no. 20: small tugs 🌱
last first days of school
Hi friends,
Hello from ‘I wish we were back here!!!’. In this newsletter, we talk about a hard-to-describe nostalgia, familiar faces, and being seniors in college.
Recently, we feel like our brains have been on Power Saving mode – they seem to sense that school awaits. However, we’re excited to be ~intellectual~ again. Part of our newsletter motto is “learning for the love of it”: now is our chance to live up to it.
A List of Things We Miss About School We Didn’t Think We’d Miss:
Walking to class together, through rain and snow, with our flimsy CVS umbrellas
Saving seats for friends using loose articles of clothing
The sound of packing that starts 10 minutes before class ends
Having a burning question to ask your professor
Dressing up cute for 9 AMs
N:
The Other Path
I’ve been thinking that one of the strangest things about being a senior is recognizing that after you graduate, no one will ever belong to the same pocket of structured ‘stage in life’ ever again. Everyone in college collectively identifies with being within that same bubble; mapping out individual paths within the same boundaries. But when you leave, even that vague similarity disappears. I imagine when you leave you feel the change starkly within you – like getting off the train alone at a new station and seeing it pull away. You are the same you, but also a different and more solo you.
In the spirit of senior year, I’ve been reminiscing on all the wonderful memories created through these past 3 years, without discounting all the times I’ve wondered if I should have put myself out there more or if I should be having a different college experience.
Everyone feels this, I’m sure you’ve felt this: a fear of missing out on an alternate version of yourself. The way I see it is that when you choose one path, you will always wonder what the other route looks like. Maybe you imagine it comes with fewer hills and rocks, more flowers, a cooler breeze, a better view. But even then you’d probably wonder what the *other* path was like all the same.
The imaginary is always infinitely more vivid that the known. So we cannot measure our experiences against ones that never could exist. The only calibration that truly counts is the relationships you will carry with you. With that sentiment, here are some of my favorite college moments:
Scoring free tickets to Two Door Cinema Club: heart-pounding, full of fervor and joy, dancing for hours
A late night empty movie theatre run with friends in PJs
Schuylkill sunset walks
The exhilaration of rooftop dancing with (too much) spiked seltzer
Refusing to uber back from Trader Joes and laughing at our aching arms all the way home
Running across Penn Park in bathroom slides
Coming home to the sound of my roommates dancing and singing in the kitchen (how warm my heart gets)
Here’s to another year :)
J:
on firsts and lasts
Growing up, I felt like there were two kinds of students: ones who couldn’t wait for the school year to start, and ones who have already begun the countdown to summer break. Maybe this is a completely false dichotomy. Maybe I’ve just deluded myself into thinking that there are others like me who actually look forward to the first day of class with the same kind of giddy anticipation. Regardless, I am a proud member of the former camp.
There’s something about the first day of school that fascinates me. It is at once novel and familiar. I know that Future Nostalgia is the name of Dua Lipa’s latest album, but I almost wish I had thought of this phrase myself; it’s the way I would describe the feeling of a new school year. September smells like shiny textbooks and new boxes of pencils, but also feels like embracing old friends. It sounds like another paradox, but even the kinds of uncertainty feel familiar. Each year, the same questions: what should I say for my introduction? Why can I never remember a fun fact about myself? At what point in the semester will I stop keeping up with the readings?
The thing about this last first day of school is that it seemed to be lacking in both: both the promise of a fresh start, and the chance to revel in the sentimentality of our student-hood. It hit the perfect balance between known and unknown that I didn’t want: the suffocating sameness of being in my bedroom all day, and the uncomfortable position of not knowing how to spend the rest of my time. It was the first time I didn’t stay up late the night before, checking (and re-checking) if I had forgotten to put something in my backpack; the first time I didn’t get lost on the way to a new class. All the normal quirks of the first day back are missing, and suddenly it starts to feel like just another regular day. I know that this Last First Day especially - the symbol that your final year of college is finally here - is supposed to be significant, but it felt so for all the wrong reasons.
I keep coming back to something my dad said this morning. I called him during my lunch break, itching to explain to someone my mild horror towards all of it. The unceremonious belly-flop into what is supposedly the highlight of your college career. While it may be my last first day of school, my dad reminded me of all the firsts that are yet to come: my first day of work, my first real apartment; I cut him off when he started talking about marriage stuff (I feel squeamish thinking that far ahead into the future). But point being - there is a world of Firsts we have yet to experience.
I know I tend to resist my dad’s advice, but he’s right. When so much of my sense of self is tied to my identity as a student, realizing that this part of life is coming to a close can feel like a form of loss - and it’s okay that it does. I loved every new First that college has brought me: solo flights and lifelong friends; my first snow day; my first time away from home. As I write this, I’ll let myself linger in the nostalgia of it all. But they are as much tokens of the past as they are valuable reminders of what the rest of life can, and will look like.
N:
A Random French Song
Oui Ou Non, the tune makes me wanna vibe even though I don’t speak French (though I’ve always wanted to learn!)
J:
Very Original Stuff: I made a WFH playlist.
Back in May, I started a WFH playlist that when listened to with eyes shut, could *almost* convince me I was back in a real-life cafe. Though no one knows when all of this manifesting will finally pay off, at least I have another playlist that can help me deal with the very real present.
Billie Eilish’s Tiny Desk @ Home Concert
Love her, love FINNEAS, and really love their cardboard cutout of the Tiny Desk studio.
N:
A piece of art I found on the internet (artist unknown)
J:
some familiar faces
The first time you see a friend after a long summer break is always a special moment for me; here are some of those reunions.
N:
“Most of the time the universe speaks to us very quietly: In pockets of silence; In coincidences; In nature; In forgotten memories; In the shape of clouds; In moments of solitude; In small tugs at our hearts”— Yumi Sakugawa
J:
“I could feel the gravitational pull of home, which when I’m home too long becomes the gravitational pull of somewhere else.” — Patti Smith, Year of the Monkey
N:
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
I finally got around to watching this beautiful and captivating film titled ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’. It is about a young painter commissioned to paint a wedding portrait for a young lady. However, the lady doesn’t want to get married and thus refuses to pose for a painting. The painter pretends to be her companion and friend, glancing at her and taking in her features, and finally painting in secret.
J:
Things I Saved This Week:
This article about figs from the New Yorker, through which I learned that a fig is really just a ball of inverted flowers and mummified wasps. (But still - happy fig season!)
This Cancer zodiac bingo, of which 18 are extremely on the dot
This quote from The Office, which happens to be the final line of the show: “There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things...isn’t that kind of the point?” (Beasley!)
This Giorgio Morandi painting that doubles as home decor inspiration
This recipe for pad see ew, which I will be attempting this week. Wish me luck.
Many, many syllabi
Hugs,
J & N