Italian plums, a hole forming in my favorite pair of Levi’s jeans, Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” Anthropologie candles, emails that begin with “Thank you for your interest” and end in disappointment, contact-safe eye drops, a warm Pacifico on a Thursday, Imogen Heap’s “Headlock” blasting through my Sony headphones as I do my skin care routine. The first fragments of my senior year.
But after six weeks, all I’m left with is a mountain of plum pits, some additions to my trash folder, and a few empty beer cans. A scattered boneyard of nothing. I have no gold star impressive midterm grade to tout or a new dramatic event to pick-apart with my friends. Nothing to write home about.
What do you talk about in your editor’s note when the sum of the past few weeks feels like it equates to less than zero? Sorry for all the existentialism. It’s just senior year, after all.
But through the cracks of all this meaningless nothing, something at least tries to break through. Old friends on my new leather couch. A cold splash in the Connecticut River. Wikipedia rabbit holes at 3 p.m. A wrong turn on the way to the Co-Op, a route I should well know by now. Reading theory I don’t really understand. And then reading it again and again and again.
Our lives are made up of these moments of nothing, though we often forget to embrace the infinity within the unremarkable.
This week in Mirror, two writers explore outposts of Dartmouth's culture — Moosilauke Ravine Lodge and Upper Valley farms. We also get a glimpse into students who have dealt with distance, in the form of both long distance relationships and working abroad. Another writer investigates where freshmen are spending their time during the construction of the historic Fayerweather dormitories and Collis porch. Finally, we end on a spotlight of Dartmouth’s Tuck Business Bridge Program, which offers a three-week financial curriculum to undergraduates.
See you next week, with more of the same nothing!
