All in Essay
Sam Sidiqi writes about the joy of summiting Denali this summer, the highest mountain in North America at 20,310 feet. It has been an unlikely journey for a kid who was born in Afghanistan and grew up in Swarthmore. The climb taught him some good lessons and it helps support the development of the country where he was born.
Strath Haven High School English teacher Kevin Haney recounts how the gamut of emotions over the course of a fateful week took him on a journey that was as long and arduous as the one taken by his friend...a journey that has changed him forever and rekindled his belief that there can always be goodness in a world that is sometimes cruel and evil.
Morgan McErlean, an intern at the Swarthmorean and a senior at Strath Haven High School contributed this essay regarding Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, and how the work shouldn’t be viewed as a feminist document but, instead, as a piece of prejudiced white feminist fiction.
What is a pickers circle, you ask? Enthusiastic participants arrive with their instruments to play, pick, and sing along. They play original songs, covers of their favorite songs, and new tunes they create on the spot. Talking while the music is playing is strongly discouraged — and will earn you a visit from Sheriff John.
Associate editor Satya Nelms talks to Swarthmore “house hoppers” and muses on what it means to move while staying close to home.
Many of us are doing our best to embrace the freedoms created by this moment in history, while also struggling with its isolation. No matter our circumstances, the pandemic has forced us all to adjust. In this essay, associate editor Satya Nelms shares her own experiences and reports on those of a family with school-aged children, a college student, and a resident of a senior living community.
As recent college graduates, my Strath Haven High School classmates and I had very different visions for 2020 than the pandemic-ravaged world we live in now. We pictured ourselves moving into new apartments in new cities, turning over new leaves and sipping the sweet nectar of adult independence. We pictured ourselves heading to Target for professional blazers and slacks to dress-to-impress at our real adult jobs. But, as things have turned out, our “new apartments” look awfully similar to our childhood bedrooms, and we can get by just fine without the slacks.
A year ago, my father, sisters, and I were making plans for my grandmother’s 90th birthday. The milestone was due in October of 2021, and we wanted to be sure we gave ourselves enough time to plan. We wanted to give ample notice to loved ones far and wide so that they could be in attendance. It felt like a foregone conclusion that my Nannie would celebrate her 90th birthday.
If my generation learns to transform our self-consciousness into self-awareness, I hope it’s a lesson we can carry out of the Zoom environment and into the real world — when we finally get back there.
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.
Sometimes I remember our Queen Anne, built on a corner in Swarthmore in the 1890s. But now that I’ve been in Hartland, Vermont, for nearly five months, marooned by COVID-19, I often forget all about the house.
Swarthmore tends to be quieter in the summer, especially in August. College students are away; neighbors head north for respite from the heat and humidity; families take advantage of the break in the school year. But this summer’s quiet feels different.
A couple of Fridays ago, my daughter Charlie and I took a daring paddle on the terrifying and legendary Crum Creek — a harrowing 45-minute effort. We put in right above the Strath Haven Coulee Dam off Yale Avenue and fought the swift current back upstream. Multitudes of turtles guarded the banks, and shadowy fish darted fearlessly in the shallows. Past snags and sieves we maneuvered, watching each other’s six, conscious of many reports of the attack beaver waiting to ambush intruders.
Looking back on the last weeks of normalcy before the coronavirus pandemic took hold is surreal, to say the least. The shift was sudden: a day off from school, then a full-blown lockdown. At the time, no one could fully grasp the magnitude of what was coming. But people had to adjust and accept it — quickly. When I look back on the 2019-2020 school year, as any bored but reflective teenager would, I recall conversations where a friend would say something like, “I would do anything for a break.” Or, “I wish everything would just pause.” In a sense, we got that, but it shouldn’t take a global pandemic for students to feel like they can take a break or prioritize their mental health.
I have a new ritual of inhabiting our backyard at night. The solitude and darkness hold me. I look at our dark house and silently bless those within. I bless the houses of my neighbors. Then I look up at the trees.
“A fine new roof is going on Mr. F. Sauter’s house on Dickinson Avenue.” That quote comes from the News Notes section of a 1920 issue of the Swarthmorean. Back then, News Notes consisted of seemingly mundane details about the lives of people in Swarthmore. In other words, the “News Notes” section — or the “Personals” as it would be called by the 1940s — looked a bit like a Facebook or Instagram feed does today.
The other week, I was in Texas when I received a push notification from the Nest Cam we have keeping an eye on our yard. The notification arrived just after the school bus would have dropped the kids off, so I tuned in to say hi. It took me a second or two to realize what was going on. My son was throwing the football with the UPS guy.
