Issue 1 October 2020

features 11
When quarantine first began,
I expected to be stuck
at home for just a few days.
However, one week turned to several,
and soon enough I was forced to face
the reality: it would be months before
I would leave my house for anything
more monumental than a grocery trip.
As the weeks dragged on, my constant
companions were boredom and anxiety.
To distract me, my mother suggested
picking up some new hobbies or starting a
new project. In the end, however, I didn’t
attempt anything “new.” Enough of my life
was new: the masks, the social distancing,
the virtual classes. I wanted something familiar,
something that would take me back
to simpler times and remind me of the happy
days I spent hand-in-hand with friends.
So instead of trying to learn to knit or
becoming the Next Great Baker, I picked
up a book. It was an old favorite from
when I was young, Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone. In the pages of this book,
I left behind rising death counts and political
squabbling and entered a world of
magical mayhem and old literary friends.
My Disney+ subscription got more
use during quarantine than it had ever
before. I loved rewatching childhood favorites,
dancing with Disney
princesses, and witnessing
happy endings.
These stories, which
had brought me such
joy when I was little,
reminded me
that some things never
change, and there’s
always reason to hope.
When I returned to school, I
was surprised to find that I wasn’t
the only one turning to childhood stories
for happiness and comfort during
such a strange and difficult time.
Grace Colluci ‘23 took advantage
of all the spare time
quarantine offered by
rereading some of her
favorite books from
Middle School,
the Percy Jackson
series. Colluci
said that she had always
loved to read but
didn’t usually have time
because she was so busy
with school and extracurriculars.
Collucci chose to reread
these books for a specific reason.
“I wanted to read ones I knew I would
like, so I went back to my old books that
I read when I was younger because I
knew that I loved them,” Collucci said.
The
Magic
of
Stories
By MAKENNA WALKO ‘23
Like me she found joy and comfort
in returning to the books of her childhood.
Colluci said, “Percy Jackson kind of
gave me a will to live. It reminded me of when
I was younger. And it just gave me something
to do, something to look forward to.”
Lisa Evans ‘23, who
rewatched The Lorax
during quarantine,
described
a similar effect
from childhood
movies.
Evans
said, “The Lorax
reminded
me of my childhood
when times
were happier and everything
was colorful and
rhymed perfectly-- a pretty
stark contrast from today.”
She also rewatched
The Hunger Games series,
which brought back memories
of her friends and
made her look forward
to the possibility of seeing
them again soon.
Izzy Thompson ’23,
who, in her own words,
“watched a lot of the old
Disney princess movies
from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s…
You know, about three
times each,” agreed that
old movies have a sentimental
value and
familiarity that drew
her to them during
quarantine.
“In the
boredom
of it all,
I went
back to
what I
knew.
I knew
I liked
them. They were childhood favorites.”
When asked if these movies helped
her cope with the heaviness of coronavirus,
Thompson said they were
“comforting in the moment” and always
left her “feeling good” aftward.
Quarantine was a difficult time for
many people, but it also gave me and many
others the time to reflect on what matters
and return to the things we love the most.
Those of us who turned to stories for hope
and comfort during the pandemic were reminded
that no matter how much the world
around us may change, revisiting our favorite
stories will always be a homecoming: a
way of finding joy in everyday life and returning
to the tales that made us who we are.
Design and graphics by Sophie Cai ‘22