Glass Mountain Staff Reflects
Audrey Colombe
Video chats—many, now. Personal spaces—students have gone home to their parents’ houses, now installed in their old bedrooms. Perhaps the only somewhat-private spaces available in the present situation. Interesting museums dedicated by parents to the stu- dents’ former lives as children. Stuffed animals, trophies, unmade beds, unicorn posters, lines of skinny books, baseball cap collections, group photos, piles of clothes, lamps in the shape of planets—the history in the background stops me short. An exercise in humility, this accidental invitation into the private lives of people I know only through work. Social distancing aside, it’s very very touching.
Corina Escalante
When you become accustomed to a certain life, when everything is reliant on things happening exactly as and when they’re supposed to, it seems easy. You wake up each day with no surprises. And, de- spite all of the times you wish things could be a little bit different, you know that it’s for the best. For your best. Without schedules and routines, without a sense of normality in a world that’s ever-changing, who are you? You think you simply cannot be without structure. Until one day it’s all gone, and you realize…you can. You have to.
William Faour
How could one possibly react to this?
Distract myself? I write. I’m bingeing The Twilight Zone. I listen to Cats and The Book of Mormon.
Immerse myself? Watch people celebrate incompetent responses, vote against solutions?
Ignore myself? Anxiety lends me aches, pains, sniffles, but it’s nothing, I’m not sick, probably.
Delude myself? Nothing’s wrong. I have pets and free time, I can video chat. What’s changed?
Upset myself? The bright spots ahead faded, only uncertainty remaining. I want to offer hope.
Come clean to myself. I can’t offer hope. All I can do is pick from the above.
Ashley Guidry
You know, I shouldn’t be entirely surprised by how this year is going. I mean, during my high school graduation a huge storm appeared. So, why should my college graduation be any different, if not worse? Graduation was pushed back, grocery stores are being raided by panic buyers, celebrities are acting weird, and some people can’t comprehend the words ‘social distancing.’ Needless to say, this year is off to a great start, and we’re not even halfway through. In all seriousness, it feels as though every day this virus is creeping way too close for comfort. I have actually become more appreciative of having a job and schoolwork to distract myself from this crisis. But I have no doubt that we’ll push through this, we always do.
Hales R. Harrison
I cannot imagine a more fitting way to close out my last semester in undergraduate studies. Now that I am here, facing the exit to this tunnel I have been charging through, I am not surprised that I will not have a graduation the way all of my siblings have had. Instead, I will emerge from quarantine into a world that sees me as an adult without question. I will have both my degrees, and I will have new trauma from this very difficult “last stretch.” I will have questions for this new world, both as an adult and as someone who just survived a near-apocalypse.
Amanda Lopez (Keill)
COVID-19 came crashing when I was dealing with school, a terminally ill parent, trying to get a job and house, and taking care of my family. Everything feels impossible to accomplish, but where there is hope there is a chance to persevere. Life doesn’t stop. It can be altered and tricky, but it is continuous. As I watch the numbers climb, I experience survivor’s guilt, but who’s to say that when this is all over I will survive? It’s best to live and love as much as possible now. For some, tomorrow may never come. God Bless. SOS.
Elsa Pair
I miss going on dates to restaurants. I miss going to bookstores and touching all the spines of the books. I miss casual touches—a hand against someone’s arm or their back. I miss these tiny things and think of how selfish that makes me, and then I forgive myself for being selfish because the collective loss we’re all experiencing is unfathomable and it’s okay for us to grieve. We should be sad. We should be angry. And we should also allow ourselves to smile and laugh. I give you permission if you don’t know how to give it to yourself.
Sarah Swinford
Spring was supposed to be all about healing for me. Last year, I was burnt out, recovering from being sick all of November, and I gave up on my original “after college” plan. When March rolled around, everything stopped. I was out of both of my jobs. I moved back in with my parents to save money. I was worried about the virus. But then I started painting and writing. I realized that this break might be the time of restful healing that I had been waiting for. It’s scary, but I believe that we will get through this.
Grace Wagner
Writing in the time of COVID-19 is both difficult and necessary. I find myself incapable of writing, yet my desire to do so only increases. I think it’s important to take a step back from work and school and give yourself time to rest, process, and grieve the life that we have lost through isolation and the lives that we are losing and will lose over the course of this pandemic. Now is the time to breathe, to think, to read, to write, to produce art if you can, and above all else, to give yourself the compassion you need.
Keagan Wheat
As a poet in the undergraduate poetry concentration at UH, I felt like poetry would be the one thing I could still do. But it’s just too emotionally weighty. I can’t find a way to read an ire’ne lara silva poem about illness in the midst of this. I’ve attended a couple readings virtually, but I couldn’t tell you one poem read. I was just there to see that poetry was still happening.
Rosalind Williamson
Everything’s so scary right now. People are dying; society feels like it’s falling apart. We all feel helpless. Even though part of me feels like continuing to make things is pointless, a larger part of me knows that creating and engaging with art is the only thing keeping me sane. Art nourishes us; it makes us human. My inner cynic wants to deny it, but in working on Glass Mountain these last few weeks, it’s been clear to me that in the midst of so much destruction, the best thing we can do is create.
