Paratexts and Annotations

Commentary

Marina Keegan writes her essay for her fellow classmates in the Yale Class of 2012. Despite the frequent Yale references, her audience is not limited to those in the Yale community. Marina’s words have spoken to me since I first read her essay in high school, and I continue to draw insights from her essay today.

Marina begins with: “We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life.” This statement becomes the guiding theme of her essay. Although the “opposite of loneliness” has no name, Marina describes the feeling in a number of ways. First, with what it is not: “It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community.” Why is the “opposite of loneliness” needed? We already know feelings like “love” and “community”; the “opposite of loneliness” is something more.

Second, Marina describes the feeling in terms of experiences: “When the check is paid and you stay at the table. When it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. That night with the guitar. That night we can’t remember. That time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt.” Some of her descriptions are vague enough for anyone to relate (e.g., “when the check is paid and you stay at the table”); others are specific to her time at Yale. However, these descriptions invite us to reflect on when, in our own lives, we have felt this “opposite of loneliness.” For me, this feeling appears when my whole family – nine siblings and my parents – sit around the dinner table, chatting, eating, and laughing non-stop. Or when my friends and I make a two a.m. run to El Jefe’s for greasy quesadillas and chips. When I am surrounded by people who know me, who love me, who care for me.

Despite her attempts at pinning this feeling down, for Marina, the “opposite of loneliness” remains “elusive, indefinable.” But this is not a problem for Marina – or for me. I think that the elusiveness and indefinability of the “opposite of loneliness” is an invitation for each of us to define it for ourselves.

 

Letter to Marina – Fall 2016

I wrote this letter as an entry for a contest called Letters About Literature, back in Fall 2016. My letter was selected as a finalist winner for Massachusetts and was celebrated at the State House with the other eight other finalists and the state winner. I had to submit my letter on paper by mail, and I believe that the copy I submitted currently resides in State House archives.

 

Dear Marina,

 

Your words took my breath away. How did you articulate, so clearly and with so much insight, the name of the feeling that remained mysterious for so long in my life? Your essay “The Opposite of Loneliness” ingrained itself in my mind for days, weeks, months after I first read it. I reread the opening lines three times, letting the beauty and truth of the words sink in. “We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness,” you wrote. “But if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life.”

The first time I remember pinpointing the feeling was back in eighth grade. I was at Christmas Choir rehearsal, standing with the other eighth graders on the top step of metal bleachers. Our voices vibrated off the high ceilings and filtered through the stained-glass windows of the church. Green music folders in hand, we began singing “Somewhere in My Memory.” As the first notes swelled, the feeling washed over me. I felt it so strongly as the piano perfectly blended with our voices that I nearly stopped singing. I wasn’t sure what to call it. It felt like the feelings of Christmas: warmth, love, community, togetherness. But not quite any one of those.

I’m sure I felt that nameless emotion again over the next few months and years, but not as strongly – just flare-ups every now and then. A moment shared with my little siblings, Jack and Danielle, as we cocoon ourselves in blankets on the couch to watch some movie or show; their unstoppable giggles and smiling faces that light up the room call the feeling back out – if only for a moment. Or at family dinners when everyone’s home, and all ten kids and my parents gather around our two black, rectangular tables in the dining room to share a meal together. The chaos of dinner ensues as we shout for the bread or the salt and connect in lively conversation; yet, amidst the flurry of activity, there is an underlying calm: my mom’s soft smile, the pause for grace before eating, all twelve of us in our seats. The feeling emerges again, unexpected and warm: a sense of security, peace, and belonging.

You understood this feeling, Marina. You captured it, gave it a name, and revealed it for the world to see. You unmasked that mystery which had drifted within and around me since it first filled me at that rehearsal. The “opposite of loneliness.” I’ll never see those beautiful moments in the same way again.

Your words infused new life into my own writing. Your other nonfiction works in The Opposite of Loneliness showed me the forms of writing I love, but better.  Better narrative. Better journalism. Better description, word choice, voice. “Stability in Motion” showed me how to take an object (like a car, as you did) and make it an expression of myself – simply reading this essay was a better lesson in personification than any English class example.

You infused hope and inspiration into your words, which, in turn, filled me with inspiration and hope. Your words take ordinary people and reveal their extraordinary stories, exposing the beauty of humanity for the world to see. I dove into your story, enchanted as you took Tommy Hart, a lighthearted and hardworking exterminator, and revealed that social stereotypes are just that: stereotypes. That piece, “I Kill for Money,” reminded me to look beyond the surface whenever I meet someone new.

In their dedication, your parents reminded me of your life philosophy: “Our hope is that Marina’s message of love will inspire readers to imagine the possibilities and make a difference in the world.”

Believe me – it certainly did.

Through your writing, I got to know you, Marina – the you you showed the world in your short 22 years on this planet – and in the process, I got to know myself. I finished The Opposite of Loneliness and picked up a pen and my journal. I started writing almost daily, and I haven’t stopped.

Thank you, Marina, for giving me the hope, inspiration, and determination to become the writer I one day hope to be.

 

Gabrielle Landry

 

Letter to Marina – Fall 2019

 

Dear Marina,

 

I return to your essay “The Opposite of Loneliness” three years after I wrote to you for the first time, and still your words speak to me. I am now a sophomore at Harvard and I have experienced both loneliness and its opposite. College can be an isolating place.

Transitioning from my small, all-girls high school in Massachusetts to Harvard was much harder than I expected. During freshman year, I found myself longing for the comfort of being surrounded by those who know me best: at school, my closest girlfriends; at home, my siblings and parents. I wondered how I could make such an unfamiliar place feel like home. After the excitement of move-in and orientation waned, the loneliness crept in.

There were moments when light appeared – when I visited home, called my grandparents, had a good conversation over dinner with a new friend. But the connections at school felt stilted and surface-level, and many solo dinners later, though surrounded by the bustle of hundreds of others in my class, I felt quite alone.

Amidst the rainy, getting-dark-early fall days, I found Deepak. He made me smile and laugh, and as we got to know each other, I fell hard for him. We began dating in December 2018, and things started looking up.

Spring semester arrived. Deepak and I escaped the “Harvard bubble” on our frequent Boston dates, and I began to make a couple better girlfriends. There were many more moments filled with the “opposite of loneliness”: long, late-night conversations, “great mind games,” holidays spent at home. Not every moment was easy, but I felt much happier and, finally, more like myself again.

This year has been even better. I am branching out into different social groups to find those good girlfriends, and I am more in love with Deepak than ever. I am in my elements in my classes: I’ve decided to study philosophy (which comprise two of my classes), and my other classes allow me to pursue my love for English, writing, and humanities. I feel at home in Quincy House. I am facing challenges, but no longer feel alone in them.

And now, returning to your essay, Marina, I can more fully appreciate the evolving, elusive nature of the “opposite of loneliness.” Maybe it’s something we can never tie down because it changes with the stages of our lives. I am still Gabby, but I am not the same Gabby as I was when I first read your letter, or when I was a senior in high school, or when I first entered college. Your words continue to encourage me to seek that “opposite of loneliness” – and to hold onto it in those moments when it is warmest.

 

Gabrielle Landry

Poem

 

Synchronized Souls//

 

Our hearts beat together:

I love the way we fit.

Our eyes lock at the exact same time,

the same glow in them is lit.

 

Even in breath we rise together and fall,

in (love); out (of our depth)

Dancing in synchronized rhythms with you –

Each step a memory I’ve kept.

 

Our words follow each other in perfect time,

so simple and effortlessly.

Letters already written in the stars and in our blood,

the non-coincidences that connect you and me.