Like Code Name Verity, Greene’s novel is set in World War II. The war and its aftermath serve as the backdrop for Bendrix and Sarah’s tumultuous affair—which does, indeed, come to an end. I read Greene’s novel during my first semester of college, in an English class called Love Stories. The Apostle Paul offers a famous definition of love in the Bible, writing: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.” But many of the fictional relationships we studied were far from such patience and kindness. The End of the Affair is riddled with the dark side of love: bitter jealousy and fierce possessiveness.

Greene further complicates this story of human love and hate through the characters’ tortured relationships to God and Catholicism. After Sarah breaks off their affair,

“That was loneliness: a night where I’d insisted on staying outside to play long after the snow had stopped drifting down through the sky, the slow and sudden capture of the atmosphere by sunset and by stars, the pale streetlight leaving an orange patch at the end of my driveway, the sight of nobody else.”

—Annaliese Mair, “Words We Never Knew,” 2.7.20

“It’s Valentine’s Day—that unique yearly moment when we gather together, buy each other cheap Hallmark cards (or maybe a heart-shaped box of those plastic-tasting Russell Stover chocolates), and declare our undying love for whomever we happen to be dating/hooking up with/crushing on at this particular run through the calendar.”

—Griffin Plaag, “Nothing Feels Good,” 2.8.19

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Olivia Howe a FEATURE Managing Editor Alice Bai Section Editors Andrew Lu Ethan Pan ARTS & CULTURE Managing Editor Emma Schneider

Bendrix becomes jealous of God once he realizes that Sarah has embraced the Catholic faith. Even though he insists that he hates God, Bendrix himself is dogged by a sense of the divine.

4. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery: I once wrote a love letter to Gilbert Blythe, the beloved character from Montgomery’s classics—but don’t worry, it was for an assignment (I’m not that obsessed).

We were instructed to write a love letter modeled after one of Edgar Allan Poe’s, which is to say that it had to be overdramatic and overpopulated with dashes. There’s much to praise about Gilbert: he’s hardworking, and generous, and funny, and intelligent. If given a choice of romantic leads, I’d take Gilbert over Mr. Darcy any day, but the truth is that he belongs with none other than our imaginative, impulsive heroine Anne Shirley. Romance aside, however, Montgomery’s books are about far more than the (unbeatable) rivals-turned-friends-turnedlovers dynamic between Anne and Gilbert. Anne of Green Gables embraces familial love and tight-knit friendships as the red-headed orphan Anne becomes part of the Cuthbert family and wins the hearts of everyone in Avonlea. Of course, she’ll win you over, too.

5. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson: Deserving winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Gilead has a wide fan base, including Barack Obama and, of course, yours truly. The novel illustrates love on every scale imaginable, from human to divine. Elderly Congregational minister John Ames is approaching the end of his life, and he pens a long letter to his young son about his love for his family and for the wondrous, beautiful world around him. Although Ames believes in grace and unconditional love, he struggles to extend such grace and love to Jack Boughton, his closest friend’s misfit son. Ames finds it difficult to forgive Jack’s past actions, and as a result, he makes incorrect assumptions about Jack’s intentions in the novel’s present. Every time I read Gilead, I cry more than the time before. It’s the kind of book that will break your heart and then quietly and gently heal it.

6. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi: This “memoir in books” is, in many ways, a love letter to the power and importance of fiction. I read Reading Lolita in Tehran at a time when I was questioning everything about being an English concentrator. (Let’s be honest: sometimes I still question it). Was it even worth it? What was the point? It seemed a second-rate endeavor, neither serious nor legitimate in the face of my peers’ pre-med and CS aspirations. But Azar Nafisi actually put her life on the line for literature. Once a professor of literature, Nafisi eventually forms a secret—and illegal—book club with some of her female students. She analyzes and interprets various novels, including Lolita and The Great Gatsby, as she describes life during the Iranian Revolution and its oppressive aftermath. If Nafisi found literature worth risking incarceration and execution for, then it’s surely worth four years of study and a lifetime of love.

NARRATIVE Managing Editor Minako Ogita Section Editors Siena Capone Christina Vasquez LIFESTYLE Managing Editor Caitlin McCartney Section Editors Kimberly Liu Emily Wang

Section Editors Kyoko Leaman Maddy McGrath

Want to be involved?

Email: olivia_howe@brown.edu!

COPY CHIEF Aditi Marshan

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STAFF WRITERS Kaitlan Bui Siena Capone Editors Eashan Das Kelsey Cooper Danielle Emerson Julia Gubner Jordan Hartzell Kyra Haddad Nicole Kim Jolie Rolnick Gus Kmetz Chloe Zhao Elliana Reynolds HEAD ILLUSTRATOR Adi Thatai Victoria Yin Joanne Han

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