Albany Road Deerfield Academy’s Literary & Art Magazine
Cover photo by Harbor Woodward
ALBANY ROAD DEERFIELD ACADEMY’S LITERARY & ART MAGAZINE Volume 51 Issue 1
L E TTE R FROM THE EDI TO R “Come closer. Come into this. Come closer.” When my ninth-grade ears heard these words—the first two lines of Anis Mojgani’s slam poem “Closer”—for the first time, I fell in love with poetry. In the Hess Auditorium, Mojgani delivered these words as if they were part of him; the beat of his heart rushed into the rhythm. And it was beautiful. While there is much to admire in the works of renowned poets like Mojgani, there is also tremendous talent to commend on this very campus. Much of that talent, however, goes unseen because we are too often too far away to notice. Our minds and schedules are full with schoolwork, applications, and even adjusting to new environments. Caught up in our own lives, we easily exchange swift greetings along Albany Road, but it’s much harder to get to know one another. Are we really coming into this? This is where Albany Road, the magazine, comes in. Here, we celebrate the creative work of students while striving to evoke in our readers a keener sense of empathy and perspective. The contents of this magazine will serve as an overdue extension of that fleeting “Hello” exchanged with a schoolmate on Albany Road. Here, the raw, unapologetic truths of your peers yearn to be heard. Listen closely and hear the multitude of heartbeats that pulse through these pages. From pieces exploring the innocence of childhood to examining modern-day issues, here lie students’ distinct histories, their most intimate obsessions, their greatest loves, and their innermost reflections—the world through each of their eyes. Their art is a part of them. The last stanza of Mojgani’s poem reads, “There is a doorknob glowing like chance. Clutch it. Turn and pull. Step through. Chin up. Back straight. Eyes open. Hearts loud. Walk through this with me. Walk through this with me.” Turn this page like it is that glowing doorknob, and step into the minds, hearts, and souls of fellow Deerfield students. “Come into this, come closer,” and enjoy what you find. Yours, KNR
TABLE OF CONT E NT S 06
6 Months of 17 Katie Whalen
21 Chaos Claire Zhang
07
Little Red Harbour Woodward
22 Untitled Janis Chen
08
Black Book: The History of You and I Uwa Ede-Osifo
23 Geisha Christina Li
10
Paper Lanterns in Paper Towns 26 A Scene in Spring Mina Liang Amelia Chen
11
To Ask Meaning to 27 Define Itself Maya Hart
13 Blind Julian O’Donnell 14 On Love, On Innocence, On Leaving Sydney Bebon
25
28
30 Uncharted Depths, Uncharted Heights Sam Laur 32 16 Untitled John Chung 33 17 Fall Uwa Ede-Osifo 35
19 Mormon Hollow Brook Exposure Sam Laur 20 Raleigh Amelia Chen
Nature’s Basket Talia Rajasekar 42°36’37.2”N, 72°33’30.4”W Charles Shearon
29 Bones Claire Zhang
15
18 Untitled Hannah Kang
Technicolor Beat Maya Rajan
Chapter One: Lightbringer Maya Laur Untitled Claire Zhang Remember Me Sydney Bebon
Self-Reflection Mina Liang
36
7 Boyden Lane Nikita Pelletier
37 Alone Fernanda Ponce
38
Bread of My Childhood Maya Laur
40
Girl of Ghouls Lucy Blake
41
Untitled Colman Shea
43
Watering Can Nikita Pelletier
44
Moths Destroy Lilley Salmon
45
Mural Samar Cummings
46
City Blur Harbour Woodward
48
In the Black Night Helen Mak
49
Pale Blue Dot Misha Fang
6 MON T HS O F 1 7 Katie Whalen
Being seventeen, to me, is staring in bed at the poorly arranged, glow-in-the-dark stars faintly remaining on the ceiling and avoiding my parents when I run into them in the cereal aisle of the grocery store. It’s turning my music up as I pull into the driveway, so that it wakes up someone in my house. It’s walking through the door and remembering to turn off the garage lights, and wandering up to a room that feels smaller than it did when I stuck the stars above my bed years ago. The light of the blurry golden configuration now irritates me each night as I fall asleep. They have faded after glowing all these years, in an untouched, dark room for months at a time; while I have been away, similarly subsiding in sanguinity. Being seventeen, to me, is complaining that the faint glow of my childhood masterpiece, the eleven stars arranged into the little dipper, is the reason I lay awake at night, while simultaneously experiencing a stinging sensation of horror, at the suggestion that I should take them down.
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LI TTLE RED Harbour Woodward
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BLAC K B O O K : TH E H I S T O RY OF YOU AN D I Uwa Ede-Osifo Here lays my Encyclopedia Africana. Written inside are all the things, that could not fit in yours. Masks, frozen in time. The carvings of lips upturned with the echoes Of drumming and dancing in a lost village, Torn by your colonization and deceit. The drums no longer play. Brought to a foreign country Where their syllables were twisted The vibrant tribal robes With its natural green, blue, red dyes Faded into shadows of black and white suits and collars, that hang on their skeletal frames. Their pictures are in my book. The sound of the Buffalo Soldiers, Fighting for survival. Their dark skin and long locks, Disguise drooping eyes and wrinkled foreheads. Tired, not of fighting but of hiding. Your hand reaches out in the dark, Looking to be saved and they respond. But, once the sun rises you see the melanin on their skin And abruptly release. Freedom, you say! Independence, you say! They trail behind, the forgotten bones Of your new independent body.
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You put a barrier between yourself and them. Separate, but equal you say! They see no equality in the invisible chains, They are a modern day Sisyphus, Carrying the boulder that their race is Up the mountain to the very top. They can almost see the beautiful landscape and Drop! The riots are A sea of black and blue, not only because of the bruises on your skin. And with every day that passes Yours and my Encyclopedia Africana grows. Black ink depicting the histories Of my ancestors. Black ink waiting to be drawn, To record the stories that you won’t tell.
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PA PE R LANTERNS I N PA PE R T OWNS Mina Liang
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TO A SK M E A N I NG TO DE FI NE ITSEL F Maya Hart I am writing poetry about you. In the equation for x + y = all things bigger than ourselves, all variables will cancel completely after much careful calculation. Human nature is the only constant. My mother said my curiosity would kill a whole glaring of cats. I wondered why. The lock of hair fell onto her sharp shoulder from the tight bun that held it back atop her head. It fell and curled and I thought it happened slowly and felt inspired. That is my Christmas. I am listening to synthetic rain hoping to produce authenticity. Might that work or would the x + y cancel each other out and what = z would be too many words on a page that taint the untouched white it was before. Potential for someone else to give birth to genius and I just took the delivery room. No solution. Rain is also my Christmas. Exactitude is so ambiguous. I hope that didn’t frustrate you because sometimes it does that to me. How could someone ever say, “Don’t think too hard.” As if that is good advice. As if we shouldn’t. As if the lights are on and there is a switch to turn them temporarily off before they run out themselves. No. That thought can only dim them in an irreversible, irrevocable way. Why do those two words exist to kill more trees when they both mean the same. They are not an x + y they are a 2x = y. They still cancel out and the calculation is carved in stone. There must be a point. I hate math. My mind does not work in the ways it requires. So why can I only think of the most abstract questions formulaically. There must be a slope that is not undefined. A change in x over a change in y across time and through all else must equate to something more tangible than my current little headache. This is not a feel-good read. I hope you are okay with that. God is z, but in Mumbai is w, and at Mecca is v, and in the Deep South is z + b. But I’d like to think that z = w = v = z + b. So mustn’t b = 0? Let that settle, but not for too long. Or else maybe then there will be a war. World War III is World War Z.
I asked meaning to define itself. The cliché would have been you. The witty answer would have satisfied me but would not have been true. Instead it said, “I don’t know,” and I was left unsatisfied and told to be okay with that fact. I was told to not scratch the itch. Another line of impossible advice that is dotted and broken and that I cannot follow.
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Words are a container that create barriers as much as bridges, with six thousand nine hundred and nine languages, and the ironic miscommunication they inevitably cause. The equation has an explicit question and an implicit answer, even if that still remains as no solution. I am writing poetry about you. But you are never allowed to know. Z may be tangible. But for you, it would be too much to live with. Your laugh holds the universe together.
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BLIND
Julian O’Donnell
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ON L OV E , O N I NNO C E NC E , ON L EAVIN G Sydney Bebon On Love My mother told me smoking rots away your insides like rain does to cardboard or air does to living things. She told me not to fool around with boys. She was once a fool. I told her not to fool around with boys, but I too am a fool. I like the way my stomach spits back the nicotine like a witty retort, burn.
On Innocence You Know Who You Are, I never said you could borrow my t-shirt. So, I guess that’s stealing, right? Well anyway, you stained it with ketchup or something and pulled the seam - probably because it it didn’t fit you - probably because it wasn’t yours. Turns out whatever red stuff you got on it is permanent, and when I tried to mend the seam it didn’t look the same. I can’t wash your smell out of it. Every time I wear it all I think about is you. I don’t know how to make it mine again. I would give it back, but I know once certain things are used people don’t want them anymore. Sincerely, The Robbed
On Leaving Protected by knights of silver and horses riding the mountains woven by white cloth napkins, a slab of wood stands between our cold fingers. Breaths are merely circulating air. Questions are left like food uneaten. You weren’t hungry. So, the cacophony of melancholy chatter saved your lingering scent between their teeth.
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UNCHARTED DEPTHS, UNCHARTED HEIGHTS Sam Laur
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UNTITLED John Chung
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FA L L Uwa Ede-Osifo In the fall, the world started caving in. With words dancing off censored pages And bright screens, Slipping into my ears Trapped by the wax, Controlling my every movement With a flick of a letter, Approved by the puppet master, The world started caving in. When the bullets started flying, Piercing already wounded skin, Skin belonging to bodies that could not breathe, Suffocated in a world that just won’t stop caving in Until there was but an atom the building block of our lives. But this time, With the world caving in and Not just the leaves falling but The trees falling And the words still dancing And the bullets still flying And the people still dying Until there was but just an atom A glimpse of the glory of man, When there were no strings on his back This time, I don’t think it will be able to rebuild anything.
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UNTITLED Hannah Kang
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MORMON HOLLOW BROOK EXPOSURE Sam Laur
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R A L E IGH Amelia Chen hey. where were you last night? the mirror finds red fault lines running down your neck. it’s not blood, you know that, there’s nowhere to find hurt in this town. only you can taste the dust in these green corners. where are the ghosts, the tears, the monsters, lurking? the shrubs know more than they tell. behind these white walls you wake with ash dissolving on your tongue. too many pillows. too soft. too cotton. like gauze applied to the lips of your soul. if not blood, what is it? you touch it. when you look at your hands, they’re covered not in scarlet, but soot.
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CHAOS Claire Zhang
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UNTITLED Janis Chen
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G E ISH A Christina Li Geisha: a Japanese hostess, trained to entertain men with conversation, dance, song. She is art. With a face of lucid white, coldly bitter touched with the tinges of chilling beauty; red lips, bloody and leaking love and passion; tied back hair, glowing a boldly black, she is perfection. A woman intricately ripened with a solid set of skills to entertain, a woman who never lets that plastered smile peel off her glowing visage: Art is she. Art is the way she slams the door, falls to the leather sofa with a resigned exhale of breath. Art is the way her eyes narrow, loving the way the white mask chips little by little, the way the dimples smooth away and her mouth falls back into its habitual grimace. It is the way her head of luscious hair is ripped off and thrown to the side, leaving behind a head of jaggedly-cut short hair that fall out of its confinements at last, never to be shown in public. It is the way her robe is pulled down frantically to her chest, where burns from the constant rubbing of harsh cloth against smooth skin lie out in the open. It is the way porcelain white jumps to battered drab in a blurred line swept across her shoulders so very carelessly, almost casually. Art is the way smoke unfurls from the tip of a glowing cigarette, singeing the putrid smell of bleach and perfume. Taking another slow, yet desperate drag from her cigarette, and behind the back of her eyelids, she still sees the old men handing her wads of money, eyeing her with heavy abandon. She shivers. Flakes of ash begin to fall from the tip of the cigarette, and land on her: another mark to count in the books, among the others that litter her body from the searing lashes of the kimono belt, whenever she could not master the river dance for the city men, because ‘they pay the best’; or whenever her defiantly long nails caught on the harp strings; or when any flame of rebellion burned in her cloudy eyes: the rebellion that had long burned out since she left home to train with her okasan , Geisha mother.
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No… if art was she, art would only be defiance, hatred; blazing slashes of black and red, relentlessly stabbing at the canvas with no will to stop, yet no will to continue: only fury. But often, the beauty of art burns out. Her eyes switch up to meet the same pair looking back in the dusted mirror, and in them she sees no more fire. She puts out her cigarette with a sigh and waits for the door to slam open once again, the signal for which she must hide her true self once again. Looking into her shadowy eyes, she waits, like every other time. This time is no different. Change is not her destiny. In her eyes, much like the cigarette, her flames are gone. And as far as she’s concerned, they were never there to begin with.
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TECHNICOLOR BEAT Maya Rajan
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A S CE N E IN S PRI NG Amelia Chen i. we are stuck on a bridge, around us, honking -- cars? geese? they fall silent when they see the flowers (wreaths catch more than you’d think). ii. it’s said that it’s bad luck for a hearse to stall. perhaps it was the heat. perhaps it was the weight. perhaps it was one of the flowers, swallowed by the sputtering engine, choking the way air clogged in your lungs. out here, congestion of bodies. out here, life shrieking past in streaks. out here, no blushing of spring. no pink. only crunching, metal scraping bare feet. iii. and around us the flower petals fall, carnations in carnelian, sending off dull kisses to the water. muddy. salt. lapping at the metal struts, dear.
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NATURE’ S BASK E T Talia Rajasekar
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42°36’37.2”N, 72°33’30.4”W Charles Shearon
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BONES Claire Zhang
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CHAPT E R O N E : L I GH TBR I NGER Maya Laur I wake at dawn. The early morning light spills over the tops of the mountains and into the valley, gently painting the rooftops in orange and pink. The straws on our hut glow a soft purple. Each blade of grass is dusted in gold. But in our cabin it is dark. I keep my eyelids shut tight for a few more moments, savoring the safety of the blueness in the cool, peaceful, morning. Then a whoosh of a match striking stone, a rush of flames and the room is ablaze with harsh light. My eyes fly open. My mother is bent over, holding a lantern close to my face. “Hurry.” Lev, my 13-year-old brother, sits on the bed lacing his boots. I stumble to the kitchen basin and splash water on my face, glancing at my reflection. My 11-year-old eyes stare out from their sockets, two whirlpools of innocence and pain. My hand goes up to my beardless chin. I sigh, running my fingers through my hair. Regardless of if I’m ready, the time has come to leave. All around the village lanterns flicker on as its inhabitants rise. Fathers pack prayer shawls and candlesticks into suitcases. Mothers pack infants into their arms and clothes onto their backs. I dress quickly throwing tsit-tsit over my shoulders, buttoning into coat after coat, placing my yamaka carefully on my head. I shrug on my nearly-empty knapsack and open the door quickly, as if the doorknob is 1000 degrees. I let it slam shut without looking back. Soon it will be some other boy’s bed, some other boy’s house. ---- My father places a hand on my shoulder as we walk. “It’s going to be different. Don’t put your faith in rumors, Aaron, America’s streets are not always paved in gold.” “But, think of the glory we’ll feel,” Lev adds. “Knowing that we are the ones who paved them.” “I want to lay down the foundation of my children’s dreams,” I say. “But, where will I find the stones to do so?” “I don’t know. But, we don’t have to know all the answers, Aaron. We’ll learn where to find them together.” Cold silence follows us. The smell of rising challah-dough lingers by the boarded up bakery. The ghost of laughter floats down the desolate river. We hesitate by the golden sunflower fields that we used to hide in; and the synagogue where we offered our souls to God. We weave through abandoned home after abandoned home, peering into empty living rooms and forgotten kitchens where Shabbos song once mingled with the aroma of roasting chickens and simmering matzo ball soup. By noon, we’ve reached the train tracks. A lattice of rusted rails and blackened planks runs out across the sun-kissed valley and cuts straight through the heart of the purple mountains. From all corners of the meadow, townspeople peel off their homes and join the train of immigrants that stretch into the midday sun. My father shifts his weight from foot to foot. I adjust the strap on my knapsack. Neither of us is ready to face what comes next. It’s my mother who turns to us first, her eyes steeled over, locking in the tears. She kisses both of us swiftly on the cheeks and shoves a tattered prayer book into my arms.
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“Make my grandchildren proud,” she whispers. Gingerly, my father kneels down and pulls me close to him for a minute. When he lets go, I can see his eyes are moistened. Sadness escapes from my heart. “You are Aaron,” he whispers fiercely. “‘The lightbringer. You are a promise of light in our future.” He drops a tin matchbox into my fist. “You will grow tired, you will be broken, you will get lost. But carry this power of light within you, and you are never alone. Strike a match and you can banish the darkness. Strike a match and you can light your way home.” Two days later we are at the shipyard. ---- Lev has gone to buy tickets. A steam engine blares its horn as it chugs into the harbor. Ocean spray spurts up from the ship’s bow, dampening the coats of the families packed onto the loading docks. Infants blubber in children’s arms. Street vendors call out to hurried-looking passers by. People dressed in fur coats and jeweled hats wave tickets in the air. Chickens scamper in between legs. The smell of cow manure and garbage mixes with the salt spray. I close my eyes replaying our goodbye to our parents in my head, stepping from plank to plank on the train tracks, eyes turned down, terrified to glance back. A hand falls on my shoulder: Lev’s. I reach up and squeeze it tightly. “What?” His laugh is nervous. “Did you think I would leave you?” “You’re my only family now, Lev. Stay close.” I look at his hands. “Where are our tickets?” “Listen. His voice turns to steel.” There’s a steamer that leaves in one hour, headed West for America.” I look up. A ship piled with mountains of wheat looms above us in the harbor. “We’ll wait till the guard is gone, then we’ll sneak aboard and hide in the wheat. Once the ship sails, no one will ever tell us apart from the paying passengers At dusk the guard leaves his station. “Now Aaron!” We sprint across the gravel, onto the docks, and up the rampway to the towering steamer. “You first.” Lev helps me up the ladder that climbs toward the deck of the ship. Footsteps. I spot the guard returning to his post. “The Guard!” Lev scampers down the latter. I dive into the wheat. Seed puffs scatter everywhere. I nail my eyes shut. Dread courses through my veins. Every cell in my body yearns to be back in my home just north of Odessa. To run down the hill as the sun casts evening shadows over the valley. To hear the ancient Hebrew melodies drift over the mountains. To see the wrinkles of my father’s face etched in a smile as he waits at the door to greet me. With the power of light, you are never alone. The blaring of a horn shatters my memories. My eyes fly open. I look down to see water churning past. The ship has left the harbor. I reach out frantically for Lev but my fingers grapple at cold empty space. Tears well in my throat. Panic pumps in my blood. So fast, I almost don’t notice the sharp pain of a metal corner jutting into my hand. Slowly, I uncurl my fist and look down. In my palm is a matchbox.
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UNTITLED Claire Zhang
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RE ME M B E R M E Sydney Bebon Remember me? I used to stare out the window out the window And into you And all your lights Stared back at me I used to stand naked in the window Because I knew you knew me But you didn’t know who I was Not really Maybe if you saw me walking On the street You’d recognize me But all you’d do is wave For you wouldn’t know my name So I stood in the window And let your lights strip me Strip rip grip me Of the darkness That called me by name But know me Know me And taste The still air settling On my skin
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So show me Show me And feel The fire burn the brand of sin You didn’t think it’d scar Did you? I used to stand in the window And know that if I lept out that window If I fell Smack smack Broken back Into the black Back on pavement Into the pavement black That you would see me Body untact And watch me out the window And it wouldn’t matter if you knew my name. But scars Burn black Tick tack Onto my skin I remember you.
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SELF REFLECTION Mina Liang
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7 BOYDEN LANE Nikita Pelletier
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ALONE
Fernanda Ponce
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BREA D O F M Y C H I L DH O O D Maya Laur On Fridays my mother would open a can of yeast, watch as particles rose and mingled with the Hebrew music in the air, Then closer her eyes slowly, drinking in the sweet smell of the rising Shabbat dough, And ask me if I wanted to help braid the Challah. Naturally, I was quick to answer: “Yes mama!” “And why do you want to help?” she would ask, her gase falling onto my shining face. “Because I’m growing up!” I would say proudly, Eager as I was to do the grownup tasks. To dust the table evenly with flour, To scrub the dirt out of every crease of my palms - all by myself, To knead youth into the dough with patient hands, And to pratice my very own braid. To paint egg-yolk onto the loaves with even strokes, To gently sprinkle the brown-surface with poppy seeds, To watch with young eyes as my mother placed the bread into the golden oven, And then open the door often to see if the loaves were done, as if peeking into the stove would will them to rise faster. Only now do I wish I had savored the prolonged minutes that drifted by lazily on the clock Because there was no rush for the bread to be finished No need for the 8pm prayer service to arrive. All too soon the minutes accelerated into years. The clock stopped being friend of the present. I began to wash up faster before Shabbat dinners.
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thinking of all the tasks my hands had yet to complete as time slipped through my fingers like water from a faucet. My life became braided with requirements, deadlines, and expectations. Rapidly and definitely my answer changed to No. “I’m too busy.” “Too tired.” “Too focused.” “On something else.” “I’m somewhere else.” But, tonight I return home After a year off at school At a place that is a life away from the smell of kneaded bread and rising dough, a place where children play make-believe grownups as we try - to quickly - to learn all the recipes for success, and where sometimes we miss the days when we were just beginning to dust the flour across the baking counter and that was okay. On this Friday evening, I can step back into childhood. Where the smells of yeast and baking bread are still warm in the kitchen. And, when I see my mother, I know what she will ask. “Will you help me braid the challah?” “Yes, Mama.” I will say. “Yes.” “Why?” she will ask me, her gaze now level with my eyes. And as I see that the clock on the kitchen wall reads 7:59 and look at the half-baked dough rising gently in the oven I will tell her: “Because, Mom, I’m growing up too fast.”
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GIRL OF GHOULS Lucy Blake
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MURA L Samara Cummings The brightly painted murals of elderly Latinos playing checkers pans through my vision as I run to grab breakfast. Once again I am late. The thick rubber soles of my Dr. Marten boots slap the cracked concrete speckled with black gum stains and I quickly turn the corner. Then I dash into Moe’s Deli, where Moe, seated peacefully at the front desk, reads the AM paper. I yell to his son in the back, guarded by the display case of assorted meats and cheeses, “A plain bagel toasted with cream cheese please!” Moe, finally puts the newspaper down. He looks me in the eye, delighted to see me dressed in my starched Peter Pan collared shirt, navy blue tie and skirt, ready to learn. He asks me about how school’s going. I say that it is fine while I fiddle with the power button of my iPhone, hoping that somehow checking the time constantly would make the numbers move any faster. The blaring music of Tito Puente, playing from a car radio makes me anxious because it reminds me that I will be late for music class. I look at Moe, who has gone back to reading the paper. As his eyes hop from one line to the next, he whispers, “Allah.” Everyday hundreds of people walk into his deli, that is neatly embellished with Twinkies and potato chips, has a freezer with Haagen- Dazs ice cream and a display refrigerator, containing bottled drinks. Chaos is common in this cramped deli, no wider than the span of Moe’s arms as shown by the old black and white picture pasted on the wall behind him. A community of communities commute into the upper East side of New York City come to Moe’s to buy their breakfast and snacks or to deliver more bagels, Boar’s Head ham, and his lamb’s meat. And yet Moe remains adamant about reading the newspaper at his desk, cluttered with containers of the candy he sells. When I put my bagel on his desk, a sign that I am ready to pay, he does not acknowledge me. So I grab the crisp dollar from my pocket that my mother planted in my hand this morning as I got off the 6 train at 110 th street. His peripheral vision is sickly engaged in what he is reading. As my gaze falls upon his eyes, fixated on the paper, lips trembling at what he is reading, he quiets the ambient noise of a city into a distant hum that whistles through one ear and out the next. He slows down time like a man in the mural.
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MOTHS DESTROY Lilley Salmon
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WATERING CAN Nikita Pelletier
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UNTI T LE D Colman Shea 9/6/14 100 Fulton Street, #5L Boston, MA 02109 Dear future Colman, I come from a city mainly dominated by Irish blood: Boston. It is one of, if not, the most historical city in the United States. The greater Boston area was the battleground of many conflicts in the Revolutionary War. We’ve come a long way from riding horses through the night to communicate to having my own personal computer here at Deerfield Academy. This school is such a blessing and thanking the soldiers since the 18th century to the present day is very important to me. Sometimes I ask myself if I’m a bad person for taking advantage of their fight through lethal situations everyday just to keep me safe. Getting accepted to Deerfield made my parents plenty proud, but I know my work isn’t over; it doesn’t end there. This year I will try to reach academic excellence, thrive on the basketball court and baseball field, and bring back many stories of good times with friends. I’m also going to try being preppy. It seems like it’s trending here at Deerfield, quite on the contrary to Boston’s seafaring jeans and a white t. I also could never be preppy at home; I’d be put in my place so fast my shirt wouldn’t say Vineyard Vines anymore. Now that I’m in high school, I think of this as a clean slate and a chance to start over. The only way I can make my parents’ compassion and perseverance go to good use is if I reach success here at Deerfield. This is my hope for this year and this is my chance to pull through. Anything I do up here I’m doing with my parents, the most significant people in my life that deserve to be here much more than I do. Be grateful for where you came from future Colman, Present day Colman
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10/6/17 100 Fulton Street #5L Boston, MA 02109 Dear Past Colman, You’ve done good. You’ve figured this place out. The valley is one of, if not, the most shaping places in your adolescent years. You haven’t taken the beauty of this place for granted because you know it’s so much more attractive than any view any set of corner office windows can offer. You’ve come a long way from playing the CPU in NHL’14 (you dropped that habit during your junior year.) You’ve received blessings in the form of friends, teachers, and anyone who has helped you along the way. However, you’ve become worthy of such blessing and have balanced them with high expectations for your future. You’ve learned to do so without losing yourself in the process because you know after you graduate, all you have left is yourself, and if you’re happy with who you’ve become, you’ve done it right. Getting accepted to a college will make our parents plenty proud; that’s all I can think about right now. Thankfully, you’ve checked all the boxes you could have along the way. You’ve reached academic excellence, thrived on the basketball court and baseball field, and have told, written, and been a part of countless stories with friends. However, I can’t lie down in my bed and tell you it was all perfect Grilled CCs and Cinnabuns for three years. You dropped a Cinnabun one time during your sophomore year, a full Cinnabun just outside the entrance of the Koch. You, along with a multitude of junior girls, watched it fall off your plate and hit the ground, and you didn’t even give it a second look. You just left. You suffered low blows, you failed, you threw a bad pass, you struck out in the bottom of the seventh, and you’ve spent some of your longest Deerfield hours in the Garonzik on Friday nights. But you’ve only learned from those mistakes, and you’ve certainly learned from others’ mistakes. That’s only made you more ready for what’s next. And you are ready, no doubt. Now that you’re ready, it’s scary to think that you can’t dirty up that clean slate anymore. That clean slate you told yourself you had freshman year is disgusting, beautiful, full, and any other adjective besides clean and fresh. Throughout your time here, you’ve kept your family as close to you as you want. During junior year, you had the privilege to welcome your younger brother, Francis. You taught him everything you knew; yet you know he’ll learn more and experience the lows and highs in his own way. You know he’ll be fine. You didn’t forget about Big Pete either; you called him today for his 14th birthday. You know Francis has him. I’m proud of you past Colman, Present day Colman
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