(1) ANXIETY.
The American Psychological Association defines anxiety as “an emotion characterized by apprehension and somatic symptoms of tension in which an individual anticipates impending danger, catastrophe, or misfortune. The body often mobilizes itself to meet the perceived threat: Muscles become tense, breathing is faster, and the heart beats more rapidly.”
(2) The sound of Rihanna’s 2006 single “SOS” blares into the dark, disturbing the lulling white noise that had been playing throughout the night. The room is pitch black except for the sliver of nascent morning light peeping past the cheap vinyl blinds that the university throws into every room. The lofted bed is warm, with sheets patterned like a spring garden, a duvet the texture of clouds, and pillows covered in silk cases. It is peaceful aside from Rihanna’s voice. The sun begins to rise. It is 7:00 a.m.
(3) Eden Waxman has never woken up without gasping for air, as if coming back to life from the third shock of a defibrillator. Of mixed Native American and Caucasian descent, she grew up upper middle class in Northwest Arkansas, with all of the pressures that come with the Bible Belt, being the eldest daughter, and having had her parents meet at Duke. She is newly 21, a Princeton student, where she captains the cheerleading team, is vice president of her sorority, social chair of the campus tour guide society, and copy editor for the student literary magazine. Her life is a recipe for GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder). Of all the arts, she loves writing best; she hates animals; she loves her boyfriend; she hates when restaurants serve shrimp with the tail still on; and she has a deep fear that all of her friends hate her.
(4) BREAKFAST TIME IN HENRY HALL ROOM 234.
Eden Waxman drowsily scoops the last bit of her mango sea moss gel from the jar into her mouth. She read, on Instagram, that sea moss gel enhances digestion and decreases inflammation (makes you skinnier); she started buying it last month. Yesterday, Eden ran out of Greek yogurt so instead she reaches for her specially made collagen and protein peptide bars that are only 180 calories and only have two grams of sugar and that you cannot buy at Target or CVS or the UStore, so she has them shipped to Frist Student Center. Today’s flavor is Espresso Vanilla Cinnamon. She takes her supplements: L-theanine; Nutrafol; B2; Metformin ER; Topiramate.
(5) INSERT ONE. ON CONSUMERISM.
CONSUMERISM: “The economic and cultural belief that personal happiness, well-being, and social status depend on the continuous, high-volume acquisition of material goods and services.” (Google).
(6) GRWM.
It is 36 degrees today, as opposed to yesterday’s 21 and the day before’s 17, so Eden Waxman debates between wearing a tank top and cardigan or simply a long-sleeve shirt in lieu of her customary uniform of a bulky sweater. She still opts for leggings under her jeans. Tinted sunscreen; primer; concealer (she loathes foundation); powder; bronzer; blush; contour; brow gel. Curling her eyelashes is always a daunting task; fighting spiders with scissors. Eden’s boyfriend watches intently as she places the blades against her lashes and squeezes, hairs screaming upward as she methodically squeezes in and out, in and out, crushing the handle of the tiny contraption. Mascara primer; four coats of mascara; lip gloss; perfume. In and out: her boyfriend breathes. Eden hates when he watches her get ready because she hates being watched, being under surveillance. She cannot breathe; in, out, out, out. He tells her that her makeup looks pretty.
(7) CLASS. (ONE.)
Eden Waxman has class at 9:30 a.m. every Monday and Wednesday morning. It is AMS253/ENG273: The Native American Novel: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. They talk about m.s. RedCherries’ mother and the Cheyenne people’s forced migration from Montana to Oklahoma. What does it mean to be diasporic within your own land? Sovereign within another state? Eden nearly cries as she is drinking her quad-shot honey iced latte and studying photos from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.
(8) INTERLUDE—WALKING. (ONE.)
Eden Waxman has precept for The Native American Novel immediately after lecture. With her only English major friend, she walks from the Chancellor Green Rotunda to a classroom on the first floor of East Pyne Hall. Eden’s friend ponders why they must change rooms at all, and Eden laments that nothing makes sense anymore, reflecting on the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture and abuse that she studied at 2 a.m. this morning in an internet rabbit hole after her roommate made an offhand comment about her International Affairs lecture.
(9) INSERT TWO. ON OCD.
OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER (OCD): “A disorder marked by uncontrollable and recurring thoughts (obsessions), repetitive and excessive behaviors (compulsions), or both” (National Institute of Mental Health).
(10) CLASS. (TWO.)
The Native American Novel precept is fine; Eden Waxman’s professor is her preceptor who is also her Junior Paper advisor. She is afraid her professor hates her. Eden speaks just enough during precept to garner participation points but doubts the quality of her insights and assumes all of her classmates think she is dumb. She speaks to RedCherries’ poem about living in the mix of things: between past and present, between cultures. What is the future, what is the past, and where do they intersect? The professor asks Eden what she thinks and Eden babbles that she doesn’t know but what she wants to say is that she understands the narrator but slightly in reverse; judged by physicality yet unanchored by history—they both are. Eden is white passing, while the narrator is full-blooded Indian. The narrator was adopted out while Eden was raised next door to the Cherokee Nation. No one believes either of them. She wonders what her ancestry means and why others are allowed to define it. It is like the puppies. Who found the puppies with the 13 stripes and 50 stars on their backs? Why does it matter? Unmoored. Unmoored. Unmoored.
(11) WALK TO PROSPECT AVENUE TO EAT LUNCH AT THE TIGER INN. IT IS PORK CARNITAS TODAY.
Eden Waxman and her only English major friend walk towards Prospect to eat lunch at TI and Cap, respectively. It is pork carnitas today. Eden hopes her stomach will be kind.
(12) INSERT THREE. ON IBS.
IRRITIBLE BOWEL SYNDROME (IBS): “A common condition that affects the digestive system. It can cause stomach cramps, bloating and diarrhea” (NHS).
(13) NOT PORK CARNITAS.
The menu chair lied in this week’s email and it is not pork carnitas but something far, far more sinister: shrimp with the tails on. Not shrimp cocktail, in which one could easily pick the shrimp up by the tails and slide the little coral bodies out of the disgusting shells naturally, but instead the shrimp with tails are contained in paella so that Eden Waxman will have to either get her fingers all messy or use a fork and knife and not get all of the shrimp out of the bodies and instead have dead tails floating in her paella like bodies in the water after the Titanic. Eden debates throwing the paella out the front window.
(14) DRAMA.
At lunch, Eden Waxman sits next to her best friend and across from two fencers. They talk about cheerleading and fencing and Ivy championships and who gets better accommodations when they travel. One of the fencers is British; Eden’s boyfriend is British; they bond. The girl on Eden’s right is friends with Eden’s boyfriend. The girl has big eyes and kind of looks like a Beanie Boo™. Eden immediately hates her.
(15) When Eden Waxman’s best friend is grabbing dessert, one of Eden’s other friends comes up to ask if Eden’s best friend is mad at her. Eden says yes. The friend asks what to do, and Eden explains that, with her best friend, confrontation is always the answer. Remember what happened last spring at TI initiations. Eden and the friend nod in whispered tones as Eden’s best friend returns with a chocolate covered banana pop. Eden packs up her laptop and ventures to the TV Room at the beckoning of a different friend—one who isn’t really a friend because they just met last weekend at Small World Coffee when this girl called her out of line to chat. The conversation lasted an hour and a half, and Eden ended up having to go to the later church service. The sermon was on acting as Jesus’ servants on Earth whilst here (remember that Earth is not the end goal but merely a plane that must be endured in one’s pursuit of Heaven). This girl wants to discuss (shit talk) another one of Eden’s friends who is allegedly mad at this girl. Eden remembers her calling to have a servant heart and wonders WWJD. The image of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School flashes before her eyes, and she contemplates the denomination. “I am the pilgrim and the Indian at the thanksgiving table,” RedCherries says.
(16) In the TV Room, people keep popping their heads in to ask when Eden Waxman will finish speaking with this girl. Each time she opens her mouth to answer, the girl responds, “Just one second—we’re almost done!” Basically, this girl kissed Eden’s friend’s ex-boyfriend. What should she do?
(17) INSERT FOUR. ON IDGAF.
IDGAF: I don’t give a fuck. (Often used when one does not give a fuck about the situation on which he or she is being questioned. Or, when one does not give a fuck about how an individual handles the situation in question).
(18) AFTER THE CONVERSATION.
Downstairs, Eden Waxman’s boyfriend is grinning on a couch in the Red Room. She is so excited to see him. Sometimes she believes he is the only reason she is happy, but then she remembers that that is an incredibly melodramatic, unfeminist notion. Is she accidentally a misogynist? Probably. She was raised in Arkansas, and Arkansas is a red state: Red Power. During the Red Power movement, Eden’s grandmother walked in marches with the American Indian Movement. She was Eden’s age and in college. Eden has done nothing of note in her life; she debates ripping out her hair. Is gossip noteworthy? Red Power versus social power. One is fake while the other is everything.
(19) Eden Waxman’s friend (the one that girl was berating) walks up to Eden and her boyfriend on the couch. It is time for class. Eden misses her boyfriend already. They did not even speak because she was too busy texting her roommate about what that girl was saying about the friend who is now standing right in front of her (and the miniature confrontation between Eden’s best friend and her other friend). Her roommate must know it all. Knowledge is power; gossip is currency; to talk is novel; Emma was the Austen book with the largest number of first editions. Everyone wants to know.
(20) INTERLUDE—WALKING. (TWO).
The walk from TI to East Pyne Hall is approximately 10 minutes. During it, Eden Waxman tells her friend everything that that girl said about her, laughing as she does so. Eden is decidedly going to Hell. She should research Cherokee cosmology in an attempt to return to her roots. She and her friend quicken their pace because it has started snowing. Thick white flakes land on Eden’s spider lashes, and she quickly brushes them off before they ruin the mascara she applied four times. The snow falls faster. It snowed during the Trail of Tears.
(21) INSERT FIVE. ON RACIAL INCONGRUENCE.
RACIAL INCONGRUENCE: “The misalignment between an individual’s self-identified race or ethnicity and the racial identity assigned to them by others, often based on physical appearance or cultural perception” (Google).
(22) CLASS. (THREE).
At 1:30 p.m., ENG404/COM448: Forms of Literature: Inventing the Novel begins. Eden Waxman is nestled in between her two friends—the friend she walked from TI with and another who came from Ivy—and the realization of deep insecurity slams into her face first. She is huddled in the middle; she cannot stand to be on the outside where loneliness may claw at the tips of her exposed ribs. She shudders as her professor opens the discussion of Emma. Her Ivy friend is a Psych major and says something profound about how Emma feels a need to control others due to childhood trauma, but Eden is too busy considering her own to bother listening. Did her deep-rooted sense of loneliness begin with her mixed identity and the diaphanous culture she inhabited? No one is entirely Eden except for Eden and that terrifies Eden. She is completely unmoored.
(23) When the professor calls on Eden Waxman to produce three words to describe herself—not handsome, clever, or rich—she answers: passionate, neurotic, and obsessive. She wonders if they are synonyms.
(24) AFTER CLASS EDEN GOES TO HER BOYFRIEND’S. NO ONE IS SURPRISED.
After class, Eden Waxman goes to her boyfriend’s room because she is still upset by their truncated meeting at TI. None of his roommates are home to be disturbed by her presence. Her number one fear is being a burden. Purple spots have taken up residence beneath her eyes and a dull pounding has settled at the base of her skull, so when she walks into her boyfriend’s dorm, she slumps immediately onto his couch, caked lashes fluttering closed. He reminds her that she needs to run her miles for cheerleading. She debates crying but decides against it, instead wondering why she as a Native woman has decided to date a British colonizer. She verbalizes this thought, and her boyfriend shakes his head, grinning and running his left hand through his short brown hair. In the accent that drew her to him originally, he replies that the Spanish colonized the Americas, and the French colonized Arkansas specifically. History has got it all wrong; m.s. RedCherries came to the same conclusion in the final poem of mother. Other histories that have been hidden or redacted by the U.S. government include but are not limited to: the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, Project MK-Ultra, the role of African American soldiers during the world wars, Operation Paperclip, the West Virginia Coal Wars, the first Thanksgiving. There is great power in the ability to rewrite history; there is great power in writing; writing is merely words; words are merely gossip.
(25) Back in her room, as Eden Waxman is changing into her workout clothes and speaking with her roommate about their respective days, a cockroach scuttles across the floor. Her roommate kills it before Eden can scream.
(26) GYM.
Eden Waxman runs five miles and listens to “I Know Places” by Taylor Swift, “Speed Drive” by Charli XCX, “No Good Deed” by Cynthia Erivo, “Haunted (Taylor’s Version)” by Taylor Swift, “Applause” by Lady Gaga, “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-A-Lot, “Bad Girls” by M.IA., “Bonfire” by Childish Gambino, “Gimme More” by Britney Spears, “Super Freaky Girl” by Nicki Minaj, “It’s Tricky” by Run-DMC, “Whoomp! There It Is” by Tag Team, and a quarter of “On the Floor (feat. Pitbull)” by Jennifer Lopez. “SOS” by Rihanna was the next song in the queue.
(27) DATE NIGHT.
Usually, Eden Waxman would go to TI for dinner, but tonight, she has cheerleading practice, so she does not have time to walk all the way to Prospect, eat, and socialize (gossip) before trekking to Jadwin Gym clothed in sweats and a ponytail. Instead, Eden dials her boyfriend on her walk to the UStore. She is unsurprised to find him already there, buying Pringles and a Celsius despite it being nearly 5:30 p.m. and him having no excuse to evade TI dinner. She buys the UStore salmon and avocado sushi and the largest SmartWater available before she and her boyfriend wander just outside to the Lockhart steps to eat. He asks about her day, and she talks for the entirety of their allotted time together.
(28) PRACTICE.
At practice, Eden Waxman leads the Princeton Cheerleading Team in their usual warmup, joking with her teammates as if she is not the most problematic individual on campus. There are two games this weekend, so Eden will miss NaTIves affinity night dinner on Friday and Valentine’s Day dinner with her boyfriend on Saturday. Coach has the team warm up tumbling, Starting Five, all of their timeout stunts, and their halftime dance before she sits them down in a circle to “powwow.” As Coach comments on Monday’s practice—when they had to call EMS upon finding Isa passed out in the Jadwin D floor bathroom after being hit in the face during a stunt—Eden weighs the cultural connotations of “powwow.” Is it another stolen piece of Native identity? Is it important for her to care, or is this sensitivity the result of a liberal arts education? At school, Eden justifies her heritage to her peers with her unseen tanned appearance in the summer (as if she is not Cherokee in the winter, too).
(29) INSERT SIX. ON RACIAL IMPOSTER SYNDROME.
RACIAL IMPOSTER SYNDROME: “Both an identity crisis and a form of imposter syndrome… [that] makes someone feel as though their racial or ethnic identity is fake or inauthentic, affecting virtually every aspect of their multiracial identity.” (Talkspace)
(30) AFTER PRACTICE HER COACH DEBRIEFS FOR AN HOUR AND THE ENTIRE TIME EDEN WAXMAN IS FOCUSED ON THE MOUNTAIN OF WORK SHE MUST ACCOMPLISH BEFORE TOMORROW AT 9:30 A.M.
See above.
(31) INTERLUDE—WALKING. (THREE).
With her co-captain by her side for half of the walk, Eden Waxman makes the treacherous journey all the way from down campus to Firestone Library, a 15-minute walk uphill in 22-degree weather. Eden’s co-captain tells her to encourage one of their teammates to try out for captain next year, and Eden nods noncommittally. Co-captain asks how her day was. It is Eden’s dad’s birthday. Co-captain grins because he likes Eden’s dad. Eden asks how her co-captain’s day was. Co-captain had a thesis meeting to which his advisor was 30 minutes late. They laugh. Co-captain asks about TI. Eden wonders how she is able to so easily identify with the institution of an Eating Club but not her own heritage. See Racial Imposter Syndrome.
(32) THE LIBRARY.
Imagine a quiet but persistent hum of anxious energy. Low voices and the methodic tap tap tapping of feet against linoleum tile or against the base of chairs older than many of the individuals who occupy them; heads are bowed; the lights flicker on and off with the infrequent movement of ghosts from study room to bathroom or study room to the escape upstairs. The ever-present unease of deadlines, perfectionism, and incomprehension underlies the eerie calm, stifling like the already too-hot air pumped into the stacks by the overworked heating system. Eden Waxman is an apparition as she moves through the bowels of the A floor of Firestone at 9:30 p.m. on a Wednesday night.
(33) Nestled into an offshoot of the main shelves, where a red plastic table acts as an island of learning in the otherwise book-laden enterprise, Eden Waxman’s boyfriend works fastidiously on memorizing physics and the life of Alexander the Great. With AirPods in his ears, his eyes glued to the computer screen, and his leg bouncing rhythmically, he doesn’t notice Eden until she plops her cheer bag down next to his school one. A book on the histories and lineages of Ancient Roman emperors is sprawled open next to him. She taps below the sentence “Domitian told the people to call him ‘Lord and God;’ he was assassinated” and giggles to herself. Her boyfriend inclines his head and shifts towards her. She smiles.
(34) INSERT SEVEN. ON OXYTOCIN.
OXYTOCIN: “a type of hormone in your body that promotes positive feelings; Oxytocin has been shown to decrease stress and anxiety levels” (Harvard Health).
(35) BRAIN BREAK.
After she asks him for another synonym (the seventh time, this one for “anxiousness”), Eden Waxman’s boyfriend reminds her that he needs to work and is not a human thesaurus. She debates between ripping her hair out and crying but is reminded by the sane voice in her head (quietest of the many) that either would be a melodramatic reaction to an entirely reasonable statement. She puts in her own AirPods—noise cancellation, since she cannot work with music—and places her Apple ecosystem of devices into Do Not Disturb, a collective silencing of the mind and the outside world. Peace.
(36) Eden Waxman writes four paragraphs of her assignment for CWR213: Writing Speculative Fiction before she is overcome with insurmountable hunger. Her boyfriend, who is enamored with the Microsoft PowerPoint occupying the majority of his computer screen, does not notice this hunger and thus cannot sense the oncoming doom. She cannot eat because it is 11:37 p.m., and eating after dinner is bad—according to a skinny, blonde influencer who proliferates Eden’s Instagram Discover page. Stubborn belly fat is a byproduct of these late-night snackings, and no amount of sea moss gel or collagen, low-cal, low-sugar, protein peptide bars will be able to combat the evils of a midnight sushi run.
(37) INTERLUDE—WALKING. (FOUR.)
On the way to, from, and during her time at the UStore, Eden Waxman’s little brother calls to confirm that the PRINCIPLES OF SEX EDUCATION have not metamorphosed since middle school. She reaffirms his need for condoms and that, no, a girl cannot get pregnant from swallowing. As she checks out with her salmon and avocado sushi, two dark chocolate bars, and a large Coke (for her boyfriend, since she only drinks water), Eden’s little brother brags that, after the Valentine’s Day date party Pi Kapp is hosting tomorrow night, he plans to lose his virginity to a Kappa in the year above. Eden closes her eyes as the 20-degree wind slams into her.
(38) RETURN TO WORK.
Resituated in the bowels of Stone, Eden Waxman divulges her brother’s nasty secret to her boyfriend as she hands him his liter Coke. They laugh at both Eden’s little brother and the size of the Coke. Eden did not know it was the wrong size. She doesn’t drink soda, only water. Water is thinner than blood. She should treat her brother with more respect. Self-loathing crashes into her, and she resents this inherent need to gossip that is an ever-present prick just beneath her skin.
(39) Eden Waxman and her boyfriend work until 12:07 a.m., which is after the announcement of the closing of the checkout desk has played, after the two security guards having swept through the shelves in search of fornicating or dead students, after the people working at the table three stacks down—the only other table visible from their unadvantageous vantage point in the depths—have left. At 12:07, Eden’s boyfriend announces that he is hungry, and it takes every fiber in Eden’s being to not roll her eyes. She walked to the UStore for sushi not even 30 minutes ago. He was not hungry 30 minutes ago. She needs to work. He’s leaving with or without her.
(40) TLDR; Eden Waxman and her boyfriend exit Firestone Library hand-in-hand at 12:11 a.m.
(41) INTERLUDE—WALKING. (FIVE).
To walk from Firestone to Wawa is 14 minutes. To walk from Wawa to Henry Hall is seven minutes. Eden Waxman’s boyfriend has ordered a chicken quesadilla from Wawa and insists that she does not have to walk with him to fetch it, but she is pathetic and will do anything to spend an additional second with him (re: unfeminist, misogynist). Her face is too cold, her hands are too cold, the temperature is plummeting, and her sweatpants do not fully cover her ankles. Now is the winter of our discontent. Eden Waxman’s boyfriend jerks her hood up over her head halfway through the walk and midway through her third bellowed complaint. Warmth. She is overcome with the sudden fear that he hates her and, once he drops her off at her dorm, will never return again because she is so annoying and exhausting and also fat from all of her late-night snacking. She is nauseated and, when he runs inside to grab his quesadilla, pulls trig in the trashcan located in a shadowy corner situated between Wawa and the Dinky. Skinny!
(42) INSERT EIGHT. ON EXHAUSTION.
EXHAUSTION: “The state of being so tired that you have no energy left” (Collins Dictionary).
(43) GOODNIGHT.
Darkness overtakes her, consuming her; consumering her. After Eden Waxman works for a few more hours on her CWR213 assignment and prepares for her presentation in PSY255/CGS255: Cognitive Psychology at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow morning, she falls asleep on accident. She is unshowered, in her sweats, and her hair still in a ponytail. She did not brush her teeth or complete her five-step skincare routine. She forgot to take her nightly medication. Tomorrow, she will suffer at the hands of GAD, IBS, and OCD.
(44) Eden Waxman is dead asleep but wants to, needs to, has to, wake up so so badly. She is floating, falling through time and space without any groundings. Unmoored. mother, where is the Indian in me? She cannot see because she is unconscious but her subconscious understands that she should not be and it haunts her id, ego, superego as she spins through black recent memories (no, she does not dream). Every incomplete assignment and misstep and heinous comment she made throughout the day presses against the forefront of her consciousness, banging against her skull, fearmongering in an attempt to raise alarm. SOS. SOS. SOS. Rihanna is queued. Eden Waxman has never woken up without gasping for air, as if coming back to life from the fifth shock of a defibrillator.
(45) Panicked and unmoored, Eden Waxman awakes at 7:00 a.m. the next day.
For Ellis Hanby, it is now the winter of our discontent.
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