March 2021

By Alex O'Boyle

Saint Patrick’s Day is a holiday that is popularly centered on food and drink… the latter moreso. Although I’m not of-age to celebrate with the traditional drink, food is one of my favorite parts of the holiday. Every year, I look forward to eating corned beef for dinner on March 17th. The traditional meal is corned beef and cabbage, but no one in my family is a fan of cabbage, so corned beef and mashed potatoes it is! Corned beef was my favorite food for the first decade of my life, and I still have a soft spot for it. While corned beef is a classic, my favorite Irish food will always be Irish soda bread.

Many Irish families have their own family recipe for soda bread, but in my completely unbiased opinion, my great grandmother’s recipe is the best. It’s a perfect combination of cakey and bready texture, is perfectly moist, and even makes raisins edible and tasty. I’ve made dozens of loaves of the bread, so I’ve come to be proud of my family recipe; so proud, in fact, that I engaged in an Irish soda bread bake-off.

Every year, my marching band participates in the famous Saint Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City. One student started the tradition of bringing in his Irish soda bread for the band to enjoy at our last rehearsal before the parade each year. When that student graduated, I decided to continue the tradition. My friend and bandmate also wanted to bring in her bread, so we decided to have a bake-off. I spent hours and hours rehydrating raisins, measuring out flour, and preparing pans. Over the course of many days, I baked nine loaves of Irish soda bread. I could barely carry it all, but I managed to just so I could take a picture of my accomplishment. I was proud of my effort and formed a newfound appreciation for the recipe. When the time finally came for the band battle of the breads, chaos ensued. Both breads were rapidly gobbled up and my friend and I were showered with compliments. In the chaos, the voting process went off the rails and was inconclusive, but I was content with knowing that I made my whole band happy and hyped them up for the parade.

Even though I’m not old enough to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with my older family members, I still have a deep appreciation for the traditions of the holiday. I will always think of March 17th as a day to celebrate and take pride in my family, and to share the joy with my friends, too. All cultures have their own foods and holidays, but I sure am glad the Irish got soda bread and St. Patrick’s Day!

By Olivia Nguyen

Spring was a toddler, teetering down a slope, tripping over his feet and the buds blossoming beneath his soles. The air around him was filled with somber notes of sage and eucalyptus, as if giving form to Spring’s discontent to having been woken from a deep slumber. His pout emptied the skies into crevices and arms cradling their tears.

Mortal passersby would often bathe in those glistening tears, unaware of the child, still testy, that lingered over them in the brush. Spring admired the little humans, with their fragile skin and pulsing veins, for their persistence. He had lived for millennia, no longer the child he appeared to be, and all but confined to the small body. The humans, however, faded and waned like malnourished greenery only to sprout up once more, in a manner similar to weeds. They were feeble, but tenacious, pulling the green hairs from his scalp and raking iron across his body in the name of survival.

Spring wore a score of scars dealt from humans on his skin, and though the beings of the earth and the skies writhed in rage, he had quietly asked them to not harm the mortals and their kin. Begrudgingly accepting his words, the skies instead watched over him day and night, taking turns to illuminate his marred beauty. Of his three siblings, Spring was often called the most beautiful, with long locks wreathing across hills and derma adorned with rare gems and flora. The blemishes on his youthful body did not diminish his beauty; in fact, they enhanced it further.

With all his heart, Spring loved the humans who brutalized his being. As the skies watched him, Spring watched them. He saw them tinker with the twigs they collected from his fingers, the vines taken from his wrists, and watched as they turned thorns into silk. They were wonderfully creative, those humans. Spring wondered what it would be like to be one, to live in such a frail vessel. To think so large in such a small mind.

Spring yearned for mortality and a ceasing heartbeat and days numbered by fanciful thoughts. So relinquishing his immortality in the dead of spring, he found himself his finite wish.