My best friend and I have been in a long-distance relationship since first year. Our friendship has had to adjust to the distance, whether she’s in Waterloo, Barrie, Calgary, or Haida Gwaii. In the past three and a half years, we’ve spent more time apart than together. When we do see each other, there is no pressure to exhaustively discuss every minute detail of what we’ve been up to. All that matters is that we’re together. Whether it’s through walking together to dates we’re nervous about, or just FaceTiming to watch our favourite movies, we will always be there for each other.
—Sabrina Papas, Editor-in-Chief
I define family as anyone who feels permanent, whether they are chosen family, biological family, adoptive family, social family, or any other family. People feel permanent to me if they are there when I picture my future—some part of us is always already sharing a meal together in the golden candlelight of memories not yet materialized. What matters is not whether they actually end up at the table in 20 years, because in many ways they are already seated, passing steaming serving bowls that radiate warmth across the distance, the ring of a destined toast that echoes back to resonate in the present. It sounds like hope, and I recognize love in the reverberation.
—Tamara Frooman, Senior Copyeditor
Baking a Dutch Baby (a large, fluffy pancake) in a cast-iron pan has been my treat of choice for years. I’ve become more liberal with my dusting of confectioners’ sugar and less high-strung about what 3/4 cups of butter actually looks like when melted—this is because baking is now a solace of mine. An activity with easily accessible resources, it both fulfills my perfectionist needs in sifting the accurate amount of sugar and forces my neurotic tendencies to calm down when recipes say to add a “pinch” of spice. My chronic anxiety and clinical depression are often uncontrollable entities, and turning to baking at odd hours of the evening has allowed me to gain some stability. I can watch a project start and finish through an oven timer, and my mania is channeled into an apple galette without panic. My disabilities can dissipate into a batch of lemon cookies.
—Georgia Lin, Opinions Editor
Elizabeth Freeman theorizes that identity performance is similar to “an embodied temporal map.” Selfhood, she suggests, radically depends on citation. There is a photograph of me at three years old that I made my nana take. Stuffed animals, Barbie dolls, Disney VHS tapes, a soother—these objects form a circle on the ground. In the centre, I am lying down, in an Arthur t-shirt, staring affectionately at my nana behind the camera. I wanted to be seen with these things—through them. The walls of my room today are covered with pictures: Dickinson, Manet’s Olympia, Beyoncé, Lebovitz’s Rolling Stone photos of Taylor Swift. I type this wearing a t-shirt with “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me” written on it. I see myself through citations. I think of myself as a map of references to artifacts that I love. This particular non-romantic love is not only meaningful, but it is also the affect through which I imagine myself coming into being.
—Nate Crocker, Social Media Manager
Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve had a rough few weeks. Along with the usual hectic rush of school and mental health dips that I experience this time of year, I’ve lost my job, I’ve had a slight family crisis, and I’m currently uncomfortably growing apart from my best friends. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, everything really sucks right now. It’s so easy, especially when unexpected and crummy things happen, to neglect yourself. So of course I feel like I don’t deserve my own kindness right now: I lost my job, my friend group is breaking up, the world is a dumpster fire. I’m lucky to have a partner and friends and a family who love and support me, but taking the time to take stock of my feelings, learning how to sit with uncertainty, and understanding that it’s okay to feel bad when bad things happen has been crucial to my ability to stay afloat. I’m the only person that I have to live with for the rest of my life. It’s important that I love myself as much as I love others.
—Rebecca Gao, Features Editor
During my first year, I developed an intense love for pop music and pop music culture. More specifically, I became a devoted fan of one Taylor Swift. This side of me felt like it came out of nowhere; fan culture had always utterly mystified me. So what happened? Looking back, I think it was a way of creating an artificial identity for myself. Not to say that my love for Taylor is artificial, but the intensity of my fandom certainly is. I’ve always been insecure about being interesting. I tend to see myself as lacking individuality and personality, and I constantly worry that I’m boring. Loving Taylor Swift and other pop culture figures became something I could lean back on when I didn’t know what else to say. Take my answers in “Date The Strand.” I was worried that I wasn’t interesting enough to answer the questions, so I answered them all with Taylor Swift references. Since I started listening to Taylor Swift, I’ve grown to feel more confident in myself and more secure about my identity. So thanks, Taylor, and happy Valentine’s Day!
—Leo Morgenstern, Stranded Editor
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