A few months ago, I read The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. In the book, Green portrays the modern human experience through small anecdotes from his own life. Each chapter is centered around a seemingly mundane topic and conveys a specific message that connects unlikely subjects and themes. At the end of each chapter, he gives the topic a rating out of five.
In the spirit of fall and Halloween, I thought I would add a twist to this concept and write my own adaptation. Instead of a five-point scale, my ratings will be given out as a percentage of “trick” or “treat.” For example, as an avid Harry Potter fan, I would give the series 1 percent trick and 99 percent treat. The series is wonderfully orchestrated, save for an unforgiving and unexpected death in the fifth book. There aren’t many foods that I dislike, but I have a bone to pick with mayonnaise. I would almost never add it to a BLT of my own volition, but I suppose it’s more tolerable when combined with other ingredients—say, to make spicy mayo for sushi. I would give mayonnaise 80 percent trick and 20 percent treat.
In short, “trick” is a measure of how deceiving a topic might be and “treat” is an indicator of how much pleasure I take in the topic. Here is my attempt to review the Anthropocene in Fall 2024.
Harvest Salad: Food is an expression of love. The meticulous preparation and presentation, the careful experimentation to perfect every flavor—it all tells a story.
My hyperfixation meal this fall has been a harvest salad. Well, maybe not a hyperfixation, because my meal prepping has fallen off since the start of the semester, but there was a week in mid-September when all I ate for lunch and dinner was my harvest salad. I drew inspiration from sweetgreen’s Autumn Harvest Bowl, which has blackened chicken, maple glazed brussel sprouts, roasted sweet potatoes, apples, goat cheese, roasted almonds, wild rice, shredded kale, and balsamic vinaigrette. I’ll credit sweetgreen for the idea, but their prices are beyond unjustifiable. Now, I’m not claiming to have recreated the exact recipe. I’m a college student with a meager pantry and limited time, so I made my own concoction, substituting some ingredients at my convenience—feta for goat cheese, quinoa for wild rice, and others that don’t necessarily have a direct correlation to the original. No almonds because I’m allergic. Chickpeas and corn, just because I felt like it. Each component plays a pivotal role in the salad, bringing a unique element of warmth, crunchiness, or acidity. Tossed together, they create a harmonious synergy.
Perhaps it’s the ingredients in the harvest salad that resemble the coziness of fall—kale, apples, sweet potatoes. Something in it reminds me of the comfort I feel at Brown. Everything and everyone feels familiar. When I read a text from my friends, I can hear it in their exact tone and voice. When I ask a spontaneous question, I know their answer before they get the chance to speak. There are memories in every corner of this campus, shared with the people that make this place so special to me. As the biting wind brushes across my cheeks and I hear the crunch underneath my feet, I recall tender moments of embrace, raucous bursts of laughter, peaceful notes of home.
I give a homemade harvest salad 5 percent trick and 95 percent treat. If it’s ordered from sweetgreen, then 95 percent trick and 5 percent treat.
Tunnel Construction: I live right next to the tunnel on Thayer Street. Probably six out of seven mornings, without fail, I am woken up by the drilling of jackhammers and the pounding of metallic equipment. I try to convince myself that this is a blessing in disguise (it will force me to wake up early and be productive). Yet at 7 a.m., as I am rudely awoken by the cacophony of the construction, I am never as optimistic as I think I will be.
Sleep experts say that waking up naturally, with a faint and soothing alarm, or even with no alarm at all, has proven to be better for our health and well-being. We wake up feeling more positive, alert, and focused. I can attest to that theory. During the summer, the sun rose earlier. Illuminating the curtains and sheers of my bedroom, its warmth and soft brightness would wake me gently. Those were the days when I rarely relied on caffeine to keep me energized. However, I suppose the tunnel construction is not entirely to blame. I could go to bed earlier at night and still get sufficient sleep. Ideally, that’s what every college student should be doing, regardless of whether or not they hear screechy drilling in the morning. But realistically, we’re either too stressed doing work or letting time slip away with endless yapping and scrolling. If nothing else, I can be grateful that the construction at least gives me consistency. Jolted awake, I brush my teeth, eat breakfast, and make my daily coffee.
I give the tunnel construction 80 percent trick and 20 percent treat.
Softball: For 10 years, from ages 8 to 18, I had a routine softball game every Saturday. When I had sleepovers on Friday nights, early the next morning I tip-toed around the sleeping bags of dormant girls on the floor and quickly changed into my uniform in the bathroom, texting my teammates: “Is it cold enough to wear the long sleeve Under Armour?” “Should I wear my heart guard over or under?” My mom would wait for me in the car outside with my bat bag prepared in the trunk. As she pulled out of the driveway, I would shoot my friends a text that they wouldn’t see until three hours later: “Just left for softball.”
Softball is typically a spring sport. In the fall, it’s called fall ball. My parents had tried to convince me to venture into other sports during the off-season—soccer, basketball, swimming—but I insisted on only doing fall ball. In Little League, we played away games which were typically a 20-40 minute car ride. If we were ahead of schedule, my mom would stop by Dunkin’ Donuts to pick up munchkins for me and my teammates. From the second the box was placed down on the bench, little girls became indistinguishable from large felines, pouncing on the glazed and chocolate ones. After the stampede, the stragglers would indifferently select from the old fashioned and jelly left at the bottom. Dunkin’ Donuts, David sunflower seeds, and Big League Chew gum were the Holy Trinity. Having all three was always an indication of a good game. The scapegoat for a poor performance was always the sun, either directly in our line of vision when we were out on the field playing defense, or absent, leaving us shivering as we waited in the dugout to bat on offense.
Now, my weekend mornings are spent groggily staggering around the kitchen, squinting without my glasses on as I unload the dishes from the night prior. If I wake up before 10 a.m., it’s either because I’ve made a commitment in advance, or I’m woken up by the tunnel construction. The smell of early fall mornings on the weekend will always teleport me back to my softball days: the morning dew on the grass, sometimes turned into frozen droplets in late October and November. The cheers and chants from the dugout. The echo of balls hitting the inside of gloves during between-innings warm-ups. From infield players to the first baseman, from the pitcher to the catcher and back to the pitcher again. The excitement of youth sports is a feeling I will always be fond of and long for. I reach for it with outstretched arms and sense it within millimeters of my fingertips. So close, but just far enough away. Maybe I’ll experience the spark again some day through my children’s eyes.
I give softball 15 percent trick and 85 percent treat.
Northern Lights: A few weeks ago, the northern lights were visible in Rhode Island. I was eating dinner off-campus with a friend and missed the first wave at around 7:30 p.m. I had heard my phone ring multiple times during dinner, but intentionally ignored it out of courtesy. After we finished dinner, we got in the car and saw the news. OMG is it still happening??!! Put your phone to the sky, can you see it??? We were only seven minutes away from campus, so I unhesitantly yanked the gear to “D,” with tunnel vision towards home. The adrenaline, euphoria, and anticipation morphed into an emotion that’s indescribable, a state of genuine excitement that I had probably only felt on Christmas morning (before I found out that Santa isn’t real). By the time we arrived, the lights were fading, but we held out hope for a few more hours. At 10:00 p.m., magic struck as the next wave of light arrived. We raced from one destination to another, trying to find the darkest viewing spot. Governor Street, India Point Park, and eventually we meandered through the woods to Scituate Reservoir Causeway. At long last, our eyes were shimmering hues of pink, purple, and green.
I had always imagined that seeing the northern lights was a distant dream, that would maybe someday become a reality if I went to Iceland, Norway, or another Scandinavian country. The beauty that we can see with our eyes, or rather our phone cameras, is remarkable. An occurrence like this is grounding. It reminds us how even the smallest moments, like seeing colorful lights in the sky, can fill us with joy and etch an everlasting impact in our souls. We never know how often, if at all, these experiences might occur, or if they will come back around. In these moments, no words have to be spoken, no thoughts have to be shared. The closeness of loved ones, the privilege to be occupying the same space in the same instance in time, is enough. Amidst the comfortable silence is a presence that speaks without words and understands without asking. It whispers, “I’m here for you, you are safe with me.”
I give the northern lights 100 percent treat.
