Definition: A time of reaping in joy what has been produced throughout the year
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LETTER FROM EDITOR
Welcome back The Teller Magazine enthusiasts! I hope you all had an amazing summer and a beautiful autumn. This issue felt like homecoming for a lot of our Executive Board members as just 12 months ago, our first issue under my reign, Enchantment was carefully crafted and published.
A lot of us experienced new challenges and put a lot of hard work to make it to this moment in time. Harvest season is not just for farmers, we are always allowed to creatively reap what we sow.
When my Managing Editor, Sophia, messaged me about changing the title of this issue, I was a little hesitant. But easily, we found it together. THERISMOS, the Greek word for harvest. This is a little rendition of how this came to be:
“If you hate it, I’m joking. If you like it, I’m serious. Okay? Ok.”
So here it is!
“I like it.”
I hope you all have a pleasant Halloween weekend and remember to use your right and vote!
Fynn Haughney
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
e e t t h e e b o a r d
Fynn Haughney Editor-in-Cheif
Sophia Lattof Managing Editor
Sydney Anderson Adventure Section Editor
Cassander Liu Co-Head Page Editor
Dylan Murphy Horoscope & Misc. Section Editor
Cassidy Brock Arts & Literature Section Editor
Nicole Pottgen Fashion & Beauty Section Editor
Lauren Bialt Head of Design
Peyton Waszkiewicz Co-Head Page Editor
Kiely Caulfield Head Copy Editor
f e a t u r e d c o n t r i b u t o r s
Kyle Bredberg
English major w/ concentration in Creative Writing Journalism minor
Junior
Contribution(s):
Beneath the Gunks
Hazel Regan
Communication Disorders and Spanish double major Freshman
Contribution(s):
How to Weather the Harvest in Five Simple Steps
Cassidy Brock
English major w/ concentration in Creating Writing
Journalism minor
Junior
Contribution(s): Oceans
Horoscopes Horoscopes & Misc. Misc.
CRYPTIC HOROSCOPES
Dylan Murphy
Aries: When one door closes, another one opens. Keep it moving, don’t let your heart get broken.
Taurus: You’ve hurt those you love, and you’ll have to pay the price. You’re soon to learn your lesson, and how to play nice.
Gemini: It’s time to choose: this way or that? Know you’ll be fine, no matter where you end at.
Cancer: Let your tears fall and begin anew. Surround yourself with others, and you won’t feel so blue.
Leo: Don’t get too crazy, you ’ re too close to the end. Keep yourself in check, especially when you spend.
Virgo: A crisis is nigh, you can feel it coming. You’ve been preparing, so hit the ground running.
Libra: Something isn’t right, but you don’t know the cause. Have a conversation with the person and discover the flaws.
Scorpio: Take a step back and see how far you ’ ve come. You know you can do this, you ’ re not some bum.
Sagittarius: It’s time to reflect, you ’ ve been angry as of late. Those you love know you ’ re not trying to frustrate.
Capricorn: Calm yourself down, and know you ’ re in charge. You cannot control the problems at large.
Aquarius: Having fun is necessary, there’s no doubt about it. But you must think of your future, bit by bit.
Pisces: Comparison is the thief of joy. You must learn to love yourself, and your insecurities you must destroy.
HARVEST PLAYLIST
Thank You, Thank You, Bonnie Rait Bonnie Rait 11. . Jack Straw, Jack Straw, Grateful Dead Grateful Dead
. Harvest Moon, Harvest Moon, Neil Young Neil Young
. Long Time Gone, Long Time Gone, Crosby, Stills, & Nash Crosby, Stills, & Nash
. RRoad, oad, Nick Drake Nick Drake
Nicole Pottgen
All Hallow’s Eve, Fynn Haughney
Beneath theGunksKyleBredberg
I spent much of my freshman year loitering around the village. I wandered up and down the streets of New Paltz looking for people to yap with, music to listen to, an interesting place to do homework killing time until I could watch the sun descend behind the mountains. Having just gained my freedom after a six-year battle with Lyme disease and agoraphobia, which had almost killed me, I had nothing serious to do, and I was happy to spend my days moving and on my feet.
It was the beginning of the semester, either late August or early September, and my friend called me out of the blue, inquiring about my plans for the day. I had none and suddenly I was driving to her house in my beaten down gray minivan to pick her up. She climbed in the car and threw her backpack in.
“So … I have an idea,” she said. I put the car in drive, and we set off for the Mohonk Preserve. We drove up toward the Gunks on winding roads before making a sharp turn onto this narrow dead-end road that trailed off into gravel.
“Here,” my friend said. We got out of the car and looked up, the cliff face of the Gunks looming above us. I bent down to tie my sneakers. I had gotten them as a gift from my grandfather when I was 12. They were too big and the top of the shoe rode high up my leg, but they were purple and black. I thought they looked awesome, so I wore them constantly. Over the years, the outsoles had eroded away completely, leaving a surface that had a similar effect to constantly walking on wet concrete, and the body of the shoe was riddled with holes. I tied them tight and grabbed my bag as we abandoned the minivan.
“Mohonk is just too expensive,” we concurred as we set off into the woods. “Once we get up a little, we’ll just hop on a trail.”
Hours later, we were scrambling up a cliff face, no trails in sight, but neither of us had an inkling of a desire to turn back. We had been walking through the woods, pursuing only a higher elevation, which I checked via a Snapchat sticker as I documented the climb. Eventually, we got near the top of the Gunks, emerging from the trees on a large section of smooth bare rock. It had a small ledge running across it. I wondered if anyone had ever stood there, then stepped out on it.
Once we got to the middle, we stood pressed against the ledge, a ¾ inch separating us between life and death. No one knew we were here, on the side of Shawangunk. This was our moment and our moment alone. Having never left New Paltz, I was a bird, staring down at my world. Then, my toes pressed too hard against the interior of my shoe and my right foot slipped. My tattered left shoe, with its paltry grip, had nowhere to go and my future was set to be sliding down Shawangunk. Before I got too far, my friend grabbed me. Using her as a counterbalance, I scaled back up onto my ¾ inch. Just a few moments later, I would repay the favor, grabbing her with one hand and a tree with the other as we lost our footing and slid down the ridge at the start of our descent.
We came out of the woods as the sun was starting to set, stumbled into a poor stranger's backyard, hopped the fence and found ourselves on a random street somewhere near High Falls, miles away from the car. We walked aimlessly till we found the car, drove to a little market, got ice cream and watched the sun descend behind the mountain we had just summited.
In the years since then, when I take time to look at that ridge, I can see us standing there, the wind blowing against me as my toes pushed through my insoles and gripped the small grooves carved into the rock’s face by glaciers thousands of years ago. I can remember the exhilaration and feeling of conquering. I can remember my friend crying behind a bush before we garnered the courage to venture out onto the barren cliff face. I remember feeling alive.
The Gunks have served as a backdrop to my entire life, and like any backdrop, it can fade from the focus of the viewer. Yet any time I walk through campus, take a stroll down Main Street or go for a drive, the Gunks are there. Just where they have always been.
Prior to college, my friends and I spent ample time up on the mountain. A frequent gathering spot for us was the overlook, a small pull-off parking space on the way to the Mohonk Preserve. We traveled there late at night when we could be alone, and wedged our bodies side by side in between the jagged stones that lined the top of the wall that separated the parking lot from the cliff, threw our heads back as if we were dramatic performers and gazed up at the stars until they disappeared. With a focus on the stars, all manners of humanity can be discussed.
When life hit particularly hard, we got into my best friend’s Mustang and whipped around to a scenic spot to lament our regrets to the mountains. They have provided a stoic voice and an enlightened perspective.
There is a spiritual element to mountains. Anyone who has hiked can attest to this. In the sweat and the heavy breathing atop a mountain, life can be discussed with few barriers. In the shallow air, heavy weights can flow away with the breeze. Mountains are idealistic, always reaching for the heavens.
When I was sick, I would catch myself staring at the Gunks or at the Catskills, wondering when, if ever, I would be healthy enough to hike them again. I would watch the sunset over them and cry, mourning life. Now, three years later, my life is so busy that when I drive through town I find myself barely giving them a second glance. I have hiked miles of mountains across the Northeast, and the memory of when I struggled to rise from my bed for more than a few minutes didn't even cross my mind as I approached the summits. A few years ago, these steps would have been unimaginable. Now I walk them as if they were always guaranteed.
I think it is natural to take the Gunks for granted, and to let them fade into the background of our lives. Life moves fast. But what a beautiful background they have made. It is a gift to be so close to beautiful, perspective-altering nature.
As my brother and I age, we frequently discuss our future and if it will include the Hudson Valley. My brother fears being trapped, and he perpetually looks out to the horizon. I find it hard to imagine a horizon that doesn’t contain the Gunks to frame my view.
Caramelized
peyton waszkiewicz
Fresh and crisp
Caramel smile
Dripping down my chin
Hardened apple style
It’s sweet on the tongue
While I taste the sticky mixture
Exploding in my mouth
It's a Halloween fixture
Candy and treats
Sweet tooth has begun
I lick it to catch just a little more
I’ll finish it till it’s done.
1971 VAIL PERRY
Hidden in my mother’s memory box is a photo of my father from when they were in love. Now that photo hangs on the sterile white wall of Room 102.
I got his nose, eyes and desire to be in solitude, although not his ability to relax. He’s the first person I call when I have good news and the last when I have bad. His sweater is neatly hung with the jumble of clothes from people I love. Each time I go home I snag another piece to add to my closet.
He sent me off on my first day of school, wearing the brown and white plaid shirt he still wears to my important moments today.
I’m sure he kissed my cheek as I got on the bus that first day of school, although I can’t remember. He never makes me feel incapable.
Harvest, Cassander Liu
Oranges LEEZA PANTANO
Lineage, Margaret Walker, 1989. Arranged by Andrea Ramsey
My grandmothers were strong.
They followed plows and bent to toil.
They moved through fields sowing seed.
They touched earth and grain grew.
They were full of sturdiness and singing.
My grandmothers were strong
MOTHER
Hurry up. Your father's outside with the car. Pack the food bag.
CHILD
Ok, ok.
Do you want these oranges? I don’t want them.
I can’t stand the oranges they have at all these places. They’re so hard to open and, like, they stick to everything for some reason. And they’re at every single one of these hotels, always.
Well, no. Sometimes it’s a green banana.
MOTHER
Pack them, please…
CHILD
They’ll just roll around the third row until we notice they’ve rotted. I don’t want to sit in the car with rotting fruit for 10 hours.
MOTHER
They won’t go bad, I’ll eat them. Just pack them please
CHILD
Alright. I’ll put them up front under your feet so when they start going bad you’ll be the first to know.
My grandmothers are full of memories, Smelling of soap and onions and wet clay
With veins rolling roughly over quick hands
They have many clean words to say. My grandmothers were strong. Why am I not as they?
There are oranges at a Holiday Inn or Best Western, or any other hotel in the middle of nowhere, America
MOTHER
That’s ok, survival skills. That was my first experience with most fruits. So ripe it was almost rotten.
CHILD
No fruit in the motherland?
MOTHER
Net, na severnom kazhakstanne bili tolko yablokki. (No, in North Kazakhstan there were only apples.)
CHILD
So you’re saying the whole of the country only knew about apples?
MOTHER
Ny, net we knew about other fruits and the rich families had bananas imported sometimes but that was only in the city. We were a long way from the city.
The fruit that you know does not grow where I grew up. The soil is too hard, the summer season too short. The sun isn’t there long enough to… bake them properly. They have no time to get sweet.
The first time I had a banana it was black, and too mushy to peel. It came off a cargo ship and slowly made its way up the continent to me.
CHILD
Ugh. Didn’t it make you sick?
MOTHER
No. It was delicious. I had never seen one before, and I’d never had something so sweet and messy in my life.
Even when we had apples, though they were juicy, they were also tart. Mostly tart. This was all sweet.
CHILD
I can’t imagine only having rotten bananas.
MOTHER
Well, I didn’t even try one til I was 14. I took what I could get.
It was so fun to experience something new. It was very anti-apple, so differently textured. But nothing beats New Years. That was something I waited for all year.
CHILD Why?
MOTHER
Well.
That’s when we’d get oranges.
CHILD
You never had oranges?
MOTHER
No, we always had oranges. But only on New Year’s.
They were small spheres of fire you could hold in your hand.
The winters were freezing, Sibirskiye (Siberian), but the oranges always reminded me of the sun. That’s why they couldn’t ever grow there.
CHILD
That’s poetic.
MOTHER
Babushka would always arrange them on a wreath of pine branches. We’d get two each, so 10 vmeste.
I would peel them carefully because I saved the skin for tea.
Then I’d peel each little slice off individually and eat them slowly.
I’d save the other one for as long as I could, because next New Year's was far away, and I loved oranges.
The last one would always be close to rotten by the time I had the courage to eat it.
CHILD
… Didn’t you ever learn that they’d inevitably go bad?
MOTHER
Yes, but like the mushy bananas, I guess. That was the taste I knew it to have, the one I waited for every year.
CHILD
That sounds…sad.
MOTHER
Why sad? I remember it with happiness.
CHILD
The highlight of your year was oranges.
MOTHER
They were not the highlight of my year. There were other things to look forward to. Shipments of apples from the south, big shiny apples in cardboard boxes from babushka's apple tree. We’d eat as many as we could before drying the rest. One year we tried to pickle them, but it wasn’t too good.
CHILD
Ew…
MOTHER
Yes, well…
You survived the winters however you could. We pickled everything at least once, just to see how it’d turn out.
Then there was the meat season.
CHILD
Meat season?
MOTHER
When we would prepare meat for the winter. Oh babushka made the best kielbasa, ny prosto vkysnatina. (…just delicious)
CHILD
How’d you do that?
MOTHER
We had mostly turkeys on our farm, and so—
CHILD
You killed them?
MOTHER
Yes.
Don’t look so horrified. Babushka would raise these turkeys and kill them herself. They loved her, and protected her and then they fed our family and kept us alive through the winter.
CHILD
But to kill something you raised…
MOTHER
That was how you survived. There was no way around it. But November was a fun month.
CHILD
And you looked forward to it…
MOTHER
Did I look forward to when we accomplished things and worked towards a purpose? Yes! Our work is coming to fruition. Getting ready for the season. Knowing we’d be safe because we put effort in now. Living in spite of the harsh land.
CHILD
Ok, mam, save it for the theater. I understand.
So you helped make sausages?
MOTHER
No, I mostly cleaned the bodies. The ones we’d put outside to freeze, to store them.
CHILD
I’m sorry I asked. Did you enjoy that?
MOTHER
It was necessary to do, like going to Costco once a month and having overripe fruit.
Babushka loved raising the turkeys. Even though we’d eventually eat them, she raised them like children. It was nice to see her like that. It was her favorite thing to do.
She’d go out in the middle of June and get some day-old chicks. We had a little set up for them outside, and she would tend to them every day. It was a special bond. They’d grow and mature, and then November would roll around and that was it. And then it was our turn to work.
CHILD
And she did this every year?
That’s so much death.
MOTHER Hm.
It’s also so much life, no?
Hudson Yards
Luca Aiello
Where subways shriek into slumber during hours only meant for the perception of milkmen and rats, a time where even the rowdiest city drunks sway by their doorsteps and Manhattan’s violence subsides.
Faint sunlight shimmers over these clunks of machinery as wind rustles their bodies. In an hour or so, these trains shall breathe wild life as businessmen, babysitters and crude boys selling candy amass in congestion: coughing, farting and spitting in miniscule metal pads, all of them rushing on miles of track underneath the gray streets and billows of smoke patterning New York, where even the faintest of dreams linger.
Across the subway yards is the Hudson, brown and muddied from the traffic of cargo ships. At this time, it hums with vacant ferryboats that tug in a manner which will forever belong to dawn.
How To Weather The Harvest In Five Simple Steps Hazel Regan
When the harvest falls upon us again, like cold water spilling over the edge of the bathroom sink, we’re just about anything but prepared You’re still out on the river, drifting on the inflatable raft, and I’m watching for tsunamis and missing the sunset. By the time we get back inside, it’s late and both of our rooms are a mess. We agree to wake up at dawn tomorrow and decide what kind of girls to be this autumn (We’re both going to sleep in, but it’s the thought that counts.) So, in an effort to preserve some of myself for next year, I’m making a list: “How To Weather The Harvest In Five Simple Steps ”
1. Put away the summer. The garage is usually locked, and for good reason, but now we’re checking every drawer for the key. It turns up between an old barbecue fundraiser flyer and my tattered copy of On Liberty. You deflate the raft and I collect a dustpan of this summer’s stray grains of sand, and we store them on the highest shelf to collect in the spring There’s no point in pretending that things will stay this easy, so we might as well forget that it ever was. It will serve as a lovely surprise when it returns
2. Stay professional.
The reaper came by the office the other day, towering over the little desk in a cloud of deathly smoke. We regretted informing him that he couldn’t really do anything until he’d filled out a building access form and gotten his event approved He left, embarrassed, and forgot his scythe by the mini fridge, so he’ll be back, which will be awkward It’s also very important to sign every email with just one letter off in your name, so nobody has any claim to you Michael from the local advertising firm has someone else’s soul, not mine And remember that your mind is a type of currency too, and nobody deserves to dull it down or use it for themselves. Not for any amount of money.
3 Prove yourself wrong
Now it gets dark so early that sometimes by 8 p.m. I feel like there’s nothing left, like we’re just a corner floating in space
But a few weeks ago, I walked my friends home at the witching hour and practically half of campus was stumbling back to their rooms, murmuring low. Under a streetlight, Katie told us about how she’d cried at the ledge hours earlier, watching the sun melt into the mountains so beautifully You and I are going to climb up there someday. We’ll look down here at our present and future, shrouded in the illusion of blue I wonder what we’ll learn, what more we’ve been wrong about It constantly takes me by surprise. There was that night that the aurora blew in and everyone on this side of the Hudson ran outside, shrieking and taking pictures, and I felt like I could cry at the colors above me We couldn’t stop repeating ourselves, unbelievable and beautiful and insane I didn’t know that nighttime could look so different.
4 Ask for company
We need to remember where we are again, what we’re doing it’s the season of gathering, after all You and I have been sowing for our whole lives, so why don’t we just sit together for a second? We’ll watch the light fade like it’s our trophy, like we earned this descent. When I’m lying in my bed, I can almost hear the buzzing of the white fluorescent bulbs in the hallway It’s a steady 3 a m out there, equal parts lonely and welcoming So I’ve decided I’m rolling out my contraband welcome mat and taking the door off the hinges and calling out come in, up and down the hallway, and suddenly the room is full and friendly. You must be getting tired of how I keep telling you I didn’t know things could work out like this.
5. Keep looking.
But there was something else, something that everyone missed. The night before the aurora, we’d heard rumors that it would be visible here, so we bundled up and went outside at 11 p.m. And do you know what we saw?
Nothing And one hundred thousand stars, shimmering, multiplying and blinking down at us like eyes We got dizzy from looking up and bumped into each other In the farthest, darkest corner of the soccer field, Sophia quietly named the planets and constellations, and there were words to say, but I didn’t know what they were We were still in awe when we got back to our hallway. And maybe this is the thing: nothing but black and white on any given night, and it’s always magnificent. We just have to remember to tilt our heads and look upwards
Don't you dare look at me that way, with your blue waves cascading as the riptide pulls me in I begin to lose control because you’re like an ocean I could drown in and I slowly begin to feel myself sinking.
Eventually I’ll give in to the thought-filled nights, for I’m not strong enough beneath the full moon’s light and the tide beckons, tempting me, and I know in my heart that there’ll be no coming back from you.
Replenish Me
Peyton Waszkiewicz
Replenish my soul
Fill up my empty cup
For it has been drained
Down to the last drop
Replenish my soul
Fill it with lovely tunes
Guitar strumming gently
Vocalizing the muse
Replenish my soul
With hours of writing
Sat at my desk
Typing away my fantasies
Replenish my soul
With foods that fill me up
Fruits and veggies to make me clean
A harvest of foods plenty for me
Replenish my soul
With people other than you
For I have friends and family
Who want to be with me, my crew
Replenish my soul
It's a harvest of joy
The creation of art
The fulfillment of a new life
You Can’t Go Luca Aiello
You return home You return home season away and season away and has been blockaded by has been blockaded by construction. Billows of smoke construction. Billows of smoke and fog hang over the fields and fog hang over the fields you once loved and dreamed in you once loved and dreamed in as mounds of crushed pavement as mounds of crushed pavement swallow up sentimental street swallow up sentimental street corners and alleyways. When corners and alleyways. When walking through this land of walking through this land of shattered memories, you feel shattered memories, you feel eager to pick up the pieces, to eager to pick up the pieces, to reminisce with old friends over reminisce with old friends over old times, but you find that such old times, but you find that such friends are now sucked in by new friends are now sucked in by new stages of life you missed out stages of life you missed out on. New faces swarm over you, on. New faces swarm over you, ignorant of your past and ignorant of your past and
significance. Barbers, dry cleaners and newspapermen no longer recognize you. Familiar delis and stores have long left while you were away. You race around your neighborhood, asking for directions to places you once memorized. The heat you once could stand is now d pulsing nzy. You ou want y home, ould look ad, as if f bones.
Scythe Peyton Waszkiewcz
You are my scythe
Tall and shiny
Sickled and sharp
Ready to end my life
Cutting into me when the time is right
Your beautiful blade
Cold against my neck
Whilst I’m weak on my knees
The dewy grass wetting my jeans
Encouraging me to speak
The spine holding it up
Gripping at the middle
You ask me for my words
Looking me straight in the eyes
That I’ll say with my final breath
And I’ll reply
I regret not being with you longer
Not being able to experience every inch of you
Everycurveofyourbody
Everythoughtinyourmind
EverymomentIcouldgrasp
I’llgravelatyourfeet
Clawingupyourlegs
Beggingfortime
Justalittlemore
Thechurchbellswillring
Andyou’lllookatmewithpitifuleyes
Seeingthegirl,ashellofwhatsheusedtobe
Withafinalsharpinhale
You’llswingyourscythe
Silverandglisteninginthemidnightmoonlight
Thecrowswillcawandtheleaveswillfall
Wingsrushingwiththeforce
Toreturntoitssnugplaceinthecrookofmyneck
Rippingmeawayfromthisworld.
