In Between New Mexico and Swarthmore

Sierra Mondragón with a cow she met while running on a New Mexico mesa. Photo: Sierra Mondragón

I do my homework at the kitchen table now. The sounds of my dad watching some alien movie and my mom chattering on the phone while I’m trying to wrap my brain around a Foucault reading make me feel like I’m back in high school. My college workspace used to revolve around Swarthmore College’s Science Center and Cornell Library. Now I’m at the large table in the middle of our home, the center of family commotion. A pillow on the floor and a precarious stack of YA chapter books, balancing my laptop, have become my classroom. Another stack piled against the door keeps my cats from barging in.

First plan of action for Fall 2020: get an actual chair for online classes, because my butt can’t take much more of sitting on a brick floor for three-hour seminars. 

I repainted my room. I covered the horrendously bright green of my walls with a soft blue, hoping to put some distance between 21-year-old Sierra and 16-year-old Sierra. When I’m at Swarthmore, I’m perpetually homesick for my family, and New Mexico, and our small adobe house nestled into the desert hills. My connection to home and the land of New Mexico will always be taut, but lately I can feel myself outgrowing everything here. The ugly green of my bedroom walls and suddenly living with parents who love me enough to constantly ask what I’m doing and where I’m going pinch, like a pair of too-tight shoes. 

Second plan of action for Fall 2020: don’t be too grumpy with Mama and Dad. They’re just as used to parenting me as I’m used to parenting myself.

There’s a learning curve to being a friend and team captain at a distance. It’s easy to hide out and hope that the relationships you built at college will stay exactly as you left them. I suddenly feel grateful for all the times I was able to study with friends or share dinner with my cross country teammates. The simple act of sitting next to someone is so underrated. But we’re learning how to adapt. Almost daily Zoom game-nights, talks over Facetime instead of breakfast, and a few virtual Bob Ross painting sessions are instant mood boosters. We even tried virtual runs, complete with blurry screens and headphones. The sound of my teammates’ breathing in my ear was as comforting as it was annoying.

Third plan of action for Fall 2020: talk with friends as often as possible. A group Zoom is the easiest way to have a good day. But note to self: no more virtual runs. My headphones got too sweaty to work properly.

A COVID-19 summer feels a lot like floating. Every day is basically the same as any other day. Little things, like weekends not feeling particularly special anymore, and big things, like the all-too-familiar fight for Black lives in the face of injustice, are so consistent that 2020 is starting to feel like one long-ass day. We are reminded daily that a global pandemic isn’t enough to stop or even pause systemic racism. But COVID is also not enough to stop activism. Returning home to New Mexico chafes in some ways, but it also brings me closer to the needs of my community.

Fourth plan of action for Fall 2020: be an activist at home. This year might feel long, but the fight has been going on much longer. 

But this pandemic summer has also taught me how to slow down. Taking time to read books for fun while I bake under dry desert sunlight has made this summer’s repetitiveness glow with sparks of fantasy. I learned how to embroider, and have spent days poring over my grandma’s recipes, finally making fresh tortillas she would be proud of. This is the first time in three years I’ll be home for Thanksgiving, my birthday, and my Pueblo’s Feast Day. And as the days blend together, the beginning of classes feels more exciting than ever, even if I will be writing my senior thesis at my kitchen table. I’m ready to welcome anything that will remind me the world is still moving forward, and me along with it.

Fifth plan of action for Fall 2020: make lots of tortillas, let my cats crash my classes every now and then, and learn to appreciate the change an in-between time and place can bring. 

Sierra Mondragón is a senior at Swarthmore College living at home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.