New Beginnings
As the autumn leaves change and fall, so too do we. New Beginnings is a collection about closing chapters and opening others, as well as honoring timeworn traditions while embracing new ones. It is about letting go of the old and embracing the new, whether it’s a fresh start or a return to familiar roots.
Diwali delivered
By Nandini Ganesh
Just when my first Diwali away from home approached, and the weight of missing home grew heavier– a package arrived at my dorm. I opened it with my mother, grandmother, and sister on call. Inside the package were small containers filled with the homemade sweets, prasad, and a bag of miniature LED diyas.
As I unwrapped the hundredth packet of ladoos, the pressure of finishing everything within a week before it became stale disappeared. I was too focused on this sixth love language crafted by my family, which was undoubtedly food.
I place an LED diya next to the photo of my family on my desk. I fit only a fraction of eatables in my microfridge, since that is all it can hold, and pray that the rest will magically last in my pocket-sized dorm. I close my eyes and quietly comb oil throughout my hair, knowing that thousands of miles away, where I am from, it is Diwali morning.
“What is that?” my roommate asks, looking at the half-opened box sitting on my twin-XL bed. I smiled.
“Home.”
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Illustrated by Krystal
Illustrated by Krystal
Everything I've Ever Let Go of Has Claw Marks In It
By Ashley Lin
When the fires broke out, three weeks ago, I anxiously watched every news update, scoured every Reddit thread, and scanned every city map. My house was never in any real danger. But I knew yours, nestled in the hills of Altadena, would be. That sunny yellow front door. It was incongruous with the rest of your house, all sleek wood paneling and modernist furniture, but I secretly loved it, great big egg yolk perched atop a blue, blue sky. The gap in the bamboo garden wall I snuck through when I came over instead of waiting for you to open the gate. I’m impatient, you know this, I always have been. Your father’s vintage car that sat in the garage for as long as we were friends – one of those pet projects you intend to work on but never do until it’s too late. Do these things still exist? Part of me doesn’t want to check, to preserve these memories and keep them as splendid and sun drenched as they were when I made them. I sent you one last text when I could see the fires from the window of my childhood bedroom and ash fell like snow on the floor of my shower and my boyfriend was forced to flee his home. It was something along the lines of: Hey, I’ve been keeping up with the fires. I hope you’re okay. I don’t expect you to reply, but I wanted to let you know that I’m still here for you if you ever need anything. You didn’t reply, as I sensed you would. I don’t think you ever will. It’s enough that I sent it, I think, befitting of my role in your life as someone you once knew. What I wanted to say was this: My old therapist, a thrice-divorced Russian woman with a thick accent, thought I had feelings for you because I was so heartbroken. I protested all the way up until she tried to encourage me to embrace being a lesbian by telling me a story about how she saw two women at a campfire who had incredible chemistry, and by then I was too busy laughing at the hilarity of it all, imagining the face you would have made, to tell her that you were just my best friend. I stopped seeing her before I could clarify. I would come running back if you asked me to, without question. Any hour of the night, anywhere in the world. It doesn’t matter that I don’t know why you decided to stop being friends with me, that we haven’t talked in over a year. I’m a dog at your door and all I want – a very simple, very animal need – is to hear your voice again. This is what hurts the most, though. Sometimes I still wake up with something to tell you. And I reach for my phone before remembering that we’re not friends anymore, that we haven’t been for a very long time.
"Can you hold the door for me?"
By Valerie Prado
We both looked at each other in the elevator. What do you do when you know you see each other everywhere but are not friends? Usually, I just go on with my day, but I decided to break the ice.
“I think we have had a couple of classes together,”
She smiled and gave a look of relief. As students, we often yearn for connection but ignore the possibilities right in front of us due to anxiety.
We chatted our way to class, both realizing how quickly we clicked. Sooner or later, I found myself going to dinner and walking around campus with her.
As we bonded, we discovered more and more how much we had in common. It was nice to find someone to talk to so quickly. We both felt a bit of regret for not meeting sooner. She feared that I was unapproachable, and I didn’t know how to break the ice at first. In moments like these, I try not to feel so guilty but instead feel glad that we decided to go out of our comfort zone to meet each other officially. Making new friends and building relationships is hard, but things get much easier and more enjoyable after that first step.
sisterhood lessons.
By Nandini Ganesh
In my 16 years of experience in the job, I've come to realize that being an older sister is an ongoing lesson in appreciating the little things we often take for granted. I vividly recall when my sister was just two years old, and I eagerly anticipated the day she would be old enough to do more than just eat, cry and sleep so we could play together. Then at 12 and 16, I found myself reminiscing about the time when she was like a stuffed animal that I could hold and squeeze at any moment. Now, at 16 and 20, I see our humor beginning to align and our conversations growing.
Comparing my own experiences at 16, I can't help but remember my awkward, clumsy self, desperately trying to navigate the social complexities and inevitable embarrassments that come with teenagehood. Strangely, it seems that my sister has managed to bypass this phase entirely. I witness it in the way she outlines her eyes with eyeliner, styles her hair, smiles in photos, and owns a stage. She is truly, unapologetically herself — a quality I wish I had possessed at that age.
Yet, I've come to understand that it's never too late to learn.
Especially when my teacher is right in the room next door, ready to punch me for borrowing her top without asking.
our first time doing life.
By Nandini Ganesh
There is usually only one thing my parents can ever say to shut me up and help me see things from their perspective.
“It is our first time parenting a 16-year-old”
It's a silly, stupidly-true line. I heard it for the first time when I was 16, and let everything go in the name of empathy. Then they said it again at 17. I’ve heard this line at least a million times more–now I’m 20.
So I tried to find loopholes–the easiest one was four years younger than me, with audacious hair and an even more audacious attitude – what better example of ‘second chance’ than a second child?
But then, they cleverly managed to escape that too:
“It's our first time parenting a 16-year old…with a 20-year-old sibling”
I gave up. I realized that this well-worn phrase is a reminder of our shared journey – a reminder that I never have to do this life thing alone.
I have found heart in the fact that perhaps, in some way or form, my firsts are their firsts too.
So I'm a Yankees Fan Now
By Gia Boisselier
Growing up, baseball was the one sport I never played. To me, it appeared to be nothing but the dullness of waiting under a hot sun. I needed to be moving, jumping, on a court or a field- even now, I always seem to be on the run. Why would I want to play baseball, more or less watch it?
But baseball is his sport. It is both his childhood and his teenage years, it is his metaphor for loss, love, and everything he knows about living. He tells me his stories from Little League, his pitching warm-up routine from start to finish, and how to properly steal a base. He recalls long evenings in the park, bus rides back from games, and the different ways to hold a ball, positioning his fingers over the worn leather.
Since he was 5 years old, he has been waiting for the Yankees to win the World Series. It’s a good day if
the Yankees are winning, and it's a bad one if we’re losing, he’ll say. I laugh at his earnestness, knowing
that this is something I will never quite understand. But on my drive home from Los Angeles, I turn the radio to the sports channel and listen as the commentator rattles off names and numbers. On sunny afternoons, I lay out on the grass and watch strings of highlight reels in between classes. I’m beginning to recognize the many acronyms and abbreviations, and players who once were strangers are now my cordial acquaintances. It has been a long day, but I have the game turned on beside me. The Yankees are winning and I smile. Somewhere across the state, somewhere not so far away, he is having a good day.
Bar Hopping
By Valerie Prado
We are at a club celebrating her 21st birthday. 10 years have passed since we met, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have her. From playing in the mall with 20 bucks and a dream, to fully grown adults with credit cards. I look at her now, all dressed up, piercings twinkling across her face like constellations, and inky black hair, a style she dreamed of having. Cocktail in hand spilling all over the place when she squeals and jumps with excitement to a throwback song from our youth. I watch her let out deep cackles as she dances. She’s not the girl she used to be. The once nervous or awkward hugs we shared turned into much-needed contact. The distance between us outside this space makes it hard to find that familiar warmth. New people and places fill the gaps between us, but we still can't help but reach for each other every time.
Illustrated by Krystal
Illustrated by Krystal
Untouchable
By Ananya Devanath
i know i shouldn’t be thinking about you
i know i know i know
i should leave us where we were
half-eaten toast and never-mailed postcards
a twenty-first century would-be-masterpiece
we so callously abandoned to the night
and yet i wonder — hopelessly, faithfully —
what would’ve happened if we had met the sunrise
would “us” be a sorrowful reminder of two figures drifting apart,
fading under the burning scrutiny of a summer noon
or would we have stood tall and resonant,
budding sunflowers in a field of weeds?
i think about you holding me as i am — tattered shoes and
smiling naivety; unglittered and vulnerable and
endlessly happy
we were meant to be more, i’m sure of it
and so here i am,
clearing our plates,
licking envelopes shut,
painting in the silver hues of our wine-fueled moonlights
and wouldn’t we be so untouchable?
rats and races
By Nandini Ganesh
In the past 20 years, I’ve proudly thought of myself as the advice-giver of a friendship. Not because I have experience to draw from, but because I have words to string together. That is all articulacy is. That is all it needs to be. Sometime’s consoling someone is really just a marketing pitch on why they will come out the other side. But in my (constant) pursuit of positivity, I personally find myself ironically void of it. I dislike picturing the future and the seemingly-impossible expectations it brings. I’m averse to hoping in risk of it being false. This kind of uncertainty floods me with questions like am I capable? am I deserving? And, because of the universe’s impeccable timing, these questions only surface during what should be considered the brink of my adolescence and birth of my adulthood. Nothing speaks of an identity crisis like being a confused college student. No amount of self-doubt is helpful, either. Yet it sticks around as a reminder that things may not go accordingly to plan. They very well won’t. My coping mechanism, therefore, is a combination of goals and todo lists that skyrocket my productivity and accelerate my burnout rate. You can’t brood over the unpredictable if you simply don’t have time. It’s fantastic. That is, until I find myself on the balcony of my friend’s apartment. This balcony has been deemed the new location for life-altering conversations, such as the one we are having now. This tiny table has seen at least twenty Taco Bell bags and one million tears from laughter. Today the topic of my worsening mental health takes the podium. My friend squints her eyes, in the way she does when she’s about to say something (supposedly) profound. She pauses before speaking to look at me. “You know, even if you win the rat race, you’re still a rat” I don’t know whether to marvel at her or throw my mug in her direction. So I choose the third option. I choose to indulge this image of me, a rat, running alongside other rats, towards an endless, pointless finish line. Things make slightly more sense now. Not because of the quote. But because of her being there. In a lifetime of advice-giving, I was sitting opposite someone who wanted to help me grow. Another advice-giver. On this tiny, wooden table, the world suddenly felt both vast and simple. Do all these other rats have a friend like mine?
miscellaneous reflections
By Amelia Chief
As I placed bobby pin after bobby pin to keep my grad cap on my head, it dawned on me that I would miss my acquaintances more than my friends. I could always contact my friends anytime. But my classmates I would talk to occasionally when I ran into them in the halls of our tiny school? Probably not. And as I prepared to go from a small three-story building with 80-something people in my grade to a sprawling, 419-acre campus with 6,613 freshmen and 46,676 students total, this sort of casual, “we’ll talk when we happen to pass by each other” relationship wouldn’t be a thing anymore. I often think about how much people can leave an impact on us in the seemingly smallest of ways, even if they probably don’t remember. I still remember the guy who taught me how to take a screenshot on my first day of middle school. I remember the girl who gave me her bookmark when I’d forgotten to bring one. It surprises me when I realize this can go both ways. I had always thought myself woefully invisible, but when my graduating class gathered around an emotional bonfire at our senior retreat, I noticed I was far from unvalued. Someone remembered a short story I had written all the way back in eighth grade. A classmate I admired hugged me and said she would miss me. It had taken so long for me to realize it was possible for people to know and like me, and I instantly felt stupid. I vowed that I would never keep myself down again. I once read that we are mosaics of everyone we’ve ever loved or even just known. It’s very true. I still play a mobile game introduced to me by someone I will never speak with again. An artist my classmate recommended to me two years ago still made it to my Spotify Wrapped this year. Against my better judgment, I have YikYak downloaded on my phone because in tenth grade, my friend and I found it entertaining to know what college students talked about. Going from a small to large school has worked great as exposure therapy. Because I can no longer take for granted that I will see everyone everyday, I’ve slowly shedded my qualms about texting first or asking to hang out. And whenever I do happen to run into someone I know on campus, I feel like I’m seeing a celebrity cameo. All in all, the 2024 nostalgia will hit hard. I’ll think back fondly on my high school-to-college summer: playing Dress to Impress, reading shojo manga, shopping for my college wardrobe that I devoutedly stuffed the entirety of into my classic triple closet. I wondered what type of person I would become. Would the new environment cause me to undergo a complete 180? Or would I find myself stuck in my workaholic ways? Finishing up my first quarter, I think I’m somewhat in-between: I’m still more studious than I probably ought to be, but I’m also more confident than I used to be. But who knows? I’m ending this year a different person than I started as (in a good way). Maybe life is all about new experiences and new people. If that’s the case, I chose the exact right place.
The feeling of missing your parents but learning to live without them
By Valerie Prado
I have felt guilty recently. I feel guilty about living and growing up without my parents. We were a living room family back home, always together, laughing and talking. I have the type of parents that so many people dream of having.
It’s so hard.
I used to go home every weekend when I would dorm, but now that I have a university apartment, I enjoy my weekends here. With school and work, making time to call or go back home becomes harder and harder.
It’s so unlike me to do this.
I’ve been loving my independence: cooking, cleaning, and having a new place to call home. When I finally went home, I realized I no longer had a place there. I slept on the floor, I felt cramped and strange. It felt like the beginning of the end.
It took me days to see it in a better light. My parents have started to go out more on their own, something that they themselves struggled with for a while. I am able to go to bars and have a drink with them, buy them dinner, and gift them things I have always worked towards.
The transition feels strange, but it is also beautiful. I can start caring for my parents and thank them for pushing me this far.
Teddy Westside
By Gia Boisselier
He was gray when I first saw him, like the color of a street-soaked rag. The others were brighter in solid
shades of tangerine, but I was unconvinced. Although his small frame was eclipsed by their swirling
ribbons of color, I knew I had picked the right betta fish. I promptly dubbed him “Teddy Westside” after
the hopeless romantic in a favorite show, and rode the bus back from the pet store with his fishbowl nestled in my lap. My decision to buy a fish had spurred from the longing for my childhood dog, who had passed away late November of my freshman year in college. She was the family dog, but she was mine more than anything. She would greet me at the door with a grin and listen to my woes in contemplative silence while I stroked her fur on the kitchen floor. I missed her constant presence, our mutual understanding, and that strange wisdom that only an animal possesses.
Now, in my junior year, Teddy Westside sits at my desk and boasts flashing colors of vermillion and sapphire, bubbling happily next to a photograph of my brother and a row of paperbacks. This is my makeshift home, while my family lives far enough away to miss everyday. Although seemingly small, he is a life in my hands- something to care for all on my own. Maybe he is the beginning of what can be called my very own family. Maybe he is just a fish. But late at night, when no one else remains and the only light is the lamp at my desk, I look up and I see him. He stays awake with me, just like she used to.
And while she would be warm at my feet, curled up in a golden spiral, he sits at the face of the glass and
glistens midnight blue.
New Years
By Ananya Devanath
And yet again, the year rumbles to its close. I watch with bated breath as two hands inch closer and closer on the impassive face of a grandfather clock: unfeeling, uncaring as it ticks, ticks, ticks.
I only hope at twenty-two I won’t forget what it felt like to be fifteen—when every little thing meant so much and nothing at all. That I still remember that life weighted with unparalleled pain and unrivaled happiness: when promises were etched in starlight and heartbreak was unending, unhearing (until one day it finally ends, it finally heals).
And I should be grateful— I know I should. Dawn inevitably breaks and all this once-seemingly everlasting pain ceases. As they say, time mends most anything. But alas—at what cost? The once vibrant world turns muted as I barter this beautiful, childish sensitivity for growth. Already I no longer understand the way I held myself five years ago, two years ago, a month, a week. I wonder—how much of myself, as I stand here tonight, will I still hold within me a year from now? And how many of these thoughts will I retrospectively dismiss as the nonsensical musings of a naive, unknowing girl?
I wish I could stand outside it all, steady and unchanging and sure. But this coming of age just keeps coming, dragging me along with it.
Hour and minute finally meet; cheers flood my ears & champagne drowns these protests before they escape my throat. But I would wage a war against that impassive face on the wall if it meant there’s a part of me that I’ll know forever.
Without Touch
By Ashley Lin
They say that each cell in your body regenerates every seven years, so that you are never really the same as you were seven years ago.
I loved the idea of it when I first heard it.
The time my former best friend screamed at me towards the end of our friendship, the time a homeless man grabbed my thigh on a crowded train -- they no longer exist. They remain only in my memories.
But it’s been seven years today since my senior year of high school, the last time your hands touched me. I fantasize about buying a cake, birthday candles in the shape of 7s, a red Zippo lighter, lying to the cashier when they ask with polite disinterest whose birthday it is.
I wonder what I might say.
I would play it off, maybe, say it’s my kid cousin’s and I wanted to make it special for her. Or maybe I would say that it was my seventh anniversary of working at my job, and I wanted to celebrate myself.
It’s been seven years, and I’m twenty four now. There isn’t a cell in my body that remembers what it was like to be touched by you. But I think your arms around me might still feel like coming home.
Persevere
By Anisah Marie Ramirez
A new beginning calls for the sounds of destruction. Disaster strikes, and suddenly you’re rebuilding a life you once knew. At first, when I was staring at the remains of the chaos, it was saddening. But with time and through love and community, I found the strength to continue growing. It takes time to move on from the past, old friends, old lovers, and bittersweet endings to memories you wish had stayed longer. But sometimes, the closure you need is not found in memories but through restarting and taking the opportunity to move forward.
Illustrated by Krystal
then and now.
By Nandini Ganesh
I gawk at a photo of her from a few months ago. Her hair was neatly braided into two, her go-to hairstyle before bed to avoid knots in the morning. Her skin was slightly spotted – the hyperpigmentation from not getting enough sun. Her eyes were slightly dull from a summer full of tears and travel. Her teeth are hidden by a tight-lipped smile, similar to the one her mother wore in her photos. Her head, slightly tilted, showing the left, “good” side.
I look up.
Her hair is slightly messy, wavy, and the impulse-decision bangs cut by her younger sister wisp over her forehead. Her cheeks are slightly tinted with blush. maybe too much blush. Her wide grin reveals the teeth that have gone back to their natural, crooked state after forgetting her retainers existed. Her eyes are shining with a newfound…
vitality.
And the tears have made her eyelashes longer.
A Shoulder to Cry On
By Rainy Diforte
Getting stuck at a red light isn’t always such a bad thing. Granted I really wanted to get home just as much as anyone else, I enjoyed looking at the hustle and bustle of the people out and about on nice nights like that. Nothing was remarkable, but I loved watching anyway. Scanning my eyes onto a street corner, I see two people: one an older man with white hair and
the other a somewhat younger woman, I can’t imagine older than her 40s. What drew my attention to them was not so much their appearance, which was nothing super intriguing, but that the woman was crying. I try to hear over the cacophony of the road and pedestrians, but of course I can’t. I quietly scold myself for trying to eavesdrop on a conversation that was never meant for me. The man opens his arms and hugs the woman tight as if his heart could somehow take the place of hers. Before I knew it the light changed to green and I continued on my way home. I still think of those two from time to time. I don’t know if he knew her. Maybe he was her father. Or maybe a lover. Maybe he was a complete stranger who noticed her tears and
just wanted to lend her his heart.
Jiu Jin Shan
By Ashley Lin
To the early Chinese immigrants of the 1800s, San Francisco was special, and they traded stories about how it was paved with gold, whispered about how it was built upon a mountain of it.
I wonder what they would think about thousands of their skeletons being buried beneath what is now the Metro Gold Line. Their bones are in California, the land they helped build one railroad spike at a time, but their spirits are in a home I have never known, a place my grandparents make a pilgrimage to once a year.
In Taiwan, there is a ritual called bai bai – we lay out fruit and rice wine and rice and a whole fish and chicken, kowtow to our ancestors’ portraits and prostrate ourselves before their images, light sticks of incense and candles and burn gold red silver money. We honor our ancestors to ensure they are happy in the afterlife.
And once a year, we set the table for those who do not have a family to pray for them anymore.
So I set the table, lay out fruit and rice wine and rice and a whole fish and chicken, kowtow to their spirits and prostrate myself before their memories, light sticks of incense and candles, and burn gold red silver money.
Welcome to the Round Table
By Gia Boisselier
I’ve always described my family as the four legs of a table. Dad. Mom. Brother. Me. When my father is in another city for work, there’s no buzz or flicker of the television in the living room, the backyard is empty. My mother is visiting her sister- the entire house is quiet without her stomping and sporadic laughter that bursts from the kitchen. Brother has gone away for an overnight tournament and now everything is colder, dimmer. The sun is missing and earth is at a standstill. When I am away for college-well, I don’t know, but I’m told that there is a silence that hangs where wailing music would otherwise spill out in a messy cascade. Every night for dinner, we sit like the Knights of the Round Table, each in a designated seat that was selected long before we could remember how. It has always been this way.
But Thanksgiving Day, I finally invite him over for dinner. The Round Table is moved to the dining room, where the table is set with turquoise napkins and gleaming candles. It’s comically clean. He brings homemade mac and cheese and an apple pie baked from scratch, the pan still hot from the oven as he greets my parents with a bashful grin. The seating arrangement is shifted and it is strange to look at my brother from this new point of view, directly face-to-face instead of right beside me. We share a look, a laugh, and then a sudden understanding is exchanged: this dinner is different, but only because it is unfamiliar. As we eat, I find myself warmed at the sight of everyone I love most in the same room. I only hope that they can see the same. My family is everything I have ever known, but there will always be a seat at the table for him. I know this now more than ever.
Strategic Rejuvenation
By Nandini Ganesh
Nothing is the end of the world–except the end of the world. This has been my father’s way of telling me that no matter what, it will be okay. I vividly recall, as a stubborn 9-year-old, hearing those words and feeling my frustration grow. In my young mind, I'd conjure images of the world actually ending, everything ablaze (my imagination was quite literal) and think: What the hell would he say then. But since then, I’ve had plenty of moments where I feel like the world is ending (no fire involved). We romanticize this phase of adulthood that’s full of self-discovery and freedom to the point where we forget the fair share of self-doubt and carelessness it carries. Even while writing this, I can only imagine how lovely it would be to have a frontal lobe. The other day, during one such world-ending moment of mine, I purposefully abandoned my responsibilities and went outside to sit on the grass. Life was paused briefly, so that my friend and I could make boiling-hot instant chai, and drink it outside in the 90 degree weather – an error attributed to lack of planning. Regardless, we sat there for what was supposed to be thirty minutes turned into two hours. We laughed and discussed the world-ending things that troubled us. Suddenly, the things that I deemed as insurmountable shrunk into dime-sized hurdles. In my front lobe-less brain, they were clumped along with the other mundane, resolvable worries. I left the grass with the same number of problems but feeling ten times lighter, maybe even invincible. I begin to think whether I should regularly prescribe temporary, mundane activities as the cure for the seemingly world-ending problems of my life. Feeling stressed and alone? Cook buldak ramen with your friends and add more sauce than usual – you’ll be too busy tending to your broken intestine to feel isolated. Feeling directionless and unmotivated? Make hot instant chai and drink it outside in even-hotter weather, you’ll be too sweaty to even remember how lost you are in life. Feeling disappointed and embarrassed? This usually passes with time, don’t worry. You may call it procrastination. I call it strategic rejuvenation. If the problem can be solved by a temporary thing, it is a temporary problem. It’s a reminder that nothing is the end of the world. Except the end of the world.
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Illustrated by Mythili
