SPARK Magazine Issue No. 14: Seeing Spectra

ISSUE NO. 14

MAY 2020 seeing spectra

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Issue No. 14 Soften the edges of perception;

Quite often what we think of as an edge or limit is actually the beginning of something else.

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SPARK joanne xu editor-in-chief

staff

dania abdi, grace alexander, mariam ali, rachel aquino, alex arenas, alexis austin, lauren bacher, madeleine badinger, eunice bao, nick barnes, sai baruri, megan bennett, justice beverley, mira bhat, tejal bhikha, mackenzie bickling, leah blom, chloe bogen, brooke borglum, emma brinsden, daniela briones, sydney bui, angelica campbell, noelle campos, alex cao, mia carriles, kendall casinger, shreya chari, valeria chĂĄvez, zimei chen, lucy chong, juleanna culilap, yasmine daghestani, kaia daniel, daniela del toro, quyen dinh, tien dinh, erin dorney, amaan dosani, gabby duhon, lindsey ehlers, montserrat elias, liv elkind, pooja enagala, ivanna sofia english, maya fawaz, gigi feingold, madee feltner, mckenzie fisher, rion fletcher, emily flores, darnell forbes, alex garcia, david garcia, julie garcia, adrianne garza, aleigh gerron, gracie gilchriest, kalee sue gore, kaden green, kristen guillen, olivia harris, ainslee harrison, ella hernandez, xandria hernandez, angie huang, antje idsellis arthur, rusama islam, kamryn jefferson, jennifer jimenez, alora jones, yeonsoo jung, grant kanak, ifeoluwa kehinde, cameron kelly, zaha khawaja, allison knodle, jacqueline knox, carmen larkin, laura laughead, alissa jae lazo-kim, jane lee, ellen li, alyssa lin, diariza lopez, christina lowe, vincent luu, annie lyons, mia macallister, katerina mangini, ricky martinez, teresa martinez, farah merchant, ruth mewhinney, ajĂ miller, meghan mollicone, basil montemayor, valeria moreno, gillian navarro, jessica nguyen, thao nguyen, chiadika obinwa, kim pagtama, katie pangborn, samantha paradiso, dani penet, katherine perks, eliza pillsbury, luisa pineda, gia poblete, shreya rajhans, ethan ramos, veronica rasmussen, marissa rodriguez, nathen sabapathy, sophia santos, mary schmidt, jillian schwartz, shelby scott, madison shaffer, megan shen, nick sheppard, tehreem siddiqui, presley simmons, audrey sinclair, mana singri, garrett smith, tiffany sun, erika takovich, katherine tang, sara tin-u, jacob tran, doris umezulike, julia vastano, sage walker, erin walts, izellah wang, rebecca wang, susanna wang, kelly wei, mia wei, amber weir, betsy welborn, sophie werkenthin, carlie whisman, lily wickstrom, paige wills, cat wilson, karen xie, karen yang, jessica ye, jessie yin, vivian yu, caleb zhang, andrew zhao, shuer zhuo, david zulli

design director maya shaddock layout director rebecca wong assistant layout director adriana torres assistant layout director kelsey jones digital director maya halabi

creative director carlie roberson assistant creative director nikita kalyana

director of hair and makeup sarah stiles assistant director of hair and makeup amber bray assistant director of hair and makeup anna strother

modeling director maggie deaver assistant modeling director diana perez assistant modeling director rodrigo colunga pastrana

director of photography paige miller assistant director of photography alyssa olvera

co-director of styling courtney fay co-director of styling shannon homan

senior print editor jade fabello associate print editor chloe bertrand associate print editor laura nguyen assistant print editor divina ceniceros dominguez co-editor of web ty marsh co-editor of web patricia valderrama assistant web editor ingrid garcia social media editor sophie hart

business director harrison xue finance director melanie che co-director of events nakhim seng co-director of events jillian westphal

marketing director haneen haque assistant marketing director malaika jhaveri

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from the editor

I’ll be honest. I rather dislike writing these things. Editor’s letters can be quite stale, mine included. It’s all just a bit too formulaic: Start with a grand declaration, retreat and build context, boast some blanket statements about how much you’ve stepped it up in this new issue (even if that is, in fact, the truth). But as this is my last one, perhaps I feel a sense of urgency to do better.

For something that feels like it’s been ingrained in my DNA — because I do, consider Spark Magazine to be a part of me — it’s hard to acknowledge that at some point, I’ll need to learn how to disassociate myself from this magazine. A Joanne without Spark feels foreign, from a lifetime ago that I don’t miss. And while I know for sure that this organization won’t stumble without me, I can’t help but feel that I’ll be tripping and falling without it for some time. I think I’ll have to leave some small part of me here forever. It’s the bit of my soul that houses my maternal instinct, the fierce loyalties I’ve fostered, and that oncein-a-lifetime camaraderie that’s impossible to understand from the outside.

What’s a day without a tongue-in-cheek line slipped in at the end of an email, or a trek to campus just to air out the sauna that is our office?

Writing this, I’m realizing I haven’t yet accepted that Spark Magazine is now my “good old days.”

It pains me to know that the seniors and I will never have those last celebrations with you. There is no closure on our time in Spark. But I’m comforted to know that in the fall, when things are settled, life will continue, and new stories, of every sense, will come from Issue No. 15.

Just like clockwork. The spirit of Spark lasts far longer and stronger than anything — even a global pandemic.

Perhaps that’s the one thing I’ll refuse to let go. That spirit.

It’s contagious. Infectious. seeing spectra

Once you catch onto it, it never quite leaves you. At this point, I don’t know what I’m trying to say besides the fact that no words can do justice to my feelings. So I’ll leave you with this: Thank you for giving me my purpose. As soon as I stop stumbling, I shall take it and run.

How was that?

Love,

Joanne Xu Editor-In-Chief

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contents

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features 156 dayglow is the mr. rogers of indie pop 8 34 38 60 66 106 116 124 130 144 168 174 176 206 6

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perspectives so happy I could cry, so sad it’s hard not to a bittersweet taste in my dreams i am alive the memory of red tell me i’m pretty there’s freedom in a self-timer moment i’d give you the warmth and more made in gold nothin’ fades like the light dear threads i found god in a house plant 7 o’clock viewing love songs for the end of the world all the girls in glass

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editorials homebodies melting look sharp and get your knives out in plain sight

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afterthoughts monster in the mirror accounts of the ineffable death of the supermen a building can’t scare me plastic, it’s fantastic! in defense of solitude preserving impermanence what will we do when we’re sober? queen mean mad like the devil 16 seeing spectra

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SO HAPPY I COULD CRY,

by TY MARSH

SO SAD IT’S HARD NOT TO.

layout CALEB ZHANG photographer RACHEL AQUINO stylist NOELLE CAMPOS hmua GRACIE GILCHRIEST & LUCY CHONG models ALEX GARCIA, AMAAN DOSANI & JULIE GARCIA

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MANIC DELIGHTS

ALWAYS HAVE AN END.

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BLACK PANTS | Austin Pets Alive! Thrift RED CROPPED JACKET | Revival Vintage

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he sun is out, but it’s raining. I’m confused by where the downpour is coming from, but I feel like running in it. My curls reach for them, the tears of the sun, holding onto the droplets until their strands cling to my face as well. The cotton of my shirt does the same, gripping my contours in movement, exposing how I look when it’s just me and my flesh.

I ask myself why I’m so enamored by the paradox of a bright day and its showers. I remember my father telling of its holy implications as a child.

“The devil’s whippin’ his mama,” he would tell me, his accent slurring words together.

“It’s raining ‘cause it’s sad she’s gettin’ whipped, but the devil’s her son, so maybe she earned it.”

Charlotte Lawrence sings that God cuts us his pleasure with pain.

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Why wouldn’t the devil? I run, contemplating this paradox within another. I hold guilt in finding my own joy within her pain, but joy within pain is a part of life right now, so I continue running.

It’s hard to explain the way I feel in moments like these, so I delight in them instead. My mind runs faster than I do. It feels like my cup is overflowing; contents threaten to escape from my eyes. I keep the tears back, though. It’s far too bright of a day to cry.

My mind, cluttered with thoughts of paradox and the remnants of a cup overflowed, has no time to waste. I find joy in my bright day by contrasting it with months of darkness. I willfully ignore the bolstering thunders of the sky above me because finally, finally, there’s something for me to enjoy.

I know mania is coming before it appears. It’s not triggered by anything. Instead, it reaches out for me, slowly pulling me into its

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CORSET | Top Drawer Thrift WHITE SKIRT | Top Drawer Thrift WHITE SHIRT | Top Drawer Thrift

“GOD CUTS US HIS PLEASURE WITH PAIN. WHY WOULDN’T THE DEVIL?”

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embrace until I can feel the beats of its overactive heart. The days before our intertwine, I’m consumed by delights. The difficulties of getting out of bed each day are gone. I look in the mirror and find no fault, no reason to ostracize myself from the ones I love. My anxieties thwarting the intimacies of communication no longer thwart my social skills. I finally look forward to experiencing my days.

If I could describe it, I’d say I felt normal. But this normal is not the one that I’m used to.

Gradually, my delights become violent. I don’t sleep unless assisted by the melatonin I’ve learned to keep bedside. I wake up in the morning and my thoughts, oversaturated, blend into one another. The mirror offers me a godlike mural of self. I’m idealized. I’m invincible. I ignore my torrential downpour of mental chaos in favor of standing in the sun.

It feels like I can’t catch my breath, like each moment is one in which I have just finished a chase, a chase where the person I’m chasing is not a person, but an end of a thought that I can never seem to find but am always searching for, like a child searching for their dog gone missing after a tornado in a story that always ends with the dog finding its way home, or someone discovering it miles away in the town over, or the dog barking from under a pile of debris and a rescue worker finding it and bringing it home, and I just want to be able to find a conclusion to everything in the same way, but this feeling of every single moment chasing after me makes me believe if I give up searching for whatever I originally set out to find, it will result in me once again being consumed by the darkness I run from.

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“BUT JOY WITHIN PAIN IS A PART OF LIFE RIGHT NOW, SO I CONTINUE RUNNING.”

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My mind, a boundless link of chains, begins to knot itself. The liquids from my overfilled cup eat away at the chains, infecting them with rust.

They begin to crumble, their links disconnecting and falling apart. By the end, my mind is a wasteland, exhausted.

Shakespeare once said that violent delights have violent ends. This violent end is one that I’ve experienced before. It’s one that I, against my efforts, will experience again. I take the storm of my mind and use it to wash away the remnants of my broken chains. I start again. Perhaps I enjoy the never-ending cycle. Maybe it’s the extremes that I cling to, the two opposing forces within me that battle for control.

I think it’s the between that I love most — the days where everything seems controllable, where the new normal begins to feel like an established one. With each between, I find another piece of progress within myself that inspires me and gives me hope that one day, my normal will be one without the sun sharing her day with storms. It’s the hope that after a day of paradox, the rain fades and the sun is the one that stays behind. I run until that day comes. ■

“THIS NORMAL IS NOT THE ONE I‘M USED TO.”

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layout SHUER ZHUO photographer JESSICA YE stylist RUTH MEWHINNEY hmua GABBY DUHON models KAITLYN HARRIS & SAGE WALKER

by MIA MACALLISTER

FEAR LOOKED ME DEAD IN THE EYES AND GRINNED.

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he most terrifying thoughts are the ones that you hide even from yourself. They’re your deepest fears, lurking in the dusty corners of your brain trying to pry open the locked doors.

They watch, waiting for the right moment to break out and take over, and in time, they do — becoming a part of your identity. Fears start out as everyday thoughts until something sours them and they begin to poison every waking move. All our ancestors had fears that shaped the way they lived, and influenced the way they are now remembered: once grand peoples seen as weak for their fears of being taken over, their populations growing, and allowing in strangers that could harm their delicate society. They gave a face to the feeling and created the Blemmyae: a race of monsters designed in the likeness of humans, but with one big difference: They were headless, with faces in the middle of their chests.

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The Blemmyae were created by the rough tongues of Greek historians and lived long after on dirty medieval parchments passed between kingdoms. Headless bodies with matted hair growing off their shoulders, far stronger than humans ought to be, tore through the countryside destroying crops and villages. They represented a fear that still haunts us, but now look like nothing more than a few silly drawings in a history book. But still, artists and conquerors decided who was civilized or savage. While the Blemmyae were supposedly the monsters, on their tortured, torsoed faces, they showed our greatest human fear: being alone because we are not what others are looking for.

When I look in the mirror, I don’t see the person I am expecting. I see the person that has been carefully crafted to fit in, to get along, to appease others. While appearing fully formed, that reflection feels as headless as the Blemmyae.

There is no brain to guide her, just the thoughts and ideas that the situation calls for — nothing more, nothing less. I am a vessel for normalcy. I hide behind a picture-perfect version of myself and ignore the cracks along the surface.

“WHEN I LOOK IN THE MIRROR, I DON’T SEE THE PERSON I AM EXPECTING.”

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Fear dictates my actions, a physical hold on my mental self, preventing me from becoming anything more than I am. I feel it always watching, waiting for me to slow down enough to acknowledge it and have it draw me back in.

Fear is relentless. It continues to chase me, run me ragged until there is little of the original me left. Is it the monster destroying my internal village or am I? Even if I manage to break away from it, what would be leftover? Who am I without fear?

By their nature, lifelong fears never go away.

They grow as you grow, always hiding in the shadows and peeking out over your shoulder.

These are the fears that you try to ignore, and instead cloak with excuses about a different part of your life. It has become such a part of you that sometimes you can’t even separate regular thoughts from those created by it. Fear forces us to hide the most truthful parts of ourselves, an action of protection that creates the masks we wear every day. Yet no matter how put together you look, the monster inside continues to shred you apart, trying to help your fears escape.

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Is there something past fear, or is that all we ever live in? Fear that we will never be more than we are. Fear that we will never live up to the person our parents see; that nobody knows who we are, truly, not even ourselves. Fear that the person in the mirror is all that anyone sees or will ever want to see. These clawing feelings have the power to either push us further, or bury us in the panic. For those that encountered the Blemmyae, fear was a form of coping.

Tasked with the idea that they were no longer alone, no longer the highest power, people created monsters out of the unknown instead of facing it head-on. It was a way of saying the fear is not inside me; it is just beyond the hill. As we look back we recognize these creatures for the fear that they represent, and chastise our ancestors for being so easily fooled. Yet as modern humans, we still allow fear to get the best of us and hide in plain sight. Is there a way to immediately identify fears for what they are? If we manage to get past the fear, what comes next?

Another, bigger fear? Maybe each fear we conquer helps us to coexist with the person behind the mirror. â–

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home bodies layout JENNIFER JIMENEZ photographer DAVID ZULLI stylist SAGE WALKER hmua SARAH STILES models ALEX GARCIA & SHELBY SCOTT seeing spectra

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GRAY LEATHER PANTS | Charm School Vintage FADED PURPLE COAT | Charm School Vintage GRAY LEATHER PANTS | Oddball Vintage

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SHINY DARK TEAL COAT | Charm School Vintage RUST WORK BOOTS | Charm School Vintage WHITE TROUSERS | Charm School Vintage RED TROUSERS | American Drifter

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PEELING AWAY THE LAYERS OF AN OLD GREEK MYTH AND FINDING MY PHILOSOPHY FOR LOVE.

by VALERIA CHÁVEZ layout ADRIANA TORRES photographer LEAH BLOM stylist COURTNEY FAY

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am my mother’s daughter. Upon first glance, the features of my face might hint at some resemblance. But after some close observation, you would notice the gifts Mami bestowed upon me: her smile, her laugh, her gift of the gab, and a more recent discovery, her inability to stay awake during movies begun after 10 p.m. She taught me how to be disciplined. She’s the reason I carry floss in my backpack and wear sunscreen every day, even if it’s cloudy. She taught me that if you stand up straight, smile, and treat people with respect, you can get almost anywhere. There’s only one thing my mother tried to teach me, but never could: how to toughen up.

Sensitive is an understatement. I feel everything, even when I wish I could feel nothing at all. But I have found strength in my soft nature. It will surprise no one to learn that I’m the kind of person that frets often about finding love. Yes, it’s awfully cliché, but I can’t help it. After many years of running away from my tender heart, I’ve decided to own up to my status of being a hopeless romantic. Or rather, I’m a hopeful romantic with really bad luck.

My Mami has dated two men in her life: some tall guy that looked like Luis Miguel and my Papi. She met her husband when she was younger than I am now. I don’t go to her for dating advice, nor

does she ever try to give me any. She’s aware of the fact that she got lucky. But being her delicate and, at times, dramatic daughter, there are occasions I question if love really exists and if I am doomed never to experience it. When Mami finds me in my room, wrapped up in blankets, my face red and blotchy, she’ll lie down next to me on my bed and stroke my hair. She reminds me that I’m still young, there’s plenty of time, and says all the usual unhelpful things less sensitive people say when they don’t know how to help a crying person. But Mami is a smart woman; sometimes, she imparts some wisdom that not even she realizes will have a profound effect on me.

“No te preocupes, muñeca. Simplemente no haz encontrado tu media naranja,” she says. You haven’t found the other half of your orange.

Before Aristophanes became the Father of Comedy, he was a student of Plato. To challenge his pupil, Plato invited Aristophanes to participate in his Symposium, a banquet where each invitee would give an improvised speech in honor of Eros, the god of love. After many glasses of wine and dances, Aristophanes was moved to tell a story about the origin of soulmates.

When the world was new, humans came in pairs of two. One big head with two faces, looking in opposite directions, four arms and four legs,

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and two souls sharing one large, round body. The humans could roll and bounce and move in any which way they wished, like oranges. They regarded themselves to be children of the sun, the moon, and the Mother Earth. Humans were happy to be sharing their bodies and roamed the earth, doing human things. They created art, made music, and praised the gods on Mount Olympus. But to be human is to be curious. They began to question why they allowed the gods to rule them when they could very well rule themselves. One day, the humans decided to climb Mount Olympus and usurp the gods. Zeus came down from on high and sliced all the humans down the middle and scrambled them around the Earth. Now they were half of what they once were, with only two arms and two legs. Never having felt incomplete, for the first time in history, humans became depressed. They stopped making music and art. They ceased all celebrations and only longed to be complete once again. Zeus saw how sad the humans were and made a deal with them: if one could find their other half, they could be reunited and returned to their original form. Ever since, humans have spent their lives searching for their other half — so they can be big and round and happy once again.

As much as I love Aristophanes’ myth, it has one major flaw: Oranges don’t come in halves. They come in slices.

Lying on my bed, my breath slowly returns to its natural rhythm. It occurs to me that I don’t have a soulmate. I have several.

I met someone who could never be my friend on paper, yet we’ve never had an argument that couldn’t be solved with an honest conversation and late-night trip to P. Terry’s burger stand. She is a reluctant leader and the fiercest person I know, which is the least you would expect from someone who has five planets in Leo. She makes the shoebox we dare call an apartment feel like home.

I met a boy who gives out his love like it doesn’t cost a thing. But if it did, he’d probably have a little jar filled

with his weekly allowance, and it would be empty by Wednesday. We take turns telling each other our life stories in an empty dive bar. He encourages me to write. I try to make him proud.

I met someone selfless to a fault and whose presence feels like a wool blanket around my shoulders and a mug of tea in my lap. He is far too passionate about children’s movies and lets me sleep on his shoulder when I doze off, missing his favorite part. He reminds me of what it’s like to feel comfortable. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.

I met a girl whose eyes rivaled the beauty of the earth and whose laugh is the sound of happiness. She is joy incarnate. I have never seen her sad for more than a second. Even through her saddest moments, she tells me stories with shining eyes. During our fourth consecutive year apart, she gifts me an agate bracelet.

She says, “When I see this color, I think of you.” It’s too big, but I wear it anyway.

I think Aristophanes would’ve liked Kurt Vonnegut.

Maybe they would have shared a vodka and curaçao, and compared the old Greek’s orange myth and the American’s theory of karass. Vonnegut believed, in line with other old religions and bodies of thought, that certain people are connected spiritually, chosen

by God to fulfill some goal. I don’t know if it’s God’s will or red thread or orange slices, but I believe they’re right. Even if they aren’t, I would still choose to believe in it, because as an unreasonably attractive, fictional priest once said, “Why would you believe in something awful when you could believe in something wonderful?”

With two months left before my college graduation, I’ve found myself the happiest I’ve ever been. Soon enough, all my slices will be pulled away from me and strewn throughout the world, looking for their own happiness and success, and maybe they’ll add some slices to their own orange. I used to be sad, but if I found my karass once, I’ll inevitably find them once more. It’s only a matter of time before I am big and bouncy and happy once again. ■

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by SHREYA RAJHANS layout JESSICA NGUYEN photographer ERIN WALTS stylists DAVID GARCIA & VIVIAN YU hmua JULIE GARCIA models REBECCA WANG & SHELBY SCOTT seeing spectra

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FANTASY STORIES LIGHT THE ONLY FIRE IN MY LIFE THAT REALITY CAN NEVER PUT OUT.

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open my eyes to a world dipped in gold. Dipped in gold and cast in fire. Balancing on the edges of my mind, a world that eludes my touch but beckons me closer. Closer, until I’m deep in the thicket of wonder. Closer, until the fog that worships Abandon envelopes me in a cool embrace of smoke and clouds.

Losing myself into the heightened sensations of the air tinkling with laughter as it teases my skin, the earth boasting of its flexibility by dipping and rising under my feet. I cease to question where I am as the fog invades my brain, whispering of excitement and adventure and something new.

I tread every path in sight, now just curious like a newborn instead of questioning like the skeptical adult I tend to be. Doctor. Daughter. Someone worthy. Choosing my destiny for a world gone oblivious, oblivious to me. The only thing that matters is that I exist in a world that molds me, shapes me to carry the flame of the future, a warm and promising fire that talks of me being the savior. An ignorant commoner rising from the unknown and saving the people of this land from the clutches of vile villains. When I turn the first page of j.r.r. Tolkien or Erin Morgenstern, I tune out like an old wireless radio. I’m engrossed in their words, their stories. My once familiar bedroom falls apart to a world that can’t fail me. Because it’s mine and I have the power to run it.

My subconscious tries to tell me this is false; I am living a fantasy. But I want this to be my reality.

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Escape plagued me since the beginning.

Because life is monotony, and escape is the sin of desire. Being rejected from an internship I worked too hard for reminds me that life is a series of hoops, reality tells me when to jump, and the future yearns to be a declaration, not a question. I yearn, not just for any escape, but one forged for me. I yearn to slip through the clutch of time like a wisp and enter a world that ensnares me, one in which I am a stranger, yet also the savior. A world above mere existence, raising the stakes to life or death.

I create a destiny for myself, to champion a cause, a people, a kingdom. I vision epic battles, heart-wrenching romance, trying quests, and a fabulous wardrobe to wear through it all. Fantasy captures my attention like no other genre and refuses to relent to the sly attacks of reality. The characters I admire are noble and conflicted.

They’re exaggerations of teen angst juxtaposed in settings of class warfare and crown politics. All the tropes and stereotypes coalesce into characters that represent “complicated.” I love and hate these personalities, many of whom embody my deepest fears and insecurities and others who I grow to idolize and treasure. They become facets of me I never thought existed.

“I YEARN TO SLIP THROUGH THE CLUTCH OF TIME LIKE A WISP AND ENTER A WORLD THAT ENSNARES ME, ONE IN WHICH I AM A STRANGER, YET ALSO THE SAVIOR.”

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“I UNRAVEL LIKE THE BOOK IN MY HANDS, FEELING WHO I AM UNDERNEATH THE SHY SURFACE COME ALIVE AS THE WORDS ON PAGES GAZE BACK AT ME KNOWINGLY.”

Sitting in my room, I unravel like the book in my hands, feeling who I am underneath the shy surface come alive as the words on pages gaze back at me knowingly. I am always on a journey, whether that is destroying a clichéd force of evil, claiming my right to a throne, or rescuing people from captivity. And I enjoy every exhilarating minute of it — the giddiness of discovering civilizations with mysterious cultures, meeting new creatures with unrealistic powers, battling unforeseen villains till the last breath overtakes me. And while I discover the edges of this new world’s horizons, I uncover the parts of myself that went ignored. The stress of cramming for my exams in a dull, gray library melts away. I realize I created this world to reflect the person I never had the chance to become. Beyond being compliant and unsuspecting, I take charge of this world, free from the suffocating burden of expectations.

It’s euphoria unlike any other, a rush of excitement to my head and weightlessness in my stomach because this is my secret. And no one has the power to take it away from me. But as I turn the last page, read the last line, and feel my last emotion, I’m slammed into reality with twice the abruptness I left it with. In my room, a stranger in my home. Disappointment coursing through me, I’m trapped in a life I didn’t choose but must see through till the end. I am again tangled in the responsibilities of my life that I so desperately wanted to abandon.

And try as I might to become weightless and fly into my precious world, where strange creatures regard me with respect, the ballads remember me and my friends with fondness, and the earth welcomes me with relief, I am undone. ■

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layout KELSEY JONES photographer RACHEL AQUINO stylist SOPHIE WERKENTHIN hmua AMBER BRAY model MAGGIE DEAVER 46

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oF s t n u o c c A

the

e l b a Ineff

by KAREN XIE

THE SUBLIME IS UNDEFINABLE — LET’S DEFINE IT. I. On the Order of the Universe You are but a speck of dust. No more than fractions of a quartz tick, blinks of a cosmic eye. A mote creature on a rock, hurtling through a vast expanse of open nothingness so many times larger than home, there’s no quantity to take it all in except … infinity. What are we to winds and waves? In the grandest scheme of things, in the order of the universe, we are nothing.

The fate of the living is insignificant.

Did you feel that? That hum behind your left ear, the tingling in your spine? That is the whisper of the sublime. I speak not of the band, but of something more elusive and obscure — the most powerful emotion our mind is capable of. The sublime is an aesthetic, a quality of grandness, a reaction to contemplations such as that one. I’ve been reveling in these contemplations for the better part of my adult life, but I find my conclusions difficult

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to explain. The sublime is, in essence, ineffable.

Philosophers and artists alike have delighted in this fact for ages, dedicating their crafts to defining the undefinable. I am no philosopher or artist, but here, I too will dedicate my craft to the sublime. With meager pen in hand, I want to unravel my truth. In the name of Romanticism, I will try my best.

II. On Overwhelming Expanses You are standing at the edge of the American Grand Canyon and are seized by the sudden notion of your impermanence. With a flick and a shudder, you’re overwhelmed by your smallness.

Do I matter?

Earth herself took eons to craft this gaping monstrosity of amber, and here you stand, two decades old, witnessing it all with a glance. You have a sudden urge to shout. Echo.

Perhaps I should fling myself over the edge.

What then?

Those who gave the sublime its name referred to it in the context of nature. In the simplest of terms, it’s that stunned reaction to natural phenomena that exalts and exhilarates. Look up images of the sublime — you’ll find oil paintings of the ocean — the rocking, broiling, angry ocean, with cracks and crevices, gaping jaws, and crashing blacks. Why? Because the sublime isn’t so much that innocent awe as it is overwhelming terror. The sublime must be understood oxymoronically: delight tinged with disgust, admiration grounded in fear.

But it is perhaps kinder than that, also defined by a certain degree of safety from that terror — it is you standing behind a metal rail, watching those waves crash below and shivering at the thought of getting caught in them. It is calm contemplation in the face of threat. This power to not only disentangle ourselves from the world’s grasp, but also reflect on our place within that grasp, elevates the experience to the profound. The sublime is no longer just awe-inspiring — it is transcendental.

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g in ir sp in e w a st ju r e g on l "The sublime is no ranscendental." t is — it

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III. On the Window Seat of an Airplane “I’ve just experienced this, this breath-taking, heartaching, violin-swelling feeling, and I cannot tear my eyes from this two-by-one window frame. See, I was just watching the ground fall from us when I looked up and saw a fellow plane in the distance. Oh, it was tiny. So infinitesimally and inconsequentially small against the grandeur of the clouds. A mere toy to pluck out of the skies. Suddenly, I could not breathe …” (My iPhone’s Notes App, 2016) I believe I’ve experienced the sublime, though I knew not of its identity at the time. All I knew was that I’d witnessed something tectonic, and my world shifted in response. I saw my own tiny window from the other side and, for the first time, felt the etching deepness of my human insignificance. In the same moment, I found myself marveling at that chunk of metal staying afloat against all odds — humanity holding its own amongst nature’s greatest. We made that. We did that. Despite our triviality, we are magnificent.

See, the sublime is visceral — it makes the mind swell. Moments such as these are essential to humanity “because they elevate our soul above its usual level … to measure ourselves against the

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apparent all-powerfulness of nature.” We feel at once with and without the world — simultaneously small yet powerful as centers of our own subjective experience. We are cognizing creators — and that is sublime in and of itself.

IV. On the Petite and the Petty Suddenly, you might look at your everyday trials and find them inconsequential. The sublime surely demands them to be.

What’s the point? If the sublime is out there, why am I still here?

Interestingly, I believe that the sublime confers importance to the little things, converges the infinite and the infinitesimal. Yes, it first hit me as a grand revelation, halfway to the heavens, but since then, it has pinpointed the petite, brought magic to the mundane. It’s like — no, the cosmos doesn’t care if I pair this belt with these jeans, but in the sublimity of my own finite life, I can care. What are we to willows and woods but creatures imbued with petty choice and caprice? Red blouse? Socks and sandals? What’d you get on problem number two? Let’s go out tonight.

For me, this convergence is liberation. I giggle at squabbles between lovers, twirl in leaf vortexes on the sidewalk, and understand that I have no purpose but the purpose I plan for myself. Scooters are brilliant, Wite-Out is questionable, and I am made from molecules that were once in a pterodactyl. The sublime has gifted me with a different love for life. But of course, the sublime is subjective. It is, by definition, undefinable. I’ve delivered my all, but that simply will not do. Get out there. In the name of Romanticism, you must see it for yourself. ■

nd — a s or t a e cr g in z ni "We are cog ." f l se it of nd a in e im l that is sub seeing spectra

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layout MIA MACALLISTER & REBECCA WONG photographer SHUER ZHUO stylist DAVID GARCIA hmua MARIAM ALI model RODRIGO COLUNGA PASTRANA

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melting melting melting

by DIVINA CENICEROS DOMINGUEZ

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When will my body lay to rest?

Will it collapse to the staccato of my steps,

the weight of my words,

the gravity of my thoughts?

Will I ever find the golden ratio?

Or will my mind become expended, unattended, commended yet exacerbated.

And if I were to fail, Will I be enough for my line of sight,

my peace of mind,

the things I keep, the things I hide?

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Will I ever be okay with just being where I’m at?

Will I ever be okay with just being where I’m at?

Will I ever be okay with just being where I’m at?

Will I ever be okay with just being where I’m at?

Will I ever be okay with just being where I’m at?

Will I ever be okay with just being where I’m at?

Will I ever be okay with just being where I’m at?

Will I ever be okay with just being where I’m at?

Will I ever be okay with just being where I’m at?

Will I ever be okay with just being?

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Will I ever be okay with just being where I’m at?

Will I ev er be okay with just bein g where I’m at?

Will I ever be okay wit h just being w here I’m at?

Will I ever be okay with just being where I’m at?

Will I ever be okay with ju st being where I’m at?

W ill I ever be okay w ith just being

Will I ev er be okay w ith just being where I’m at?

W ill I ev er be okay w ith just b eing whe re I’m at?

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THE MEMORY OF RED RED

by EUNICE BAO

layout REBECCA WONG photographer CAT WILSON stylist VIVIAN YU hmua SARA TIN-U model SUSANNA WANG 60

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GOLD FLAKE ACRYLIC EARRINGS | Blue Elephant Boutique BAMBOO BRACELET | Top Drawer Thrift

Stealing one of the sugar cookies in front of the burning incense, I nearly defiled my grandma’s red altar. At that moment, I knew I didn’t and could never belong here.

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“The reality was — the only faces I recognized were my grandparents’ from a glitchy Skype screen.”

M

y mom gave me a red scarf before I left for the heart of Texas. I was about to start college in Austin.

“In case you get cold,” she said while folding the scarf and putting it into my already bulging suitcase.

I remember when I was seven in Foshan1, my mom had also bought me an embellished red qipao2. I wore it to our family photo shoot during the week of Chinese New Year, 2010 edition. Smiling beside my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, also sporting their New Years’ best, I blended into a sea of red. Even just for a moment, through the photographer’s lens, I felt united with my family, whom I hadn’t seen since I was a toddler.

After some group family photos, my mom and her sisters wanted to take a picture by themselves, so we kids waited outside the studio. My cousins started to count the amount of money in the red envelopes they received that day, while my older sister took out her cd player — a parting gift from her best friend before we left Houston. With one earbud in each ear, we bopped to the latest Taylor Swift cd my sister and her friends had been obsessed with.

I wore red that day, but my heart missed the American half of the world. There, I thought of red as nothing more than the color that increased my heart rate during my sister’s fifth-grade science experiment on the effects of color.

We had only been there a few months, and every part of this world screamed to my seven-year-old self that I didn’t belong. I had been born here, but I wasn’t from here. I remember when we arrived at the Guangdong airport from Houston. My dad pointed out my uncle from far away, but I didn’t know how to greet someone who I felt should be a familiar face. The reality was — the only faces I recognized were my grandparents’ from a glitchy Skype screen.

I hadn’t been back to my motherland since I was a toddler. Why do I feel so guilty for not remembering? My dad, sensing my panic, leaned down to me and whispered, “Call him yi zhang3.”

My uncle drove us back to my grandparents’ house, and there, my small family of four became engulfed by dozens of relatives. My nose crinkled at the familiar whiff of white cut chicken that greeted our return. The voices saturating the air were like my parents’ full-on Cantonese conversations to each other amplified.

The only Chinese I knew was from mirroring my parents’ intonations, so I looked for other things to do. I walked to the red altar burning incense outside the kitchen.

The smell of chicken was making me hungry, so I, not knowing any better, took a Chinese sugar cookie from the front of the altar. My mom snatched it away from me and carefully put it back. “Don’t touch that,” she said, eyeing my grandma who was bringing the dishes out. I stepped away from the looming altar, not realizing the gravity of what I had almost done.

1 A city in Guangdong, a province in Southern China, and my hometown.

2 Traditional Chinese dress.

3 Uncle in Mandarin Chinese.

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The voices in the air ceased, and suddenly, we were seated around a table embroidered with the best Southern cuisines. I was relearning the flavors of my favorite foods while feeling all the more distance from those around the dinner table. At dinner and in the days that followed, my grandma began telling me stories about how she sang lullabies to me every night when I was still a toddler.

She sat me down in the old rocking chair in her apartment, recalling how I would sit on the chair for hours rocking back and forth, with my tiger stuffed animal in hand. During my short stay in Foshan, my grandma took me along for her morning walks, where she described my hometown, the coral buildings around my neighborhood park stretching toward the sky. I clung to each of my grandma’s stories, for they are remnants of a culture that seemed far too foreign to be mine. I later learned that the items in front of a burning altar were offerings to greater deities of Confucianism and Taoism, and taking from them was akin to stealing flowers from a grave.

My dad found a job in Beijing the next month, and soon, we arrived in the heart of China. “The Diary of a Wimpy Kid” already pushed to the back of mind, my culture felt closer to my identity than ever before. Attending school there, I was taught to memorize couplets, classical poems, and centuries of Chinese history — how the ancient Chinese viewed the emperor as the rising red sun. And my favorite, learning about the Forbidden Palace.

Dynasties rose and fell, but the palace’s walls remained deep, deep red. The walls guarded the royal families and its closest subjects from any danger while exuding its very own radiance to the outside world. When I got the chance to tour the palace,

“One step forward, two steps back.

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I managed to mess up. Brushing my hand across the millennium-old red pigment on the gate, I stepped on the doorsill — a blatant sign of dishonor and a potential yin-yang imbalance. One step forward, two steps back. I realized I was still stuck between being a foreigner and a citizen of my own country.

I kept my dad’s promise close to my heart — we would return to America in no more than three years. But the number kept changing. Four, five, five-and-a-half … almost six years had passed since my uncle picked us up from the Guangdong airport. I asked my dad daily when we would leave, my restlessness fueled by my constant daydreaming about eating American candy again and being able to watch American cartoons without angering the government-imposed firewall.

The summer after I turned 14, we moved, embarking on our third migration across the Pacific Ocean.

My childish desire to have one home — America — faded shortly after our arrival. I found myself searching everywhere for the red that I desperately missed: in the modern buildings aligning the streets, and in the “authentic” Chinese restaurants that put way too much sauce in their dishes. The restaurants that come close to my grandparents’ white cut chicken are the ones with some kind of red altar in front of the restaurant, with incense burning, of course. I chuckle when I see them, resting in the fact that somewhere on the other side of the world, my grandma’s was burning, too.

On a cold day in my college town, I put on my mom’s scarf because it reminds me of home, wherever it is — and with it, wraps my memories of a place thousands of miles away. ■

I realized I was still stuck between being a foreigner and a citizen of my own country.” seeing spectra

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by MARISSA RODRIGUEZ

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layout KELSEY JONES & MAYA SHADDOCK

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"I have to ask, Dad: Am I old enough to love now? Or only leave?"

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hat day didn’t just change my life; it destroyed it.

This man wasn’t even my dad. He was my stepdad. He literally signed up for the job and then said, “Never mind.” That meant something to me. Without much confidence to begin with, and very little stability elsewhere, his word had been my bible growing up. He would stay up late and tell me about movies and wars and life. He was well-traveled and well-educated, the smartest man I’d ever met. He lovingly believed in me, never failing to praise my accomplishments. He’d tell me how pretty I was, how I was perfect in every way. I’d never grieved such a loss until all that stopped.

I am growing up without you. I’ve never had to do that before. I miss you. I’m not very good at things without you. I wish you could tell me I was. Maybe I could make some friends or calm down about school if you were still with me.

I wasn’t old enough. Everyone who was in on my plight told me that’s why he refused to see me in the first place. He felt bad about leaving us and worse about leaving a child. On that day, I was 14 years old and prepping for the lunch that could bring him back. I spent way too long getting ready, and even longer convincing myself his presence meant something.

I knew I wanted him back. Even more than that, I knew I wanted his approval. That everything I’d done in the months he was gone was good, that I was good, and that he thought I was doing good. That the man who raised me would 68

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want me again if only I could talk to him. So I’d wear my most studious attire, I’d throw about my academic achievements, braid my hair just the way I’d studied how. Appear happy but not crazy, I’d present my case for being grown.

Basing a father’s love on a qualifier only set a standard for me to reach.

I spent forever straightening my hair, the frayed bits reaching up now. These are my best jeans, the kind with the little studs that hurt when you sit down. I’m sorry I didn’t wear much makeup; I really don’t know how to. I’m always sure I’ll do it wrong. Today, only a little black paints my lashes. It makes me feel grown. I was hoping you’d notice. I have to ask, Dad: Am I old enough to love now?

Or only leave?

But he didn’t show up. I waited with my sister. Not even old enough to drive, I felt too old to be abandoned. I wasn’t a baby he could move on from; I was a 14-year-old who was old enough to say goodbye. A lousy text, and he walked out on me again. I didn’t need to know why. I was too young.

Still the fresh face he couldn’t bear to own up to hurting. I had to face a lot of things whimpering in that Panera Bread.

One, parents are never quite as adept at loving as we believe when we’re younger. Two, you can’t force somebody to appreciate your love. Three, a father’s validation cannot quantify your worth. And Four, I had to accept that I would spend the rest of my life trying and failing to convince myself of these affirmations.

"I think I might be one of those girls who look for validation for the rest of her life."

I think I might be one of those girls who look for validation for the rest of her life. Asking the world to tell her she is just right and horrible all at once. What am I supposed to do with that? Stereotypes of being a father’s discard pile haunt me.

Fourteen years old, and I had no idea that my quest for validation would be intertwined with my identity permanently. Of course, I can’t pin all my insecurities on one person. I decided this was where my worth ended. I had no control when he left, even less when he abandoned me, and I’ve never found it again. I put my all into lunch that day. And by that, I mean every last hope I had at being an individual who was cared for. And you’re reading this because it didn’t fucking work.

Will I ever be someone who falls into an unconditional love?

Am I destined to run this cycle forever? Over prepare. Get my hopes up. Feel alone. I feel I’m doomed to this fate living in your memories. You know, I think I’ll wait here forever.

It’s crazy I don’t hate him. Honestly, after all that has happened, I should be angry. I was abandoned. I was alone.

I was too young for that responsibility. Yet, I grovel. I’m made a beggar and a fool to a liar. Every day since that lunch, I have learned more and more as to why he never deserved us in the first place. A pathological liar and a future convict — I shouldn’t crave his approval. He hasn’t owned up to his reality, but I can’t either. I can’t break my

idol. I wish I could convince myself to look beyond him to my own worth. Nothing would end my suffering like seeing life for what it is. But I can’t. I will continue to see only the good in him and only the bad in myself. Until he says I can stop.

I hate myself because I’m not enough for you. I hate myself more not recognizing that this doesn’t make any sense. Everyone says they have dreams of punching you. They all want to make you pay. So why can’t I stop having nightmares of you coming home? I wake crying over a fictitious reunion filled with hugs and love. I’m never going to get it. I hate myself for that.

I’ve graduated high school, made it into college, won awards, made friends, yet it isn’t a tangible success until he tells me it is. This is the rest of my life. I wasn’t born with an exuding amount of confidence. All I can draw from is the time my father showed me I wasn’t worth it. I wish this had a better ending. I wish my childhood had a better ending. I don’t hate who I should, and nobody loved me who should have. Love is a thirst I quench from only one. One lunch, one man, and I’m on the hook for life.

Loving without feeling loved. I can’t peel my eyes from their stupor. I’m waiting for you. Tell me I’m pretty. Tell me you miss me. Even if you don’t mean it. Just one more time. ■

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by JADE FABELLO

TAN BLAZER | Top Drawer Thrift

layout CALEB ZHANG & MAYA SHADDOCK photographer MARY SCHMIDT stylists ALYSSA LIN & KADEN GREEN hmua ALEIGH GERRON & MARIAM ALI models JUSTICE BEVERLEY, KAMRYN JEFFERSON & LINDSEY EHLERS 70

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I do not wish to intrude

on your intimacy with the dead.

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n Jan. 26, 2020, a helicopter went down in Calabasas. Moments prior, in its steel frame lived nine human souls.

Among them: Kobe Bryant aged 41 and his daughter Gianna aged 13. After a left turn in early morning fog, the craft fell from the sky at a rate of 4000 ft per minute. It took 21 seconds for the vessel to strike the California hillside. All nine, en route to a basketball game for the children on board, did not survive the blunt force trauma.

At the very least, I believe, the nba games scheduled for that night should have been canceled. Grown men standing as tall as they are, buried their heads into the cloth of their sleeves — somehow supposed to focus while the man they had spent lifetimes admiring washed away from the earth. Kobe Bryant was dead.

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Kobe hadn’t been an idol of mine. Before his death, I couldn’t tell you the numbers on his jerseys with confidence, but I still found myself unable to complete the work I had planned for the day.

That evening, the people of Los Angeles ignored the requests of public officials and gathered around the Staples Center.

The Grammy Awards were happening there. But that building, where the l.a. Lakers had long held their home games, was Kobe Bryant’s building.

His legacy was tangled. He was not only a loving father, and a dedicated athlete, but a man who was charged with felony sexual misconduct back in 2003. The reminders of this didn’t cease my mourning, but added another layer of those who needed to be cared for. That day families witnessed tragedy, kids on l.a. streets lost their Superman, and survivors felt conflict and pain from the smoothing over of the vile parts of a person’s legacy.

Laying on the floor of my room, I said a prayer to no one in particular for the souls gone that day. Kobe Bryant had lived as a fixture of this earth for decades. “This is unreal,” I heard repeated from nearly all accounts.

The loss of someone important to you is an unmistakable feeling. It is the urge to turn pictures of them toward the wall, so that you need not confront the reality that continues without them. It is the waves of grief that always crest with joy — reminding you of why the loss hurts so bad. When someone I’ve lacked intimacy with dies, however, I’ve wondered what to do with the emotions that entered the world when they left it.

Deceased neighbors and casual friends, and the dead of headlines — I’ve wondered what to do with those losses, for I have no pictures of them to turn.

That January day, a minimum of nine human souls pressed on the walls of my room. I remember people wanting to hear from Vanessa Bryant, who in addition to the loss of her husband, experienced the most unenviable pain of losing a child. I wondered too, by what right anyone asked that of her, an explanation on her feelings for the dead.

In 2010, Kobe sat in a plain room for a gq interview. He said he started flying in helicopters so he could have more hours in the day. “My wife was like, ‘Listen, I can pick [the kids] up.’

“But that building,

where the L.A. Lakers had long held their home games,

was

Kobe Bryant’s building.”

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BROWN BUTTON DOWN | Revival Vintage seeing spectra

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“My dead are mine to me,

but they can also be whatever they need to be to you.”

MOCHA BUTTON DOWN | Revival Vintage TAN WESTERN TROUSERS | Revival Vintage

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I’m like, ‘No, no, no, I want to do that,’” he said. “Because you have times where you don’t see your kids, you know. So every chance I get to see them and spend time with them, I want that.”

The dead don’t live on, for the dead are dead. But, especially at that moment when they pass, they are still a part of this world. It feels like there is a pond where all human feelings take place. At that moment when a superman dies, there are millions of unwitting connections. Reverberations colliding into each other on a once still pond, disrupting it so much it becomes a trembling sea. I didn’t know Kobe Bryant. I would never have known Kobe Bryant. But when that helicopter went down in Calabasas, I felt the ripples of thousands of beating hearts.

The death of a superman isn’t about claiming false intimacy to someone you didn’t know. But every death is a nexus of emotion, and the larger the death, the more connecting points. Whatever the level of intimacy you had with any of the dead of this world, the feelings they sent you with their passing are real and yours to claim. The dead are public domain. The grief and feelings of others are not. My dead are mine to me, but they can also be whatever they need to be to you. It is okay to mourn someone you don’t know because you aren’t just mourning them — you’re mourning every human emotion that that death inspires.

With an exception for perhaps indifference, I’d make a case for any emotion a person feels after learning of a death. You may mourn them; you may mourn their family; you may mourn the people they harmed. A human life is a valuable thing, not so easily discounted with musings of distance.

And I do apologize for all of the souls I have summoned for my thoughts here; your lives are more than the stories your loved ones tell over drinks.

The day after Kobe Bryant died, I stood in the shower.

Never having watched a game of basketball in my life, I cried. I cried for all relationships between parent and child, all nine souls that perished that day. I cried for conflict and I cried for l.a. I cried for all those I have ever lost. The cold water ran warm over my skin. I wondered how all those still kissed by the sun, all living souls, felt. I wondered what a father does in the last 21 seconds of life to comfort his daughter as a helicopter goes down in Calabasas. ■

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Look Sharp And Get Your Knives Out

by LAURA LAUGHEAD

It’s murder’s most fashionable in the modern whodunit “Knives Out.” In this fractured family, you better look sharp, or you might just get your throat slit.

layout SHUER ZHUO photographer PAIGE MILLER stylist MAYA HALABI hmua CAMERON KELLY & MIA CARRILES models GRANT KANAK, JULIA VASTANO & KALEE SUE GORE seeing spectra

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PURPLE TWO PIECE SUIT SET | ineedibuprofen

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“Downstairs his family still sleeps.

And the killer is still in the house.”

*** “It looks like a suicide, but it smells like a murder. Viewers are all invited to put on their Sherlock caps and get out their magnifying glasses to play amateur detective.”

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“At times, the clothing speaks more to the police than the characters actually do during their interrogations.”

*** “The only man allowed to wear bold colors is the ill-fated patriarch who croaks only minutes into the movie.“

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RED DRESS WITH FUR | ineedibuprofen

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GREEN SUIT | ineedibuprofen

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“Bucks are thicker than blood in this family,

and murder is easy if it means money. “

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A Building Can’t Scare Me Architecture is more than sketches come to life.

by GILLIAN NAVARRO

layout MAYA SHADDOCK & MIA MACALLISTER photographer NICK BARNES stylists DIARIZA LOPEZ & VINCENT LUU hmua SARA TIN-U & YASMINE DAGHESTANI models CHIADIKA OBINWA & JUSTICE BEVERLEY seeing spectra

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S

itting in the park with the sun kissing my cheeks, I become overwhelmed by the metropolis Austin staring at me. Across the water, I see buildings larger than the scale of me, telling me to do better so I can one day be worthy enough to walk through their glass, utopian doors.

Metal frames line the building, making the staring contest overwhelming.

They are structures that hold a sense of power that can make you feel inferior.

How can the scale of a building make me feel this way? We are constantly being shaped by our surroundings. Some places make you feel comforted and welcomed. Others are awkward and uninviting. Staying in the same place will eventually warp the way you see things, what you feel, and what you do.

In San Antonio, a house on a hill made me feel at home. I was surrounded by tiles of random designs and bright hues.

The windows were never closed, and the roundness of each room made me feel included. Conversations bounce off walls so that no one ever misses a word.

The stained glass windows fill the rooms with color. Lying on the ground, I let a spectrum shine on my face, pretending that I was a piece of art. I’ve never felt more beautiful than when I walked around that house. Every time

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I set foot through the front door, I felt remodeled. That’s how a home should make you feel. Walking up to my Austin apartment in West Campus, all I can do is share a faint sigh. “My crypt awaits,” I say to myself.

I’ve been scared of Austin for a while.

Moving here was a big change for me, and as I explore this city, I find new things to fear. Never being able to walk amongst the buildings that make up the Austin skyline is an insecurity of mine. As this place is ever-changing and developing, in time, there will no longer be buildings that embody comfort or joy. I know it’s weird to say that I’m scared of an inanimate object, but I can’t help it.

Staring at my apartment in the distance, I felt its dull, concrete walls making fun of me. I cried. The sidewalk felt never-ending. I looked at the building up and down. Maybe I just wanted it to feel how I felt sometimes: insecure, lonely, and sad. The palms of my hands vibrated with heat, and the bottoms of my feet were numb. Anxiety bubbled under my skin. My home for the next five months made me restless.

Being here, I took the time to look at the structures that surrounded me. We tend to look but not take anything in.

“Conversations bounce off walls so that no one ever misses a word.�

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Sitting outside my apartment building, I took five minutes to look at details on its exterior. At first, all I observed was a plain gray wall, but then I considered the windows. Massive and beautiful, yet every apartment had their blinds closed, including mine. I complained about where I live and how it makes me feel, yet I’ve had control over it this whole time. No matter where we are, we can create our own personal space to comfort ourselves.

I went to the fifth floor to gain my daily dose of serotonin. Barging through the metal door, I run to the windows and wind up the blinds. Light filled my apartment and decorated the walls. I opened the door to the balcony and let the cool spring-ish air in. Taking a deep breath, I felt relief. Suddenly, I didn’t hate my apartment that much after all. I added posters to my room and hanging lights. I covered the pukecolored floor with carpets of a variety of colors. The furniture moved around to create more fluidity and space. I’m okay. While my house on the hill is still a house on a hill, I can strive for it and make my apartment a second home.

In the beginning, I went to the park, stared at buildings, and cried. Now, I stare at them with confidence.

I exposed the windows in my apartment. I placed the furniture on the outskirts of social interaction.

I flooded my room with hues outside my comfort zone. A person can only do so much to conquer their fears. I’m still scared, but that is inevitable. I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing, but what I do know is that I’ll continue to surround myself with what makes me feel both happy and scared. I’ll walk through buildings that make me want to conquer my fears; that make me want to do better. A building can’t scare me. ■

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layout GIA POBLETE photographer RION FLETCHER stylist POOJA ENAGALA hmua ALORA JONES & JANE LEE models PRESLEY SIMMONS & RODRIGO COLUNGA PASTRANA 90

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by MAYA FAWAZ

The international sensation bringing environmental damnation! seeing spectra

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“Here’s the harsh reality: Your thrift-filled closet isn’t going to save the world.”

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Fast fashion is an integral part of our parasitic relationship with plastic. It’s seen in those notAfter World War II, babies so-special ‘fits that can be found everywhere on boomed and so did the popu- the planet without looking too hard. They’re a larity of plastic, leading to an invasion of ev- concoction of mixed synthetic fibers, the nyery American household. From kitchens to lon and polyester fabrics that hang onto your children’s playrooms, plastic was advertised as skin for dear life, that rip at the hems while you an affordable way to experience a lavish life- dance at the club, that shed little strands of … style. The 1950s suburban family wouldn’t be whatever that stuff is … all over your bed, your complete without vinyl checkered floors, last couches, your other clothes. night’s dinner in mom’s new Tupperware, and Barbie’s latest release sitting at the dinner table, I thought I had ended the eternal loop of encomplete with three different outfits for all vironmental damnation by not buying those cheap polyester and nylon fabrics anymore. her daily activities.

Here’s the harsh reality: Your thrift-filled closet Decades passed, and plastic became the perfect isn’t going to save the world. industrial alternative. It’s easily replaceable, inexpensive to produce and, oh my goodness, it While thrifting is a much smarter and more comes in so many pretty colors. “sustainable” alternative, we tend to get caught up in the abundance of options — cheap opBut things took a turn for the worst when plas- tions. I’m talking about buying in bulk. I’m talktic began weaving its way into fashion. This is ing about getting 20 items for under five dollars where we all roll our eyes and say we’ve heard because no one else wants it. You’re hungry for it this a million times before. The enthusiastic to sit pretty in your closet until you forget about “save the turtles!” while a metal straw is pulled it or can’t find the perfect occasion to wear it out. We’ve all been there, the “why not?” when from a Forever 21 tote bag.

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“We all crave the thrill of claiming the exclusive ‘I thrifted it!’ whenever someone admires your outfit of the day.”

making a thrift purchase because it won’t break the bank, despite not being 100% sure you’ll put it to good use. We all crave the thrill of claiming the exclusive “I thrifted it!” whenever someone admires your outfit of the day.

It’s trendy to plow through endless hangers of grandmotherly smelling clothes. However, the stench from the store reminds you that it once belonged to someone else. So you throw it in the wash and hope that the water cleanses the clothes of its memories: its daily walk home from the bus stop, its long day at the office, its night out on the town.

trated every crevice of our planet. They wash up on beaches and sink to the bottom of ocean floors. They’re in our drinking water and in our food. Projections say that there may be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. No matter how many pieces we rescue from dingy thrift shops, we won’t be doing the planet any good if they’re not made from the right materials.

It’s easy to feel hopeless while scrolling through Twitter feeds of Australia on fire and starved polar bears. There’s an internal battle between not doing enough and feeling that too much is being asked of us. We change our fast-food burger diets, change our cleaning products we stash This is where the technical part comes in. Dry- under the sink, change our mode of transportaers usually have a built-in filter that catches lint. tion for our morning commutes, change our imYou’re probably familiar with the fuzzy gray migrant parents’ habits, change our roommate’s clumps you (hopefully) clean out of the filter faulty recycling. before running your load. Washing machines, however, have a design flaw that doesn’t in- I still find it odd that my generation watched clude the same safety net. We’ve been releasing songs about our dying environment in the plastic microfibers from our laundry with every commercial breaks between Disney channel shows — a campaign aimed at a bunch of 9 to cycle we wash.

11-year-olds, who probably didn’t know what Strands of synthetic fiber come off of our clothes, a greenhouse gas was. Or what a dwindling flowing into the water and polluting watersheds, coral reef is. Or what the hell a “microplastic” lakes, and oceans. Plastic microfibers have infil- could possibly be.

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Now, we’ve grown in age and anxieties. I’ve watched friends talk about not having kids out of fear: the fear of whether or not we can undo what has been done, the fear of a world of climate refugees and scarce resources. I wonder about the world the next generation will arrive into. I fear for them.

But I find motivation in that fear, motivation that says push forward. Some of our parents didn’t have to think about any of this, but we can’t wait any longer. The pressure rests on the shoulders of those who grew up feeling the need to save the world but were scared and ignored by those leaving it sooner.

Keep sorting your trash and turning off the lights when you’re not home. Keep protesting at environmental rallies and voting for candidates who support structural change.

Keep purchasing sustainable products and checking tags before buying clothes.

A thrift-filled closet isn’t singlehandedly going to end the cyclical damage of our environment, but it has the right idea in mind.

Our money holds our voice. So shop smarter and make mindful decisions with every little thing you purchase. There is a marathon in front of us, but each step heads in the right direction. It takes a lot to save the world. Do the little things, despite feeling they’re not big enough. ■

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IN DEFENSE OF

SOLITUDE

by ELIZA PILLSBURY

Whether you want to call me asocial or just introverted, I need some time alone.

layout SYDNEY BUI photographer KIM PAGTAMA stylist ALEX CAO hmua ZIMEI CHEN model MEGAN BENNETT 98

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’ve thought to myself before that I’d make a good nun. Not because I’m particularly religious, but because I would love the excuse to avoid people. I could lock myself up in a convent and call it a day.

Call myself holy.

I’ve always had an avoidance instinct that goes beyond introversion and deep into the realm of anxiety. My capacity for social interaction is very low, and my tolerance for bullshit is even lower. I don’t automatically dislike anyone (except for racists and people who don’t share the sidewalk), but being around people isn’t my natural state. Does this make me unnatural?

Or just lonely?

Last summer, I needed to be alone. My best friend and I spent our first of four weeks in Europe together with tensions at an extreme high. Instead of wandering through the winding streets of Prague, taking perfectly candid pictures, I had to learn how to lance my own blisters with eyebrow tweezers and over-thecounter iodine solution. I silently begged the city for a drop of beauty that I could salvage from the vast distance between my expectations and my reality. Whether by coincidence or fate, we found the Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia.

Most of the convent had been converted to an exhibition space for the National Gallery of Prague, but there were still remnants of Gothic architecture from the 13th century. I sat in the nave and wrote this in my journal: “Agnes seems like a woman who knew what she wanted (“something higher”) and worked hard to get it and preserve it. And now, a young woman passing through Prague can sit in this space, across from where the saint’s grave might be, and feel some of the same sacred bravery. Like finding a place to breathe.”

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I started doing some research on this feeling when I got home. In the same way that asexuality is a lack of interest in or desire for sexual interaction, I wondered if there was such a thing as “asociality.” A similar scientific concept is called social anhedonia, or a deficiency in one’s innate need to belong. But I don’t think I’m disordered or deficient. Perhaps I’ve been disappointed too many times to believe that belonging is a foundation of human nature, but disappointment isn’t a deficiency.

I’ve thought a lot about loneliness in this first year living on my own. Fear of missing out takes on new meaning when your friends are hanging out without you for the third time in a week, and you don’t have anything else to do but sit on a shitty dormitory mattress in a room that you share with a stranger. It’s the same feeling that I had last summer when I didn’t speak a single word of Czech: Communication feels not just difficult, but impossible.

When I’m lonely, I find that I’m disappointed by the impossibility of communication.

I see loneliness and solitude as two very different things. Loneliness is painful. Solitude is beautiful, even in the absence of communication or communion with others. I used to conflate the two, thinking that being alone must be a painful experience, but solitude doesn’t need to be shameful, despite the societal pressure to avoid it. I’m learning to distinguish my emotions from those conferred upon me.

Perhaps there’s a disconnect between who I am with others and who I am by myself. My true self. I’m no longer consumed with evaluating my physical appearance or personal presence, using those around me as measuring sticks for my shortcomings. I can redirect this useless, scrutinous energy toward what fulfills me, including self-evaluation that is tempered with kindness instead of insecurity.

“Perhaps I’ve been disappointed too many times to believe that belonging is a foundation of human nature, but disappointment isn’t a deficiency.”

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I need the opportunity to reflect on who it is that I become when I’m trying to impress other people, so that I can re-enter the world with a stronger sense of self — one that brings my public and private selves closer together. I can only do this alone.

Still, sometimes I resist being alone because reflection is too uncomfortable. It’s shocking to see myself for who I truly am. It’s like the first time I look in the mirror after waking up from a night of little sleep: my ugliest, most unglamorous self. I have to understand and, eventually, embrace that version of myself — the one with puffy eyes, unruly hair, and a short fuse. It’s difficult, especially after falling in love with the FaceTuned truth, which isn’t actually true to myself at all.

As much as I might dream of scuttling away to my own little hermitage, we live in a pinball machine world, in which collision is random but impossible to avoid. Even the hermit requires relationships, if only indirectly.

And as hard as I try to hide behind my insecurities, the truest human connections come from seeing and letting myself be seen. Not just by the ghosts of Bohemian saints, but by my fellow travelers. We, the weary, the wanderers and wonderers, who seek “something higher,” but haven’t found it yet. ■

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THERE’S FREEDOM IN A SELF-TIMER MOMENT.

by ANNIE LYONS

CLICK. “TILT YOUR HEAD A LITTLE TO THE LEFT — NO, WAIT, ONE INCH TO THE RIGHT.” CLICK. “MOVE YOUR CHIN DOWN FOR ME, PLEASE. A LITTLE MORE. PERFECT. SAY CHEESE!” CLICK. CLICK.

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“THERE’S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAVING SOMEONE TAKE YOUR PHOTO AND GETTING YOUR PHOTO TAKEN.”

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n the throes of my middle school angst, I couldn’t have imagined a greater torture than getting my yearbook photo taken.

It was peak awkward adolescence, and my braces, complete with rubber bands, didn’t help. 13-year-old me faced yearbook photo day with trepidation. I prepared to stunt in my favorite outfit: a pale pink American Eagle crop top layered on top of a scarlet camisole (yes, I know — it was a rough time). But as the photographer preened and prodded at how I posed until I felt like a piece of clay, that initial anxiety deepened. I knew I wasn’t going to like the final product, but I felt helpless to change it.

noteworthy. There’s a difference between having someone take your photo and getting your photo taken. As unnatural as the latter felt, that spectacle was as memorable as the photo itself.

With the exception of a stray headshot, I rarely have a reason to get my photo taken in an official setting anymore. Even when a friend generously takes dozens of photos at a function to ensure one winner, I still can’t shake that unnerving discrepancy between how the camera perceives me and how I perceive myself.

When the glossy yearbooks arrived, I scrawled all over my picture with a green pen — not enough to obscure my face completely, but enough for my mom to get mad at why I would ruin my yearbook.

Enter the smartphone self-timer. With its power at my fingertips, I can transform any moment into an elaborate photo shoot where I’m the photographer and the subject all at once. There’s no strange man sitting behind the camera telling me which way to turn and how to smile.

I’m the one behind the lens. I adjust and readjust myself on my terms.

There was an intricate ritual behind taking photos in my childhood. Yearbook photos, Christmas card photos, family photos to be framed on the wall — each occasion called for dressing to impress and carefully arranging poses to get that one perfect shot. But it’s that purpose and meticulousness that made them

While studying abroad in France last fall, I discovered strangers don’t make trustworthy photographers.

Each tentative “Excusez-moi … pouvez-vous prendre une photo de nous, s’il vous plaît?” brought a new horror: shaky hands, abysmal angles, and inexperienced Android users.

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“I’M THE ONE BEHIND THE LENS. I ADJUST AND READJUST MYSELF ON MY TERMS.”

My friends and I found a savior in the selftimer, propping up our phones against water bottles five feet away and using the front-facing camera. I’d turn on the timer and hurry into place as everyone settled into position. There are only so many photos one can take with their phone precariously balanced in a busy street, so every pose counts.

I’ve never been one of those people who could pretend to be unaware of the camera’s presence with that casual oh-I-didn’t-seeyou-there nonchalance. The camera feels too watchful to ignore, as evidenced by the stiff deer-in-the-headlights terror of my yearbook and school ID photos.

But a good self-timer moment takes that self-awareness and revels in it. There’s no illusion that these are spur-of-the-moment candids. The camera goes from an overlord to a companion giving me a coy wink, liberating me to play it up with dramatic gazes and “Charlie’s Angels” finger guns.

I took self-timer photos that semester at what seems like a veritable checklist of Western European monuments, from the Eiffel Tower to a bike-covered canal bridge in Amsterdam. None of the resulting

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off-center, low-angled pictures belong in the Louvre (although we took some there too). They’re all imperfect photos at picture-perfect places. But the memories attached are the opposite. I see myself in these photos the way I want to see myself, laughing with my friends and not caring about the amused looks from passersby.

When I look at my eighth-grade yearbook photo now, I’m struck by how off it looks.

This girl has my freckles, my braces, my clothes, but she looks uncomfortable in her own skin. I perform for the self-timer, but the results are more authentic snapshots than any precisely composed portrait.

This winter, I visited a close friend in San Antonio a few weeks before she moved out of the country. After a few happy hour drinks, we decided to walk to the Alamo.

One whispered “Remember the Alamo” later, and I knew we had to commemorate the night, quickly propping up my phone in a now familiar set-up. We got to work posing: playing with our sunglasses, dropping squats, flipping hair, laughing at the sheer ridiculousness. A well-meaning lady came up to us. “Would you like me to take a photo of y’all?” We smiled and politely said no. We had it covered. Click. ■

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I’d give you the warmth and more.

by LAURA NGUYEN

layout BROOKE BORGLUM photographer KATIE PANGBORN stylist COURTNEY FAY hmua ANNA STROTHER model RUSAMA ISLAM 116

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The prettiest I’ve ever seen my mother is when she awakens, cheeks full and body warm, as she tells me it’s time to start our day. I wish those days weren’t limited. I wish there wasn’t a time that I would miss them.

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I

’ve always loved the creak of a swinging hammock.

It’s a sound that I know well, and it’s forever etched into my being. It’s my mother cradling my four-year-old self inside the hammock of our living room, my eyes lidded yet trained on an unknown movie that drowsily hums in my head. My mother’s warmth seeps into my very own skin, and unknowingly, she nurtures me, even in her sleep. The natural heat graces her cheeks with the loveliest of hues. The contrasting blue light that reflects against our skins rolls back as the sunlight shines into our window. The distant morning rush — a bicycle winding down the street, a car revving up for its next monotonous day of work — makes itself known. It’s time to awaken.

Fuschia is her favorite color. It has to be, because every single morning, I’ve watched her swatch it onto her lips. She powdered bright reds onto her cheeks for an extra touch. Her hair was a fiery red, because that’s how bright she was. She was loud, and I was proud — she was my mom.

I swore from day to day that I would be the happiest, brightest, hardest-working kid on the block. I wanted her to know that every cent, second, and feeling she spent on me would be worth it. And I would do that, just for her.

As I climbed in height and age, she shrunk.

She’s a little past my shoulder now. The

vivid canvas I embraced turned into delicate, warm auburn hair, and pink lips that complimented her cherub face. I never noticed these pigments dimming until we took her to the doctor for the first time in 15 years. She was bleeding at the back of her eyes, and we caught it just in time. I’m hit by how much life has taken a toll on her the moment she lays down on a hospital bed. I now realize how fragile she was all along, and how I failed to make every second worth it for her.

Medication piles up in our drawers, machines that prod and poke into her skin become regular guests into our lives.

Soon, we’re struggling to see the flowers underneath the weeds. It’s hard to pull pieces of beauty within life as she’s slowly taken away from me. The soil is bare, and I don’t have anything to nurture it with.

She’s older, weaker, frail. I know this, but it was only a couple years ago when I could look back in a grocery store and find her carefully watching me waddle down the aisles. Now it seems like distant lectures of my own voice echoing for her to get decent rest, to eat your vegetables, to wrap up warmly when it gets too cold outside.

Life can change when the person you’ve admired your entire life is suddenly the one you’re protecting at all costs.

And while that maternal love is still there, I’m grappling for an answer as to why she deserved this — why we deserved this.

The pigments and bursts of color and

“Life can change when the person you’ve admired your entire life is suddenly the one you’re protecting at all costs.”

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“I miss my mom; I miss having a mom. I’m still grieving the absence of someone I religiously leaned on.” expression I memorized by heart soon turned into that — a memory. With any sickness comes a break. The fiery reds and fuchsias I recognized as life turned into a blank canvas that had no definition. The roots of her hair soon drowned out in black, her lips chapped and dried white. When her hair and skin thinned, and she was a poke away from bruising, it was the least of her concerns. It’s unfair that the life and vitality I was privileged to see was stripped away from me with just a prescription.

But we still lived. With every engagement, anniversary, birthday came an opportunity to bring back life. I could feel the blood rush against her skin as she held out her makeup bag toward me to get dolled up once more. The earnest, hopeful glint in her eyes made me realize that she relied on me to make her feel beautiful when she herself could not. She was stuck in a time that was aesthetically dynamic with her 2004 Lancôme eyeshadow duos and the tattooed makeup on her face.

Now, at 21, I stand with her in front of her vanity. She’s smaller and much more fragile than she was when I was four. When her hands won’t work, mine will. I smooth the foundation across her aged skin. I paint her lips with a new fuchsia. Soon, I apply a brush of blush against the apples of her cheeks, and I almost feel the blood and heat rush against the pads of my fingertips. The subtle blush warms her pale complexion, and it traverses us back in time. I could feel

the sun raining down her freckles, her heart beating against my own on a cozy morning in the hammock. The rush of memories is enough to make me believe that she is and will always be the brightest, strongest, warmest person I will know.

The thing that leaves me breathless is knowing that I can’t give her more life, no matter how much I replicate hers. I can frame her face with copious amounts of peaches and pinks, try as I might — but I can’t give her the natural blush she once had. I can’t fix the shakiness of her hands; I can’t fix anything as the medicine takes its turn in her body. I miss my mom; I miss having a mom. I’m still grieving the absence of someone I religiously leaned on.

Makeup isn’t a prescription, but it’s a way I can give back to her. With a brush of pigment on her cheeks, I’m able to grant a spectrum of color to my mother who brought unconditional warmth into my life. It’s the starting trickles of rain in an endless drought of vivid hues and lively memories. It’s a way to imagine what we once were: warm, safe, protected by all means, and more. Suddenly, we’re back to a place where I was nothing but a curled up body and a thrumming heartbeat.

When blush crawls up onto her cheeks, it reminds me of the warmth that latched itself against my skin. I was a life gifted from her and solely her. It’s a remedy that transcends us back to where we were before. ■

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by FARAH MERCHANT

Refusing to wear gold is grabbing the culture your family brought across multiple oceans and spitting in its face.

It’s insulting your family. It’s ignoring your history and identity. Hating gold is throwing culture in the trash after you beat it to a pulp. It’s breaking the hearts of your ancestors. It’s erasing your entire life. It’s an unacceptable disgrace.

layout SYDNEY BUI photographer THAO NGUYEN stylist ZAHA KHAWAJA hmua MARIAM ALI models MANA SINGRI & TEHREEM SIDDIQUI

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“It was more than jewelry. It was a need to rebel against the current system.”

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hen a child is born, her

name is carved in 14k gold.

When a child is older, her ears are adorned in gold.

When a woman gets engaged, her marriage is solidified by gold.

Yet growing up, I hated gold.

I lived in a neighborhood that viewed it as gaudy, unnecessary, and classless. But that didn’t stop the Indian community from wearing it like a medal of honor. Women walked outside to pick up mail dressed in gold. Children ran around in parks with their ears weighed down by the glistening metal. It was everywhere: grocery stores, school plays, and recreational centers.

I saw delicate gold hoops. Studs. Long, dangly earrings. Nose rings. Anklets. Bracelets. Necklaces.

Clothes with gold embroidery. The world never dimmed as hundreds of pounds of gold were worn within the two-mile radius of my neighborhood.

Their hostile tone didn’t affect the parents who continued to send students in with blinding studs. The parents saw nothing wrong with cultural expression. They trusted their kids' ability to safe keep their jewels.

Yet, as a child, I was frustrated. It was more than jewelry. It was a need to rebel against the current system.

The school teachers and staff were attempting to direct these parents and children in the right direction. So why were these parents refusing to cooperate? We participated in a society known to be dominated by white thoughts and rules. We lived in a nation known to bomb other people of color. We attended a white institution that hoped to create students who looked, acted, and dressed the same. Instead, the Indian community forged its own rules.

And while Indian students and parents acted obliviously, I always heard the whispers from teachers and administrative leaders. It wasn’t just judgment: They urged parents to be conscious of how much gold they dressed their kids in. They didn’t want to be accountable for the lost accessories.

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Due to the discrimination and harassment my family faced post 9/11, my parents conformed to the sentiments expressed by teachers and administrators. They confined religious practices and forms of cultural expression to our home. However, being young and ignorant, I perceived their fear for my safety as their support for assimilation.

It spurred my dislike for gold. I began to hate how pervasive this cultural symbol was. I didn’t understand the need to have a material item define you.

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In third grade, my hands were covered with henna designs. In fourth grade, my hands were blank. My mom sat me down, ready to paint my skin with flowers, vines, and checkered designs when my dad walked in and said, “What would her teacher say?”

After that, the cold, earthy paste never touched me. I understood why my parents did not want me to wear gold. It was a distraction. It was expensive. It was loud. But why not henna? It’s pretty, intricate, and it wasn’t gold. I thought assimilation was an adjustment, about learning to fit into a new place and knowing the new rules. I didn’t think it was an erasure of culture.

“In third grade, my hands were covered with henna designs.

In fourth grade, my hands were blank.”

I finally learned that it wasn’t about safekeeping our expensive gold but about my culture. The teachers and racists who felt the need to dictate what could or could not be worn didn’t have any honest intentions.

They supported this unspoken agreement that my family and I would tip-toe around our identity for their comfort. I withdrew my support of assimilation. I saw the need to become a part of the bigoted institution that raised me as a means of survival. But in reality, individual expression is a founding principle in America. It creates unique individuals who retain their culture and heritage.

Yet, I never wore gold. I couldn’t forget the looks, the comments, the false concern. I couldn’t believe how easily I had been

manipulated to support the suppression of my own culture. I also couldn’t help but wonder if people would have these same perceptions if I wore it again.

I changed my mind when I traveled to Pakistan and Dubai to visit my family. They handed me bracelets made of gold, shawls with gold detailing, shalwar kurtas with gold embroidery. Rather than seeing it is a gaudy, overbearing, overzealous metal, I saw it as a symbol of unity. A color of happiness. A symbol of brightness.

Dubai had an enclosed area dedicated to gold with shops that exclusively sold it.

Seeing a space devoted to this object I once hated showed me how powerful this chunk of metal was. This element could gather people from around the world to a sixblock market with unreasonable prices and a language barrier. Neither could hold people back from dropping thousands more on the jewelry that already covered their arms, ears, and neck. It didn’t just bring my family closer, but humanity as well.

Seeing people comfortable enough to express themselves warmed my heart. It reminded me that my connection to my culture is more important than people’s perception of me. In elementary school, the harassment from teachers never deterred any parents from sending their kids to school in gold. They were entitled to express themselves, and they knew it. Gold is more than a cultural symbol. It is rebellion, perseverance, and commitment. Every time I wear gold now, I will wear it proudly, knowing the significance it held. I was born in America, but I was made in gold. ■

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NOTHIN’ FADES LIKE THE LIGHT

by IVANNA SOFIA ENGLISH

layout JENNIFER JIMENEZ photographer KAIA DANIEL stylist SHANNON HOMAN hmua SARAH STILES model RICKY MARTINEZ 130

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Howl, like I do, into the barren desert with the dotted sky. Out, comes the desert flower from the hard earth, blooming under the cover of the moon.

Dizzying, fragrant, and fabled, it reminds me of that love I have concealed for you.

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BLACK LEATHER JACKET | American Drifter

“Maybe I don’t have to suspend my roots to find freedom. How could I leave behind all that I’ve known?

How could I go back?”

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rip slackens and the sun loses its place over distant indigo mountains, faint fingers slipping from the horizon. The hard land below in contrast with peachy hues painted by the weary hand.

Each one is the same; none are the same. Light fade and come to life — the ritual slowly begins, awaken the spirit. Wild coyote, small and brave, cries for the companionship of the moon. Watch over me tonight, keep me company as the chill of the desert descends over the last living creatures, prickly, brown. My story can’t be shared with anyone, but like the lonely coyote, I share it with my celestial guardian. Under the veil of night, I conceal this part of me. Fear me like the deafening rattle without knowing its source. You couldn’t understand, even if you wanted to. But to see the venomous fangs of that viper would only breed misunderstanding. It bites the heel and the overwhelmed heart bursts. Somewhere, in a distant land, it might be easier. But this is all I’ve ever known. On the starlit path back home, the soft crackling of poor connection …

Dolly … suddenly, I am not alone.

Plucking on the Spanish guitar, someday you’ll be a star. Reassurance that maybe one day I can share myself, my whole self, with the world. To no longer hide, to not howl a lonely cry. It’s a story with a melody, can’t you see?

It ebbs. Flows. The tragedies behind closed doors and the words unspoken pour out in flats and sharps, tuneless and two strings missing. Maybe I don’t have to suspend my roots to find freedom. How could I leave behind all that I’ve known? How could I go back?

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I cannot take back the words; my mother cannot take back hers. Will she ever love me again? Why, oh, why. I think I did see my old man cry. What do you do, what do you say? The infertile lands remember my cry. Ride, ride, ride, in the dead of night, where scaled and scurrying creatures are the most alive when the most fragrant flowers bloom without fear of scorching.

Silence is drowned by cries, calls, hoofbeats, wind rushing fast, faster, faster.

Nestled in the canyons of your neck, my head is turned to the stained chestnut wooden flooring and I am transfixed by a wet speck, about the size of a dime, in the middle of the dance hall. Was it sweat, squeezed out from between the bodies of the multitudes of lovers parading about the hall in heels and hooves? Or was it more? A tear, a single tear caressing a cheek in disbelief that one should be so lucky as to hold their lover so close in a public space — a space that isn’t always welcome to people like us. Your arms are a shelter, a hearth burning bright in the bitter cold of the desert night. For hours, we watch it give into the morning; it’s different from the burning dusk. The lavender, menacing? No, promising. Promise of a love that longed for, no longer concealed, never let it fade like the evening light. ■

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PRESERVING IMPERMANENCE

by CAMERON KELLY

Who will you be when you die? Will you be “you,” the one who lived your life?

Or, will you be “it,” an artifact of time?

layout JULEANNA CULILAP photographer ALISSA JAE LAZO-KIM stylist MIA WEI hmua BASIL MONTEMAYOR & CAMERON KELLY models DANIELA DEL TORO & KRISTEN GUILLEN

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emory is more than thoughts and images that travel us to past moments. It’s a vehicle that drives us from an old state of being to a new one. Memories of past societies reveal lessons and traumas that future societies should avoid. And the bleak and vibrant memories of adolesence direct choices into adulthood. Everything has a story and a former reflection.

But how is that life memorialized?

Other than in lasting mental depictions, memories are preserved in the objects of today. As time capsules, these objects carry memories of those in the past into the future, and will always withstand time. Though they relay the memories of those who roamed, these objects cannot transcend their actual form.

The u.s. Constitution will always be paper, the Rosetta Stone will always be a rock, and the Shroud of Turin will always be fabric.

The stories that are left behind are merely an interpretation of those in the future and nothing more.

Yet, past objects are not the only ones storified; we are too. In human preservation, the body is the object, and the story is dependent on the viewer. When the Egyptians mummified their bodies, they had no idea that in a later

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“They were people, not just flesh.� time new civilizations would view their work. Viewers often view the mummies solely on their physical nature, and fail to see the true personalities, emotions, and the voices of those preserved. While examining the corpses of men and women who lived thousands of years ago, it’s often overlooked that they lived lives much like our own. They felt anger, sadness, joy, and everything in between. They were people, not just flesh. However, the existence of a person is not finite. Centuries later, these internal traits and experiences, that once gave definition to people, dissolve into the age they once lived. Left only husks and bones, their personal stories dwindle to a superficial reflection of the society they once inhabited. Our lives today are cemented in the same way. We too will face impermanence after death, and our bodies will only recant the lives of the society in which we live, and not our personal story.

Through the ages, human preservation has developed a new purpose. No longer are people preserved for honor or sacrifices but rather, for health. Progressive technologies allow one to be preserved in a state of inanimation. Through cryonics, bodies are placed in temperatures so frigid that natural gasses begin to liquefy and biochemical processes are suspended. The ones

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who seek out this treatment see it as a last resort. After many failed attempts at regaining health, those who are burdened by illness desperately find ways to treat their quality of life. Sometimes, they even look to preserve their bodies in hopes that a future entity will restore their life when technology is more adept at treating their ailment. The process involves assisted euthanasia of patients and storing their bodies in compact chambers where their bodies are cryogenically frozen.

Ironically, those who fear death are willing to meet it if it means living a better life.

Imagine that you have an illness that medical personnel cannot cure. Hoping that a cure is available sometime in the distant future, you make the decision to preserve yourself.

By choice, you’re sedated and euthanized.

Minutes later, you’re placed into a cryogenic freezer, where you’re permanently stored.

Cryonics is not a lucrative business, so the company that stored you fiscally collapses, and your body is thawed and discarded, treated no more than a fleshy vessel, void of the life that hoped for revitalization.

Let’s say this happens a century or two in the future. Now, the people of the day live

“We too will face impermanence after death.”

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“ you are impermanent.” life at a different pace. A novel sense of vitality courses through their veins: New music pulsates new rhythms, old fashions shed to new, more efficient apparel, and future technologies hunt for change and innovation. With all the changes that mark this future, your body is carried into this era with the marks of the past — how it was preserved paints a picture of primitive technologies and a way of life that defines a period in history. To these beings of today, this defrosted cadaver that once was home to you is nothing more than the property of a former period in time. Your body is excavated for answers. Your corpse exploited to piece together a puzzle of old civilization. Your skin displayed as a reflection of the society you once lived in.

Though your body is here, you are gone. The experiences, memories, and values that formed you dissipated the moment you took your last breath. you are impermanent.

Like objects that came before us, our bodies can be used to tell stories of the past. Our bodies can be preserved like books, pictures, or recordings. We cannot, however. Our personal stories are permanently left in the era in which we lived. When our bodies are observed, it’s impossible for future people to understand our true selves. Our bodies are objects that are tokens of history — a way to study past life. We cannot be resurrected. ■

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dear threads Nature raged and I couldn’t help but wonder if you would still be there.

layout ANGIE HUANG photographer ERIN DORNEY stylist MONTSERRAT ELIAS hmua YEONSOO JUNG model JILLIAN WESTPHAL 144

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by JACQUELINE KNOX

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inding you was crazy. It was one of those spiritual moments where I was unaware of what I’d gotten myself into. My sister dragged me into some hippy-dippy trailer full of clothes, and I am forever thankful that she did because inside that trailer, well, that was where I found you.

The best part of you was that you fit my Catherine — my sister and best friend. At the time, she would always come into my closet, stealing you away before I even woke up. I would get out of bed and reach to put you on, but you wouldn’t be there. It seemed like the worst thing and started a whole period of her and me fighting.

Honestly, I had been looking for you for a while. I needed something new. Something fresh. Something void of stories and ready to be filled with life. Hence, you entered the picture.

I got onto her a couple of times, but big sisters have to be the bigger person. Despite my want for you, I gave in, sharing you, and even letting you stay in her closet for a while.

In between that sequin dress and that boholooking midi skirt, I saw you peeking out, calling me. I could feel the whisper urging me toward you. So, I approached, brushing my hand against your thick denim waistline.

I tried you on, the brisk fabric running against my legs, and you fit. You weren’t exactly a perfect match, but I knew we would grow into the perfect pair. I walked in that trailer with low expectations, and I walked out with you.

At the time, though, you were still mine. You did become less and less perfect. But, while you were becoming worn and frayed, you were becoming more and more a part of me.

You were an extension of myself, reminding me that as much as I try, I am not and will never be perfect. You showed me that. You held my mistakes and you held my achievements, making you a part of the good times and the learning experiences.

I put you on when I wanted to feel confident.

I’m not sure how, but I know I felt it. It was a

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“ Y ou hold those memories

for me, woven along with every thread.”

magic that only you could be the magician of.

You made me feel like me. Then I would watch Catherine slip you on. Thread by thread, you were leaving me to be with her.

There was one night, though, a night that seemed like something I should’ve watched in a horror movie. I saw the flames and saw the smoke, but I couldn’t see the damage.

When I walked into my house, after lightning had erupted into a destructive fire, the smell overtook me. Char was all I could smell, with soot entering my body through every breath.

I rushed to my room to see if you were okay.

I didn’t know if you would be there — if you would be with me anymore.

And there you were, hanging in your spot on the rack. You didn’t smell good. Frankly, you didn’t even look good. But it was you, and you were safe. You weren’t the same, but I knew you. That was all that mattered.

We went through a lot together, sharing many beautiful moments. You tagged along when I met my niece for the first time. Holding her in my arms and hearing her soft breath was so beautiful, so moving. You got to witness my parents embracing their first grandchild and the joy on their faces.

those memories for me, woven along with every thread. The loneliness, the disappointment, and the rejection. We spent a couple of nights curled up on the couch watching shitty tv shows to somehow cheer me up. I’m sure if we collected all the tears I had cried while wearing you, we could run you through the washer multiple times.

That night, you scared me into thinking that you were gone, just a heaping pile of burnt string. Catherine and I ran for you together.

The closeness I felt to you was no match for the closeness I felt for her while we watched our life erupt before us. But the fear that you wouldn’t be there made me realize that you can’t be mine forever.

One day I’m going to have to say goodbye.

Whether you no longer fit into my life, or I just grow apart from you, leaving you for something newer and bluer. Every memory that you hold goes along with you, but maybe I can give you to someone else. Someone who can add their own stories, their stains, and their tears.

Someone I could call my best friend.

You will not belong to me anymore, but you will always be mine.

But ever since the fire, you reminded me that not all of the moments were good. You hold

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Lovingly yours,

Jacqueline Knox

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What Will We Do When We’re Sober?

by ETHAN RAMOS

Every time I want to shake it, we have to take an hour detour to someone’s poorly decorated, dingy apartment to down a gross bottle of Tito’s just so everyone can “have a good time.”

layout JULEANNA CULILAP photographer GRACE ALEXANDER stylists KADEN GREEN & MIA WEI hmua KATHERINE TANG & YEONSOO JUNG models CHIADIKA OBINWA, DARNELL FORBES & IFEOLUWA KEHINDE seeing spectra

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“The only way you’ll get me on that dance floor is after a few drinks, because I feel nervous when I jiggle my rolls in front of strangers.”

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elodrama, Lorde’s Grammynominated album of the year, baffled, wooed, and amazed the youth of 2017. Her themes of heartbreak and capturing fleeting moments encompassed what it means to grow up as an angsty teen. “Sober,” the second single released before the album debuted, gave everyone a new taste of Ella’s (Lorde’s) vision: how we as youth use drugs such as alcohol, weed, and other mind-altering influences to gain a rush of power. Dancing, socializing, or even having a good time never came so easy. Ella questions throughout the song: What will happen, though, when we’re sober? When we actually have to be human and interact in a human way without alterations. When we have to dance in front of everyone without remorse. Every time I want to shake it, we have to take an hour detour to someone’s poorly decorated, dingy apartment to down a gross bottle of Tito’s just so everyone can “have a good time.”

I mean, don’t you just want to dance? No drugs, just dancing. Sober dancing is about as obsolete as cursive writing. Sure, people want to see the extreme version of their friends’ character or exist without insecurities, but isn’t the normal version of ourselves enough to have fun?

“These are the games of the weekend.”

After college orientation, everyone I met flooded their social media with them drinking, screaming, and downright acting a fool — which we can all understand. It’s college. Our parents won’t ask us to send them a picture of where we are, forcing us to stage a fake photo in someone’s bathroom. No, we’re free. It’s a dangerous yet precious independence.

One of the few boys I met at orientation saw me one night at a party. This petite, white boy was dancing his little heart out. After pushing my way through the bouncers (that’s another story), I stumbled over to ask him how many drinks he’d had to be dancing as fierce as he was. He claimed he’d had none. Then, I asked him how much pot he’d smoked. He said, “nada.” Molly?

Speed? Diet Coke? Nothing. He was busting moves in his windbreaker because he wanted to. That puzzled my young heart: how someone possessed enough bravery to enter a party sober and dance as well as he did.

“Bet you wish you could touch our rush.”

In some circles, drugs are accessible around every corner. Some kids are about three text messages away from getting their hands on any substance of their choosing. The accessibility creates a struggle amongst adolescents to remain sober in youthful atmospheres. When going to a memorable event, such as a concert or a party, it’s

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sometimes seen as socially incompetent to go without artificially altering your mind to make the experience more “enjoyable.” I don’t know about you, but I want to remember the night instead of having jaded memories. Frequently, I find these same people saying, “I wish I were more high or drunk,” once they’re already trashed. Why not just enjoy the moment? What is the right amount of inebriation? What is enough?

Drinking enough so you vomit on your friend’s Persian rug, and eat mac and cheese on their couch so you don’t get alcohol poisoning? Trust me, that’s not fun.

“It’s time we danced with the truth.”

every trouble they’ve ever had, and just dance with her. She sings one of her last songs, “Green Light,” a song that discusses getting over the troubles burdening all of us — waiting for the green light to be free, to dance without embarrassment, to release every feeling built inside of us. To just move.

As she began to sing, I noticed a phenomenon usually not seen at concerts. Everyone put their phones away and danced. All the spirit she put into the songwriting and performance is what we gave back to her. You could feel the electricity pulsating from one person to another as we jumped up and down, dancing with Ella. I felt such happiness. Like we were on each other’s team; like I could never grow old.

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Nothing has matched the exhilaration I felt at that moment, to feel infinite.

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“Midnight, we’re fading, ‘til daylight, we’re jaded.”

As I gazed above at the aura of lights crowding the ceiling, I felt emotional. I could feel the energy of twirling bodies move. Those surrounding me that I had never met seemed like long lost friends reunited, bonded by dance. Everyone’s skin sparkled under the glow of the disco ball, swaying their hips to the beat of the band. Nothing could touch me. Not my grades, the boys that used me, or the friends that were never really my friends. I escaped, dancing millions of miles away from all the troubles life had imposed. Any time I thought I would fall from jumping too high, there was always someone to receive me. There were no limits to how far I could reach. At that moment, I realized the party wasn’t just about the pageantry of dressing up or having fun. It was about freedom.

“But what will we do when we’re sober?” ■

“Waiting for the green light to be free, to dance without embarrassment, to release every feeling built inside of us.

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by LAURA LAUGHEAD

layout ANGIE HUANG photographer PAIGE MILLER stylists SAGE WALKER & SHANNON HOMAN hmua JANE LEE

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college dropout in a cowboy hat beats a cowbell with a drumstick on a stage in Glasgow, Scotland.

The crowd loves it. Some in this Scottish audience are wearing their own cowboy hats and mimicking the lanky 20-year-old Texan’s signature dance — a wonky half saunter, half flail across the stage.

The ding of the cowbell strikes through the cacophony of concert sounds and complements the melody. He finishes his number with a bow that flings his Stetson off his head. But what the crowd responds to is more than just his dance moves, his sonic creativity, or his talent. It’s his smile.

Sloan Struble — you might know him as Dayglow — is back stateside four months after Glasgow when he approaches me outside an Austin coffee shop. His strawberry blonde hair is tucked behind his ears, and he’s wearing a shirt he tells me he bought at a thrift shop for $1.

Struble might as well have just stepped out of a 1980s film. A casting director would peg him as a college hipster rather than an indie pop star about to jet off on another international tour.

Struble has the kind of voice that sounds like he’s smiling even if you can’t see his face. He grins as I introduce myself. It’s no wonder “Ones to Watch,” an outlet that “discovers” the next big artist, referred to his music as “the antidote to dark pop.”

At age 10, Struble learned how to pick out keys and chords for the first time after his cousin

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showed him GarageBand. In the decade since, he’s taught himself how to produce and write music by studying his favorite songs and, in true Gen z fashion, by watching YouTube — a platform that would later help launch his career.

The summer before he left for his first semester at the University of Texas at Austin, Struble was busy at work in his childhood bedroom in Aledo, Texas (population 4,232). He was putting the finishing touches on his 10-song debut album, “Fuzzybrain,” under the pseudonym Dayglow.

His story is the stuff of any musical teen’s dreams. As Struble sat in class, Dayglow was exploding online. First came Spotify and YouTube, and then an Instagram shoutout from influencer Emma Chamberlain. Now, Dayglow’s Spotify boasts almost 3 million monthly listeners. His music video for “Can I Call You Tonight?”

— which Struble shot on a green screen in his childhood bedroom with a high school friend — has surpassed 12 million hits on YouTube.

It’s the kind of attention that could cause any aspiring artist’s head to swell. But at our coffee meeting, one of the first things Struble tells me is how lucky and grateful he feels for the “overnight success” he never expected.

What immediately strikes me about Struble isn’t just his sincerity or his crooked smile. It’s a contrast between the exuberance in his performances and the laid back humility in his real-life demeanor. He’s like a 20-year-old Mr. Rogers.

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There’s an old saying: You work 10 years to become an overnight success. What’s been a “pinch me” moment for you so far? I was touring quite a bit this fall and winter, and all that was awesome. But it didn’t really click with me how great it was until afterward. Going and playing in the uk — I did support for Hobo Johnson — was a moment where I was like, ‘I’m playing in front of pretty big crowds in a foreign country. What’s going on here?’ Playing acl in the fall was also a very pinnacle moment for me.

That was just crazy.

Your music video for “Can I Call You Tonight?” has blown up on YouTube. It’s your most wellknown video, but it’s also your most diy — just you and a friend shooting and editing in your childhood bedroom. What was the thinking behind that? I knew I had no budget. I wasn’t working with anyone, and I didn’t really want to make an awesome music video. I wanted to show I don’t take myself too seriously. My friend left a green screen at my house from this thing we were filming, and then we just made it in like 20 minutes. Then, we googled ‘royalty free green screen effects’ and threw it together in iMovie. I think it’s wild that something could blow up on the internet and literally become a career.

make sad e-boy music. I think I filled a void in bedroom pop.

It’s very trendy, for lack of a better term, right now to mope and think the world sucks. And it kind of does. But I tend to believe that there will be better days. I wanted that to show through my music. I really look up to Mr. Rogers. People are finally starting to recognize how incredible he was. Once in an acceptance speech, he asked, “How do we make goodness attractive?”

That’s kind of like my mission — finding a way to make “good” cool.

How does knowing that a lot of people are going to be listening or watching impact your creative process? I’m definitely a people pleaser, and I’ve had a handful of moments in the past year where I was just so overwhelmed with anxiety because I want people to feel cared for. I’m learning I have to let go and take care of myself.

I’m really thankful that this journey has made me grow a lot in the past year. I feel like I’ve skipped over two decades. I was on the phone with a friend yesterday and was like, ‘I feel like I’m 75.’

Why do you think your songs stand out to so many people? I don’t know. I feel like my answer is usually I’m just lucky. To an extent, I definitely am. I’m super blessed it happened to me. It wasn’t very rock and roll — it just happened on the Internet, and then, my first tour sells out. I try to stay true to who I am, and I think it’s refreshing to a lot of people that I don’t

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Later that week, I meet Struble on set. Our makeup artist announces that she’s starting on his makeup. He prefers a light and natural look.

She whips out the blush and lets him know she’s “going in.” Struble admits that despite his “quirky,” self-made persona, he’s not the extrovert many assume Dayglow to be.

What caused you to pick Dayglow as your stage name? I was attracted to the idea of having an artist’s name that I could hide behind. I didn’t want to have a big ego moment. The name Dayglow came from a song called “Day Glo” by an artist named Brazos, who’s actually from Austin. I didn’t want

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to overthink a band name — I was just really into that song two summers ago. It kind of makes it different that my stage name is something that’s apart from me. I want balance between me as Sloan and who I am as Dayglow.

People meet Dayglow when you’re performing. But what’s Sloan like offstage? I’m fairly introverted.

Not in the sense where I don’t want to be around anyone, but I don’t thrive and recharge around a bunch of people. Dayglow is a very ‘everybody let’s be together all the time’ kind of mindset. Me as a person — I like either solitude or one-on-one time with people.

On the previous tour, I would go out and talk with everyone after shows, and a lot of people were like, ‘you’re so crazy on stage, but you’re so chill right now.’

I don’t like that buffer or wall that happens between fan and artist. I don’t ever want someone to feel like they’ve met a version of me. I want them to feel like they’ve met me, and that I’m being genuine. Dayglow is me, plus extra goodies.

What’s something that Dayglow would do, but Sloan wouldn’t? Stage dive (laughs).

We’re on a city golf course in broad daylight as Struble cracks jokes while riding down an incline on a

tricycle made for a toddler. In front of the camera, he does everything from cartwheels to spinning a ball on his finger — Struble’s “party trick.”

But as we move across the green to scout a new spot, he walks silently behind the Spark crew. He stands with noticeably good posture, hands clasped behind his back as he waits for the photographer to set up her shot.

Struble’s rainbow getup strikes a whimsical juxtaposition against the manicured grass. His outfit may be distinctly Dayglow, but for now, he’s definitely Sloan. ■

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I Found God in a House Plant.

by CHLOE BERTRAND

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“I don’t pray to it; I just pray it doesn’t die.”

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A hymn for my fiddle leaf fig. You sure made a Proverbs 31 woman out of me.

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ront row Baptist girl with a few questions — me. A southern drawl slower than the second coming of Christ directed me to turn toward my neighbor and “ask how they’re doin’ today.” Big, big sigh. After 18 years of clammy Sunday morning handshakes in East Texas, a gospel I once witnessed to people became unfamiliar to me. Its followers sang of reckless love, yet most I knew exalted the opposite. They tongued messages of exclusivity reinforced by dated ideas — casting stones with eyes closed to their own befouled reflections. The church had root rot (it still does, arguably). So I left.

Now 21 going on my fourth year in Austin, I serve a new higher power. House plants. This faith is a tangible one, one that provides nearly instant and frequent gratification, albeit that alone undermines the essence of faith. Faith is patient, trusting goodwill to happen on its own time, relying on a force unseen, but this chlorophyll faith offers me peace no different.

My aunt gave me a four-foot fiddle leaf fig tree for Christmas, and it was a testing addition to my Ikea succulents and lowmaintenance snake plants. We meet each Friday for watering, Tuesday for misting, Thursday for potting. Because, according to James 2:20, faith without works is dead.

I don’t pray to it; I just pray it doesn’t die.

In middle school, I had a spiritual checklist of fickle tasks to complete every day, hopeful to draw near to the heart of Christ.

“Do morning devotional ... Don’t wear anything that could

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cause a brother to stumble ... Tithe even though you’re 13…” Sunday school and a little radio segment from Proverbs 31 Ministries sold me this mentality. A Proverbs 31 woman is the pinnacle of godliness in southern-fried Christianity. Yes, she does the cooking. Yes, she does the cleaning. Yes, she is clothed in strength and dignity and laughs without fear of the future. (To my dismay, she is not Nicki Minaj.) The epilogue of Proverbs 31 is a blueprint for the Wife of Noble Character. This woman of virtue is devoted to God above and her husband; 20 verses outline her expected discipline and honor. It never took for me.

I’m the fig’s bride. I serve this small tree, and it serves me. As it allows me to observe its growth, I learn patience. I open my blinds to let in the daylight, I dust its open palms, I rotate it 180 degrees for optimum comfort; it made me a nurturer, a homemaker. Filling my space with photosynthesis salvation, the plant puts me at ease.

I protect it — perhaps because we both had humble beginnings.

I was grown from mud pies on a porch in Edom, Texas, just the same way it breached soil at a darling-town nursery. Not once did it need MiracleGro. But it does grow miracles. The fig makes me hopeful without terms and conditions.

There was nothing sexy about jumping ship from a relationship with a sky dad I spoke to nearly every day for 16 years. I didn’t just roll my first joint and then no-show services for the rest of time. I felt, and still feel, a deep and hollow ache in my chest signifying a non-belonging. My worship was performative. I was an entertainer all of my life — I still am. So a sanctuary was just another stage to me. I mimicked the people around me, arms raising upwards to a Yahweh I knew in my mind yet unknown to my body.

Though I wanted to know. Desperately. Now my plants grow toward the heavens. Are they mocking me?

I used to watch my mom sing to her fiddle leaf fig, coercing it to bring new growth. And now I’ve followed suit. Though I don’t fall to my knees when it gives me a baby leaf, I whisper a thank you only audible to the two of us. Little praises. Always the accompanying harmony to its rustling choir, a church bred habit I’ll never be able to shake (and I don’t want to). I sing to my fig the same way I sang to God — the same way I, admittedly, hope to sing to God (or something) one day when I escape the comfort of ambiguity.

Believing in something bigger than ourselves is okay. Daydreams of life everlasting beyond the grave are important. Hope is good, and the church introduced me to hope. I cannot discount this teaching, sweet like Sunday hard candies still in my cheek. I don’t think any one plant or person is beyond redemption. The sun rises again each morning, and we’re born new with it — better than the day before. From the stems of my fiddle, a mighty, green gospel rings out.

But I’m afraid I’ve no resolve to offer you. Scripture rests dormant in my head, cushioning my very secular ideas and imaginings.

And sometimes I still pray to the God they tell of. ■

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“I sing to my fig the same way I sang to God.”

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7 O’CLOCK VIEWING TRANSMISIÓN EN VIVO: GIRL THANKS NOVELAS FOR CITIZENSHIP.

by SAMANTHA PARADISO layout ADRIANA TORRES & REBECCA WONG

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n the village of Santiago where my family is from, children are born from stem leaves. Seedlings scattered about the terracotta clay. Leathered, weathered, dirty hands lay their palms upon the earth and wait for the subtle rumble of heartbeats scattered about. Vast acres of land plotted for the sole purpose of birthing offspring. Once they begin to bud, children, planted like seeds, emerge from the earth like a spindly vine, reaching for the sun’s rays. Come spring’s harvest, they’re uprooted along with the guandu, arroz, and yucca. Freshly pulled, they’re then swaddled in banana leaves and handed off to their respective mothers to carry out their lives, often in poverty.

mother and father locked eyes from across the room and instantly fell in love. Cue the montage. Giggles over ice cream. Hushed whispers on the bus. Lots of intense eye contact. There was just one thing getting in the way of their Nicholas Sparks romance. My dad was leaving for America in two weeks. Rationally, mother followed.

My great grandmother’s home in the mountains stands atop a hill, rich with plantain trees, orange trees, lemon trees, and culantro bushes; lacking in electricity, plumbing, and luxurious commodities. Wooden walls and tin roofs, dirt floors and little riches, this is my family’s origin story.

Where my great-great-grandmother, great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother were all reared, and all eventually left to look for something better.

Though once inseparable, my parents eventually split.

And like the numerous other immigrants in this country, my mother came to America without any resources. She struggled to train her tongue to speak a language that was foreign to her. An unoriginal plot, but one shared by many.

Yet when she turned the television on, she found solace in her friends La Madrastra, María la del Barrio, Esmeralda, Teresa, and Rubí. And as I transitioned from a diaper donning toddler with a staggering gait to a mischievous chamaca, my mother indoctrinated me in this ritual. Every day after school, I would run home from the bus stop, trample up the stairs, and heave my body onto the couch just in time to tune in for the next episode of “Rebelde.”

And after that, it was “Amy, la niña de la mochila azul,” and “Carita de Ángel,” and “Gotita de Amor.”

I’m reminded of the plot of novelas on Univision’s channel 45, bookended by “Al Rojo Vivo” and “El Gordo y La Flaca.”

Amidst the electronic trills of the dimly lit arcade, my

These novelas tell a tale like no other, throwing daily conventions of race, class, gender, or reality out the window.

In that one hour, viewers are no longer in their home, but

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transported across the globe to Brazil and Turkey and India and Morocco. A full wardrobe of characters to try on. From Doña Angela, who goes to the corner store to buy her morning eggs with her rollers on, to the one neighbor that outdoes everyone with their Christmas lights, everyone can participate in this indulgence. Whether one’s home is finished with ceiling tiles and plaster, or tin roofs with cinderblock walls, just about everyone has at least one television set in their home. And every day at 7 p.m. televisions flicker on, a constellation of screens connecting viewers across the nation.

happily ever after with her prince charming, she got a chance at life. I imagine it was lonely, but through watching these novelas, I feel like my mother was able to hold onto some semblance of home. When as a family, she’d watch the daily novelas with my grandmother and aunts and uncles, they’d all sit content but resigned at the ending. And she would jump up and down and shout, “This is not an imagined reality, this is us and this is now.” Had she not watched that one episode of “Cuna de Lobos,” would she have ever left the country? Would we still be living in that house on a hill atop the mountains?

The guy gets the girl. The evil stepmother is exposed.

Everyone lives happily ever after. A wedding caravan with cans and streamers and flowers draped with a banner slathered in “Just Married” drives off into the sunset.

Some call it corny. Some call it feel-good. I call it hope.

In Latin America, the class you’re born in is often the one you will die in; the social ladder’s rungs have been removed, making it impossible for those at the bottom to climb upward. Novelas, however, disregard these conventions. Anything goes within the 13 inches of the screen. The poor die rich. The rich die poor. And whether it’s conscious or not, these depictions can be uplifting for its viewers who may feel hopeless otherwise.

On Univision’s channel 45, bookended by that evening’s updates on “Al Rojo Vivo” and the latest episode of “El Gordo y La Flaca,” a new novela is being broadcasted.

The screen unfolds the tale of Santiago, a village where children are born from stem leaves. Though a majority of these infants will reside in the land they were reaped from, one seedling makes her way out. She falls in love with a man and America, the typical love triangle. On the bus ride on the way to the airport, she turns around to look at the escaping scenery, intently gazing at the world she’s departing from. My mother and I sit on the couch leaning forward, completely captivated by what will happen next. Credits roll, and we let out a sigh of disappointment as the channel transitions into that evening’s daily news. Pointing the remote at the TV, the screen becomes enveloped in darkness, leaving us only to watch our mirrored reflection canvassed by the television frame. ■

When my mother first met my father, I wonder if what she saw in his eyes was love or irises rimmed with opportunity. What started as an ideal plot for a novela quickly turned sour. But although she didn’t get to live

“I IMAGINE IT WAS LONELY, BUT THROUGH WATCHING THESE NOVELAS, I FEEL LIKE MY MOTHER WAS ABLE TO HOLD ONTO SOME SEMBLANCE OF HOME.”

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love songs for the end of the world

by JESSIE YIN

layout GIA POBLETE & MAYA SHADDOCK photographer SHUER ZHUO stylist MADEE FELTNER hmua DANIA ABDI models DIANA PEREZ & NATHEN SABAPATHY 176

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Sometimes I think about what

the end of the world would feel like,

what it would sound like.

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“I have 20 years

and a laundry list of small victories

and absolutely nothing to show for it

except a sense of powerlessness.”

L

ast fall, I walked out of the Paris Olympia the- Trudging up all the steps of Montmartre, I found myself wondering. What meaning do I want my production to have? ater weeping.

What kind of things do I want to be putting out into the When a man with all the airs of a woodland fae world? It feels like what I should want is to graduate and work tells you, in not so many words, that what we for some corporate firm or another, make a lot of money, need in our trembling world is greater kind- spend it, and retire to the idleness that I tasted in Paris. The ness and intentional love, you believe him. You believe him kind of production that has market value but no meaning. and you spend the 20-minute walk home in the pre-winter That’s what my parents have always wanted for me: a breezy, night feeling like lightning in a bottle. Comforted and pan- unthinking life — the American Dream. But I couldn’t stop icked at the same time, buzzing in glass for something bigger thinking. What meaning do our creations have? And why can than you.

Hozier and his love songs leave me feeling full but inert?

In sad blue lights that made him look submerged in water, The truth is, I don’t know how to find a purpose that doesn’t Hozier played those first gentle chords of “Wasteland, Baby!” feel vapid. More often than not, I’m exhausted and empty. and declared to the theater, like it means anything at all, that In the face of all the terrors in this world that make human he was writing love songs for the end of the world. I stared hearts ache, how can I imagine working in the same systems up at this tall man with too many guitars and thought, how and mechanisms that are driving us toward our end? Forests stupid. At the end of the world, are we really worrying about burn and oceans rise and wars rage on and maybe if we just a soundtrack? What use is there in creating flowers when we join enough GoFundMe campaigns, the hurting can finally stop. I don’t know if I fear anything more than this backslidare burning? ing toward political fascism, this inching towards an extincI spent the better part of last year studying in France and tion-level event of our own slow making. sometimes when I walked those night streets, I would think about what a waste it was. There was this gnawing guilt that It feels so uselessly naive to say that I want to do something I was indulging in idleness when there were so many more meaningful. It’s rendered redundant in its subjectivity and its important things that I should’ve been doing, that I could’ve directionlessness. But standing at the lip of that drowning been doing, if I were back home. I have 20 years and a laundry stage as Hozier sang love songs for the end of the world, I felt list of small victories and absolutely nothing to show for it like I could breathe. Like there was a reprieve to have my selfexcept a sense of powerlessness. doubts echoed back at me.

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“Standing at the lip of that drowning stage

as Hozier sang love songs for the end of the world, I felt like I could breathe.”

Somehow, as I trailed by the cramped cafés that used to house I am 20 years old, and I barely feel old enough to be called an Hemingway, the lonely chill reminded me of high school Eng- adult or good enough to be called a writer. But torn between lish classes. You know, the gentle scoffing when we were told sorrow and panic and rage, I just want to be heard and seen, to look for symbols and hidden meanings. And to some ex- and for someone else to show me what they’re feeling too. Art tent, that’s true. Sometimes, the couch is just red because the is an act of love — not romantic or platonic per se, but one that author has ordained it so, but shouldn’t these things imply a stretches beyond individuals. It’s a practice of immense human secret message? If someone is crafting a whole new world from connection, of loving. a blank page, an empty canvas, a silent guitar, then shouldn’t it be made to matter? Shouldn’t the things we place into that I think, and I am willing to argue, that in times of crisis, we void be imbued with something from the human that made it? need creation. We owe it to each other. It’s a duty to hope, to care, to love, to hold someone in your arms and mean someAnd yes, sometimes that blood is just red, but also sometimes thing by it. It’s a duty to each other as humans. It’s maybe one there’s so much blood, too much bleeding, and we have to find of the few truly selfless things we can put out into our world.

This desperate need to be heard, to connect. To create somea way to make it beautiful and to make it bearable. thing that says, “Hey, you’re here right now and so am I, and I I ask that you forgive me for my banal thesis that art has mean- promise there’s someone out there who loves you.” ing, that creation has immeasurable value beyond merely filling up space. This world was built from ideas, ones that were Sometimes I think about what the end of the world would feel not ours. So then maybe our ideas can be the ones to remake it. like, what it would sound like. I imagine that it’s quite empty and we would feel alone in it all. Is it a sad-blue? Would we be Like tireless argonauts, perhaps we can find a new Atlas. drowned? Swallowed in the shadow of war, famine, and pestiBy putting terrible realities through this mechanism of cre- lence, how do we prove that we lived? I hope that it sounds like ation, we can make them feel better or we could make them those first gentle cords, like a tiny space left to breathe. I hope feel worse, but most importantly, we make them feel. We can that at T-minus two minutes to the end of the world, the last feel part of our own fumbling consciousness echoed back at us. human thing we do is fall in love. ■ seeing spectra

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by AJÀ MILLER

layout MAYA SHADDOCK photographer CHLOE BOGEN stylists ELLA HERNANDEZ & KAREN YANG hmua ALEIGH GERRON model BETSY WELBORN

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Walt Disney created the ultimate guide on how to build a cartoon baddie.

First, an affinity for luxurious living. Add an obsession with vanity. And finally: dress to kill.

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“Dramatic cat eyes? Mean.

Gaudy jewels? Bad. Snatched cheekbones?

Undeniably evil.”

“S

leeping Beauty” opens with an ideal scene: a joyous celebration, a melodic chorus, and an offering of benevolent gifts. It’s utopic, until an explosion of green smoke jolts the kingdom out of its stupor, and the mistress of magic appears. Sharp, ornate horns. Eerily green skin. A well-executed red lip. Maleficent has entered the chat.

As children, we were educated on Evil 101: what evil looked like, how it sounded, and what it desired. Compared to average princess attributes like youth and fair skin, films conditioned us to associate bad with a wicked style and makeup with a flair for theatrics. From the moment a woman appears on screen, her appearance is assigned a label of either heroine or villain. Dramatic cat eyes? Mean. Gaudy jewels? Bad. Snatched cheekbones? Undeniably evil. This visual language was designed to help kids develop that little voice of reason and morality, but we ignored the repercussions of it over time.

Aside from Gaston, handsome looks and vanity are lost on male villains and ten-year-olds alike.

We rarely comment on the length of Hades’ toga or the state of Jafar’s goatee, but always point out Ursula’s overt sensuality and skillful use of body language. Because we associate brute strength and strategy with male villains, the female figure in itself becomes weaponized.

Women antagonists are undermined by gender politics and forced to magically appear in a man’s world, but we never hold men to those same, warped standards. Over time, we’ve canonized vilifying women based on superficial matters first and character second.

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“We teach girls that the cure-all for life’s misgivings is romantic, fairytale love.”

Echoes of Chimamanda Adichie’s voice in “***Flawless” tell exactly what the cinematic codes of animated films are doing: teaching girls to “shrink themselves” to fit in the confines of a patriarchal society. We teach girls that the cure-all for life’s misgivings is romantic, fairytale love. Our stories have rehashed the notion of romance, remedying the plot from narratives such as Snow White and Cinderella to modern films like “Tangled.” Rapunzel’s heroic journey is diminished by the romance arc of the film: A tour around the kingdom with a handsome thief appeases her sense of purpose in life.

Animation gave us examples of enterprising women like Cruella de Vil and Yzma from “The Emperor’s New Groove” — women with style and brains and the know-how to get things done. Unconventional in their methods, they embodied boss energy that I found commendable. But because of their limited interest in searching for a male companion, these baddies were deemed too calloused and beyond redemption. The films characterized a beauty obsession with the lack of a love interest, not as a reflection of how they felt inwardly. I started to realize that everything revolved around the male gaze and how those notions permeated my own thoughts. We subjected women to a double standard that was almost impossible to break free from, setting them up for failure.

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In my tenure as a Disney-phile, I discovered animation portrayed two types of women. The first embodied the ideal woman that I was expected to be and, the other, a cautionary tale.

I grew up hearing, “that isn’t very ladylike,” “young women don’t dress that way, it sends the wrong impression,” and “be more realistic with your dreams.” I lived by these rules, but I still felt compelled by the villain’s charm. I understood how it felt to have your voice silenced and unheard. I understood having my identity measured by my outward appearance. I understood what it was like to be a woman operating in a world that demonized me for wanting more. Like the people around me, these cartoon portrayals diminished any thoughts that didn’t side with the princess agenda, attempting to snuff them out for good.

It was difficult to unlearn the brainwashing and conditioning my younger self endured. I unlearned the closeting of my sensuality. I unlearned the moral checklist that those films insisted were law. I unlearned the notion that my ambition equated with wickedness.

Beware the woman whose drive precedes her. Beware her ambition, her unwillingness to yield. I disobeyed. I took command of the rooms I appeared in. I sought out entrepreneurial ventures. I became the woman little me had always been searching for. The power that I couldn’t find within Walt Disney’s archetype of the perfect woman was inside of me the entire time. And all it took was unleashing the queen of mean within myself. ■

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layout JESSICA NGUYEN photographer PAIGE MILLER stylists DORIS UMEZULIKE & ZAHA KHAWAJA hmua ADRIANNE GARZA & YASMINE DAGHESTANI models IFEOLUWA KEHINDE, JULIA VASTANO & MAGGIE DEAVER

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Like The

by DIVINA CENICEROS DOMINGUEZ

With skin that glows like justice and a voice that takes no prisoners, the siren ensnares the male imagination to its inevitable watery death.

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I

t’s easy to get swept into the allure of sirens. They’re otherworldly — wild hair, wild eyes, and a delicate, mystical charm akin to the intoxicating aroma bees must feel in spring.

With effortless intention, the siren seduces its victims with calculated feline prowess. Any man that hears her song, whether they know it or not, gets lulled into the riptide of a category nine hurricane.

When a woman has power, she’s seen as a threat to men. In the case of the siren, this power is her voice. How can someone that can, with just their voice, bring an entire crew to shipwreck not be taken seriously?

Sirens might not have always been the beautiful temptress — or even female for that matter — but for some reason, they are never the heroine. They’re always the antithesis to the male protagonist’s journey.

Homer’s Odyssey, a story written by a man about a man, reduced the purpose of sirens to be only a deadly foil in the male hero’s story. Odysseus, who embarks on a great voyage with daunting adventures, comes across a group of women destined to be just a bump in his road — a plot enhancer, a symbol, but never an actual character. Which is funny since aren’t their voices like a big peril to the overall plot?

It took until 2017 for a woman to write an English translation of one of the oldest and most important texts of Western culture. Now, don’t get it twisted; this wasn’t because of a lack of women who could have translated it. On a personal level, why would any woman want to translate a text that so brutally punishes women with every page you turn?

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“When a woman has power, she’s seen as a threat to men.

In the case of the siren, this power is her voice.”

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“The contemporary siren tells a feminist story of amplifying, not empowering. They have their power, and they’re reclaiming it.”

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In the text, sirens were said to be the dangerous hypersexual female temptresses that lusted over Odysseus and his crew. Sirens risked, and ultimately died for, the mere chance of salivating and devouring these men. Go off, I guess, but in what world has a woman ever drowned in the depths of man?

Up until three years ago, having only been written from the male imagination, “The Odyssey” was uncomfortably sexist. It might not have been intentional, but perhaps a subconscious reflection of their status and privilege. Still, women have read this text and looked at it for what it was: a universal, albeit misogynist, story of justice and loss and fate and triumphs. This is what makes the new interpretation so powerful. It might’ve taken some time, but the lips that once were silenced and beat into submission are now taking full, unapologetic ownership of every word written.

With the growth of Christianity in the coming centuries, the taboo elements of temptation, sex appeal, and death established the siren trope.

Eventually, it became one of the ways people interpreted their social fears or anxieties about women disobeying gender roles and patriarchal norms.

This could only mean one thing: Yes, sirens will definitely kill you, your entire crew, and will wreck your ship — all while looking as hot as ever.

In this tale as old as time, one of the few ways women could assuage power outside of factors given by birth, such as class or age, was through their purity. The anti-siren resembles a young, fertile woman untouched or seen by any other. She is fetishized and commercialized into marriage.

The western world standardized this idea of marriage as to pass along equally high-status offspring, continue their legacy, and amass wealth. Virginity, which is nothing more than a patriarchal concept, is aimed to control how a woman is supposed to behave. The siren, with pearls in her hair and glossy lips that sing like honey, invites readers to think about the danger in sweet temptations we are told aren’t good for us. Good for men, at least.

Sex has and continues to be weaponized by men over women as a means to assert their power, but I do think times are changing for the better.

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In order for this myth to have withstood the test of time, it must have evolved into something more reflective of our collective understanding of the modern woman. The contemporary siren tells a feminist story of amplifying, not empowering. They have their power, and they’re reclaiming it. With their physical allure, powerful persona, their intelligence, and resourcefulness, women are owning and turning the tables. The role of men in the lives of the modern baddie is minimal, or at least not essential.

The control men have exerted over women and their roles in society is ricocheting right back to them.

Everything that exists: our thoughts, our words, our actions, our manifestations, Everything is about power.

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When a woman has power, she is seen as a threat to men. In the case of the siren, this power is her voice.

As a writer, I’m constantly reminded of how much I don’t want to be watered down by people that don’t see the value of my words.

If I’m bringing a man down, it won’t be with the sweetness of my lips, but with eyes that pierce like shaken bees.

There won’t be any allegations, or he-said-she-said, but clear enunciations and intentionality that’ll make you understand why they call it spelling.

Remember your power. Own it. Claim it. The last time someone underestimated our power, they were seen twenty thousand leagues under. ■

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layout XANDRIA HERNANDEZ photographer ALYSSA OLVERA stylist ELLA HERNANDEZ hmua GABBY DUHON & OLIVIA HARRIS models GRANT KANAK & VERONICA RASMUSSEN 198

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ALL THE GIRLS

IN GLASS

by KELLY WEI

I was looking at my mother’s face from the passenger seat: her divine, pale skin, stretched taut over sharp cheekbones and a delicate little nose, all glowy rose-gold. When shafts of sunlight struck against the car window, she sparkled like glass.

layout BROOKE BORGLUM & REBECCA WONG photographer DAVID ZULLI stylist JILLIAN SCHWARTZ hmua KATHERINE TANG & MIA CARRILES models INGRID GARCIA, LIV ELKIND & MIRA BHAT 206

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T

he summer before freshman year, I eased myself into a cold leather chair and let a man cut into my face.

out, never wrinkles, never fades … I would come to be acquainted with this prerequisite to girlhood the way I learned to brush my teeth or tie my shoelaces. At a young age, naturally and quickly, with unquestionable inevitability.

“There was so much blood,” my mother told me later on the drive home. “I thought they were going to run out of gauze.”

I learned it from the unabashed staring and pointing of kids, who wanted to know what the “black thing” on my forehead was. I learned it from billboards and magazines, from the whitening creams on my aunt’s sink counter, and from the way my mother would pinch and fuss at the skin on either side of her temples, practicing her daily morning ritual to ward off wrinkles. I learned it in the fifth grade when I, teetering on the cusp of pubescence, stood next to her and leaned in closer to the mirror myself, tracing little circles around three pimples along my jaw.

I hummed, ambivalent to the carnage. The lingering anesthesia was making my head soft. I was looking at my mother’s face from the passenger seat: Her divine, pale skin, stretched taut over sharp cheekbones and a delicate little nose, all glowy rosegold. When shafts of sunlight struck against the car window, she sparkled like glass.

By all standards, my mother was a beautiful woman.

Unfair, I thought, that I should look nothing like her.

“You feel okay?” She looked over at me, pretty lips pursed. “I can make some ginger tea when we get back.”

I ran a hand over the bandage. Underneath, six raw stitches and a gash where my birthmark used to be. Four years later, I would still have a scar to show for it: a dimpled, inch-long ghost of an incision that ran vertically from eyebrow to mid-forehead. It would heal poorly; forever a reminder that once, at 15, I hated my skin enough to cut a piece of it loose.

Skin went on to define my teenage years, and my identity at large. Puberty was not kind to me: Parts of me grew at faster paces than others, so I looked gawky at best and, in unfortunate lighting, disfigured.

And, my god, the skin.

“I’m good,” I said. “I’m great.”

What makes a girl pretty?

The answer is lots of things: her eyes, lips, hair; her voice, body, smile. “Pretty” is becoming an increasingly ambivalent descriptor, and there are a thousand interpretations for a thousand different tastes.

But what makes a girl, a girl?

For me, the answer has always been skin, skin, skin.

A smooth canvas upon which she can paint, a pale, exquisite expanse of youth that never seems to run

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On top of a birthmark that I was becoming increasingly self-conscious about, By 13, I was well on my way to metamorphosing into a pepperoni pizza; each cheek an unpleasant minefield of pimples, pockmarks, and pitted scars alike. My acne, abnormally severe and of the cystic variety, looked less like a symptom of growing up and more like a terminal illness.

I also scarred easily, so when a cyst would finally go away, it made sure to leave a spiteful little (sometimes not-so-little) souvenir behind.

I already felt like a girl suffocating behind the face of an old woman: all sallow skin and wide cheekbones, with perpetual smudges of dark under a pair of murky, tired eyes. But it’s hard to describe what carrying a cemetery of imperfections on your face feels like — what it can do to you, year after unrelenting year.

I try to explain the experience by talking about the six layers of foundation I wore every day to hide my

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"I would come to be acquainted with this prerequisite to girlhood the way I learned to brush my teeth or tie my shoelaces."

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birthmark, and all the memories and moments I missed out on because the slightest smudge sent me running to the bathroom. I talk about the way I avoided photos up until I was a high school senior, and the heartbreak now of having nothing to remember my teenage years by, except a couple of diary entries and pencil sketch portraits.

I talk about the way my grandmother would suggest herbal remedies with fanatic desperation every time I saw her; how her eyes wandered as she spoke, drawn to the blisters the way we’re drawn to car crashes and crime scenes. As women, it is a kind of crime to look the way I did, I suppose.

My skin became the primary, then singular, topic of discussion among the women in my family. Had I tried this cream? That detox cleanse? Were my pillowcases dirty? Did I wash my face?

Maybe the only way I can describe it all, is as a robbery.

I grew up alone, in an exile of my own making. It was my rueful opinion that something intrinsic to being a girl, to being young and free and therefore beautiful, had been stolen from me. No dancing in the rain, no summer pool parties, no forehead kisses from my best friends, no flinging sweatshirts on and off in the dark. I was forever fearful of being touched and seen, too nervous to sit in a moment and simply soak it in. God forbid the makeup comes off.

Of course, things eventually got better: A heavy dose of Accutane cleared out the majority of my acne, I underwent invasive surgery to remove my birthmark, and now, at 19, I’ve grown into my strange beauty, one so complex and radiant it took the better part of a decade to manifest. My dyed hair, my glossy lips, the way my skin now, too, can sparkle like glass in a photo or at golden hour; even I can occasionally indulge in the privilege of being an it girl.

But the residual anxiety has not disappeared.

I am still afraid of bathroom fluorescents, I can only sit in backlit seats at restaurants, and new dissatisfactions have surfaced. My sink counter is littered with empty Curology bottles, eye creams for my dark circles, and anti-aging serums for lines at the sides of my mouth that I’ve begun to find a tad too pronounced. Our skin cells live and die, regenerating in cycles, just as our insecurities do.

The fear that I was and never will be a beautiful young girl is a universal female one.

My mother knows it, as does her mother, and her mother before that. We teach this story in ten-step Korean skincare routines, in skin-smoothing apps, in spending hours in the bathroom contorting ourselves into the shape of something pure, something frozen in time — while our daughters watch, and learn, and imitate.

I think about the girl who stood next to her mother, pressing her skin until she could feel the bone. I want to kiss her on the forehead and tell her, “A beautiful face will not make life beautiful.”

I want to explain to her that life is most dazzling when it bites you, digs its nails into you, kisses you hard enough to bruise. My scars and imperfections, all the wrinkles I will inevitably acquire … they are cemeteries of hardship, and they are promises that I can take what comes next, that I am not made to shatter.

We are, in many ways, our own thieves stealing years from ourselves. All the girls with their glass skin and perfect faces — ones whom I once bitterly envied, whom I believed had access to a youth and glory that would forever remain unavailable to me — I, in becoming one such girl, have begun to realize there is no true beauty in being untouchable.

Haven’t I been that way all my life?

Now comes the part where I begin trying to say, touch me. See me. ■

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“I want to explain to her that life is most dazzling when it bites you, digs its nails into you, kisses you hard enough to bruise.�

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