Dear Anonymous Contributing Writer,
On the first day of my freshman year of high school, I walked into the lunch room of Hellgate High School. I knew no one, I was no one, and as such, I had no one with whom to eat lunch. As an 85 lbs, 5’7” beanpole-shaped geek covered in acne and radiating pubescent anxiety, I briefly surveyed the cafeteria, promptly turned around, and walked home — where I would eat lunch nearly every day for the next four years.
When I first arrived at Stav Hall, I was overcome with the same dread, albeit I had traded the pubescent anxiety for all the existential dread of a 20-year-old who had left everyone he knew and moved across the country, transferring colleges for the second time in a year. My face contained only slightly less acne.
Yet this time, I did not turn and wander home. I resisted the urge to slink back to my room on the third floor of Ytterboe, nestled on the outer reaches of campus. This is college. I have a community now.
One way in which that community manifests itself just so happens to be in a group spontaneously organizing itself at an inconspicuously long table in the southeastern corner of Stav Hall. I take an immense amount of comfort in the fact that rain or shine, good times or bad, a year removed from a meeting with Dean Medley or in the minutes following one, I will find a group of my friends, which nearly always happens to be a subset of the St. Olaf Track roster.
Virginia Woolf wrote in “A Room Of One’s Own” that “one cannot think well, love well, sleep well if one has not dined well.” How can I consider myself as having dined well if I did not do so in the company of those I hold dear? Of course, I love my friends! Do you not love yours? I have endless sympathy for those who cannot find a community in which they can find love, comfort, and continuity.
To your second point, I would say, eat with us! You are absolutely correct: there is no edict proclaiming our dominion over said table, endowing only those whose names are on the roster the privilege to dine there. Many of my friends exist outside the confines of this set and nevertheless choose to eat and make merry with us. We sit around those already at the table because we want to be in the presence of excellent company, so why not include those who have already arrived, regardless of prior affiliation? The bounds of the larger dining set are not strictly defined and theoretically could encompass the entirety of the campus community. Be assured that the folks who habitually sit at that table are highly unlikely to cease doing so, though they harbor no animosity and would love to share a meal with you should you have such a desire. Come over. Let’s talk. And maybe drink some chocolate milk.
With all the sincerity I can muster,
A brunet with enough self-assurance to stand by his writing:
Ignatius Fitzgerald
