The leaves are changing, Dartmouth — welcome to week 4.
On Monday morning, I arrived, as usual, a little early to my English class. I like to pick out a good seat in a class full of freshmen (sorry, ’28s), and I enjoy chatting with my beloved English professor, Carolyn Dever, before class. This week, though, she called me aside with a look of concern. Having also lived in central Florida, she recognized that my hometown was in the throes of hurricane season.
“Is your family alright with Hurricane Milton coming?” she asked me.
Honestly, I was taken aback. The truth was my mom had just returned home from visiting me on campus, and I knew that my dad and grandparents were making preparations. But I didn’t know, and frustratingly can’t know, what the outcome of this increasingly severe hurricane will be.
As any Dartmouth student from hurricane-prone areas may attest, one of the worst parts of watching from afar is the feeling of uncertainty that arises when your family loses power and you’re unable to contact them. Those hours of unanswered texts can be unbearable.
My family lives far enough inland that I’m fairly certain they’ll be alright. Even so, I’ll be worrying nonstop as Milton runs its course. But this nail-biting anxiety is just one instance of the uncertainty we’re constantly facing as Dartmouth throws us out of the nest.
This might be a particularly heinous comparison, but I’m still unsure exactly what kind of job I’ll be working after graduation, or where I’ll end up living. I haven’t even made a firm decision on the exact angle for a thesis that I’m actively writing.
Senior year feels especially wobbly, as the vacuum of post-Dartmouth life rapidly approaches. Then again, the college experience is rife with uncertainty as we all chart our paths forward. We’re all in Dartmouth’s bizarre nexus of growth and change, caught somewhere between child and fully-fledged adult.
It’s akin to taking my mom this past weekend to Han Fusion to split a Scorpion bowl and later binge-eating the cider donuts she brought me. It feels like commuting to Boston once a week to work a quasi-adult job and then locking myself out of my aunt and uncle’s apartment at 11 p.m. It looks like hanging up a beautiful piece of art from the Hood in my room and still being unsure whether or not I might be lactose intolerant.
Maybe that got a little too serious. But all of it is to say that hurricane season has attuned me to this strange period of transition — one where I spend an unhealthy amount of time on LinkedIn, grasping at adulthood. Part of me is still back in Florida, worried about the people and places of my childhood. As the storm clears, though, we’ll all take our first steps forward, slowly but surely.
This week in Mirror, we’re similarly navigating places on and off campus. One writer gets deep into the archives of Rauner Special Collections Library, and another writer documents students’ favorite running and biking trails in the Upper Valley. Another reporter talks to students about their urban summer experiences. Finally, as Dartmouth changes, one writer meditates on the month of September.
Fall is the season of transition — and while not all of it is comfortable, it’s certain that springtime will come. In the meantime, we’ll all just have to take it one assignment, one job application or one severe weather alert at a time.
Push forward, Mirror, and we’ll see you next week.
