I gazed at the mountains encircling my mother’s hometown. I had been travelling in China for a month, constantly apologising for my broken Chinese. My mum once told me how as a child she would walk amongst those mountains after school, secretly gathering plants to feed the family chickens.
Twenty years later she departed these mountains for England, and another twenty years later, I was in her hometown whilst she was in mine. That night, her child who couldn’t fully understand her, and whom she couldn’t fully understand, dreamt in Chinese for the first time, nestled between the mountains.
Luke, Merton
At twelve years of age we held hands, and you joked that it made you nervous. I laughed it off, and only understood when I received your letter years later. “I cannot have you”, you wrote as your father was arranging your marriage and you were arranging your escape. You know better than anyone that the distance between family and love was a no man’s land.
In June when they flew the rainbow outside, I thought of you. For better or worse I am lucky to know you, and all the things you cannot speak aloud.
Anonymous
After he left England we became summer — or, winter — friends, because that’s when the holidays are. When we meet, we’d forensically trace the shadows of our past selves that once said, ‘I’ll see you when I see you’.
But as time passed, we were just summer friends, and then we were just… friends. What he doesn’t know is that he’s never just a season — he occupied every bookshelf, road sign, and country path. So, when I sent him my notes on ‘The Bight’ by Elizabeth Bishop, what I really meant was, ‘I love you, awfully but cheerfully’.
Jennifer, St Hilda’s
Life in Punjab speaks of hurried crossings, lost homes, and stubborn hope. I found eerie echoes of these in the pinds (villages) I visited and the jameen (land) I walked on. Punjab’s fields are fertile not just with khanak (wheat), but with the memories of migrations, battles, prayers, and dreams.
My time in Punjab taught me that history is more than just academics. It is sung, remembered, and lived in the present. Most importantly, it is carried in the memories of our families, and in the soil beneath our feet. Uthe meri pyaar – there is my love.
Hannah, Hertford
I started rowing not for athletics but for aesthetics. On the river I loved watching the playful water birds, lavender sunrise, and, once, quiet snowfall. Sports, to me, was coloured by the ‘jock vs nerd’ dynamics of high school where they cheered on the American football team, and I was the quiet girl with a book. But at Summer Eights they cheered us on even as we lost. Maybe it’s because we all are nerds at Oxford, or maybe, because sports can be something more. I row for the matching ribbons in our hair and the synchronicity of our teamwork.
Selina, Corpus
Love is a weaving tapestry of sound: red stitched on black, a voice soft as silk. Songstresses, eternal angels, Ishtar and Chang’e incarnate, billions of souls beating as two. Led by the moon, by jasmines of the night, they dance through my wakeful dreams: Fairuz and Teresa Teng. Voices of generations, ballads of divas echoing across the Silk Road, awakening the glint of youth in sage eyes, who have lived a thousand lives. In China and Lebanon, in shisha cafes and karaoke bars, melodies worlds apart seem, for just an instant, to yearn for the same love. I flow in that lyrical ebb. I am awash in that love.
Rafal, Merton
