Friday, February 14, 2020 // The Statement
4B
5B
Friday, February 14, 2020 // The Statement
ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE WIEBE
Tiny Love Stories
Jacob threatens to order a pizza nearly every night but
almost never follows through. We rarely share a meal that
doesn’t send him into some vague gastrointestinal pain,
except the sushi we once ate in a Toledo, Ohio bathtub (“I
didn’t know sushi could be, like, a meal”). He once mused
on the concept of chicken-fried steak to me for half an
hour, then vowed to order it from every menu that offers it.
He sends me a picture each time, an indecipherable sort of
meat slathered with glue-colored gravy. “This will give me
pain,” he usually says.
Verity Sturm, Statement Correspondent
Chicken-fried feeling
One Sunday at the deli, my grandparents argue over
what year they got married. My grandfather insists it
was 1958, in the winter. My grandma says, “No Howard,
it was 1960, the year Kennedy was elected.” They agree
it’s impossible that all these years have passed. Look at
this family we built. Look at these grandchildren. When
my mother calls my grandfather, hoping he’ll accept help
caring for his wife, he declines with pride. It is our job
to take care of each other, he says. What a love that lasts
through the years. What a love that transcends memory,
that just comes to be.
Emily Stillman, Deputy Statement Editor
Sunday at the Deli
I am one minute older than my brother. I existed on
Earth for 60 seconds before he decided to join me — slow
poke. Some twins might recount this story with bitterness,
upset that their sibling stole the birthday spotlight, but not
me — not us. Alexander and I work as a team; we always
have. He knows that I secretly enjoy the dumb texts he
sends me, including the time he crashed my computer
by pasting 100,000 heart emojis in one message, and he
knows how to give me a real hug when I need more love
than an emoji can send.
Zoe Phillips, LSA senior
My (literal) other half
Running into the coffeehouse — book bag open, hair
stuck in my mouth — I blurted out an apology: “Sorry I’m
late, I’m coming from the courthouse … A protective order
… it’s fine,” I tried to reason. His eyebrows scrunched with
annoyance, softened into concern. He was at a loss for
words, I assumed he felt awkward. Most people did. But he
tried to comfort me: “Don’t worry, I’ll handle the project.”
After an hour of coffee and laughs, I left lighter than I’d
felt all week. A year later, I found my way back to him. I
still run late, and he’s still taking care of me.
Julia Fanzeres, LSA and SMTD senior
Our first meeting
I love like I season my dishes: intense,
flavorful. I like to stir myself up like I stir my
homemade leshta, churning my insides with
made-up scenarios that burn like hot manja on
the roof of my mouth. I am not a chef: I drop
water-filled pots, mix the wrong ingredients,
forget rice on the stovetop, watching it curl on
its ends, charred and defeated. But I always
start over, feeling hope between the gentle
leaves of fresh spinach, and hearing whispers
of good luck in the soft sifting of lentils. I am
not a chef yet, simply a cook trying to master
this intangible, frustrating, heartbreaking
craft.
Magdalena Mihaylova, Statement Managing
Editor
Cook, not chef
Ty and I were never supposed to meet.
He grew up homeless in New Jersey, while
my Michigan suburb bubble-wrapped me in
privilege. He’s Afro-Latino and I’m white. We
met studying abroad in Costa Rica, where he
taught me to dance bachata, and I taught him
to play ukulele. Having escaped the social
structures keeping us apart in the United
States, we quickly fell in love. Six months,
two countries and three states later, learning
is still our constant. As we unwrap the layers
of our opposite worlds, cycles of poverty
and privilege, what we’ve uncovered is that
there’s always more to learn.
Hannah Brauer, Statement Columnist
From opposite worlds, united abroad
A kind word from a stranger on the walk
to class. Finding out someone loves that book
and author, too. The sound of their laugh —
pure, spontaneous, an accident that almost
didn’t happen. A shared copy of “All The
Light We Cannot See.” Thin upstrokes and
downstrokes: calligraphy pen against paper.
Pale blue hand-me-down picnic blanket on
dewy grass, soft. Running to catch the sunrise
even though you have already captured a
thousand more. Twirling the curls in their
hair, wanting them for myself. Firecrackers,
the lingering smell of incense hanging in the
air, a flickering spark in the darkness.
Quinna Halim, LSA freshman
A (tiny) list of things I love:
No more are the days I would meticulously record each
calorie I ate, the days I would cry over the extra weight
on my thighs. Long gone is that Sunday in March when I
landed in the hospital from a self-induced iron deficiency.
Now I eat to my heart and stomach’s content, a symbolic
thank you to my strong legs for carrying me from class
to class and through mediocre self-choreographed swing
dancing routines on a Friday summer night. Today, I love
my every stretch mark, curve and dimple of my imperfectly
perfect being. In my twenty years, this is the greatest love
I have yet to know.
Anonymous
The greatest love
Homemade leshta, before being drowned in paprika.
Love that lasts longer than lifetimes.
On a trip to Traverse City over fall break.
Sharing a plate of sushi, not in a bathtub this time.
At a dance club in Costa Rica.
Add making art to the list of things to love.
Two baby bundles are better than one.
A moment of freedom, strength and happiness.