I remember near the end of the summer of my first year here, I was feeling quite tiếc nuối (a sense of loss) that the silent campus would soon be noisy with so many people and vehicles, and also lawn mowers and leaf blowers, once the semester started. My friends Saya and Christina used the word “territorial” to describe our feelings. I also love deeply the silent campus this winter break, but I have come to the point where thinking about the upcoming semester doesn’t make me feel tiếc or territorial anymore. In general, I no longer dread the end of a break. This campus is not my own, the break is not mine, the silence would still come back here winters after winters — I don’t lose anything when the break ends or the silence is gone. Just as Sandy, a senior local who has become my friend when we found each other walking around campus also on a sunny winter day, put it: we love the campus when it is empty and silent, but we also love the campus when it is full of people and events, just like how we love each distinct season of this region, with all their contrasting characteristics.

The amphitheater, where the biggest events happen, was now beautifully covered in an untouched layer of snow.

The deeply tranquil state of mind that I have been in this winter break may be gone when I start engaging in multiple courses and events in the spring semester. Perhaps the strength and the lightness that I have in my body right now would be lost when I move to live in a cramped apartment in a polluted city. Maybe the clarity in my head now would also be replaced with messy thoughts and doubts as I start my next “career” after Mount Holyoke. Would it be a waste, then, that I chose to decline so many things to retreat here this winter?

I don’t think so. I used to always do things for future benefits, but not anymore now — this winter break, during which I cultivate tranquility, strength, and clarity, is good in and of itself, right in the moment it happens, regardless of whether those things will remain for the future or not. Moreover, because I have figured out how to cultivate them, I will know how to find my way back to them in the future. As IU sang in concluding My Sea, a song full of emotions and power like ocean waves:

그럼에도 여전히 가끔은 삶에게 지는 날들도 있겠지 또다시 헤매일지라도 돌아오는 길을 알아

Nonetheless, there probably will come the days in which I will lose against life again. But even then, when I am lost again, I know my way back.