This week I decided to take Anne's suggestion and do a little research on the labyrinth instead.

The labyrinth at Bryn Mawr was created by Jeanne Rachel Solomon '00, a McBride student, and offered by the McBrides as a gift to the college in 1999. 

In an article entitled "Risks on the Path", Solomon writes "We are prompted to slow down, to follow the path as it turns in and out to lead us into the center and out again. On the way we can muse, contemplate, dream, ask questions, provide answers, breathe, quiet the chatter inside, become silent and amazed."

There was something soothing about how slow and fast the snow fell from the sky and the way it filled the dark trees around me. I turned white from head to toes by the time I reached what I thought was the center of the labyrinth. The carpet of snow beneath my feet could not hide the path from me, I knew it all too well. The snow continued to fall soundlessly as white flakes creeped into the opening of my boots. Despite how soothing the way the snow slowed everything down and how fluffy the ground beneath me felt, I couldn’t grasp why I didn’t like it as much as liked it last year. I felt like a little girl every time it snowed. I had always looked forward to the snow angels, the snowball fights, and the shoveling. I guess I missed the way the snow brought people together.

This is so cheesy I can hardly stand it, but...it's what happened.

Tuesday morning, I'd gotten up early, seen all the snow, and was sure I'd get to spend the day watching it from the sofa. So I was a little grumbly when I learned that I had to hoof it out to Bryn Mawr. Grumblier when the trains from Center City were running slow...so, en route, I wrote up my description of my site sit: "The snow around my site was unbroken, and lovely, full of sparkles. I couldn't bear to break it, to deface it with my footsteps....so I decided to respect the space, and skip my visit this week."

Unfortunately, when I got off the train, trudged my way into campus, and to my site,

Tomorrow would have been my friend Isaiah’s twentieth birthday. On the day he passed away, it snowed this same way. The snow fell on the trees in a hushed yet persistent way, small flakes sneakily adding up until my boots were drowning in white flurries. I felt very aware of my own body this morning. My feet felt heavy; grounded but not in the most reassuring of ways. Maybe it’s because I couldn’t see the ground beneath me. I felt the stuffiness in my nose, the coldness held at the tips of my fingers, and the tightness in my throat. Closing my eyes, I went back to that December day over a year ago.

In a spur-of-the-moment semi-foolish desire to risk the cold and be in the woods, Thursday night I ventured to my site. I walked through the place I am becoming better acquainted with, shining my headlamp on animal (rabbit?) tracks to help navigate this new nighttime setting. The dark has a way of disorienting you, pushing you into vulnerable spaces where groping for and trusting in recognizable markers has to be learned again. I took a few long-exposure photos at the site

Scape. Humanity.

In order to preserve the original image I had of the balcony, I decided to revisit my site soon after the snowfall. The beer bottles had a light coating of snow and the cigarrets were completely covered up. I was so thankful that the site that I had been visiting in order to restore my mental peace was finally back how I had first seen it. My week had been sort of off since I was really sick (in bed) all day Monday and Tuesday. Getting outside and being left alone in the quiet was a needed period of time. I had been cooped up all day for two days and was so sick of my room. I stood on the balcony and breathed the crisp air, observing everything I had missed. I suddenly didn't mind that it was freezing outside and that I probably would be causing myself to fall even more sick.

            I think one of the main issues addressed in this article confronts the idea of difference and how it is either manipulated for individual or a company’s financial interest or ignored and misunderstood. How do we find a balance between exotifying the “other” and celebrating different perspectives, customs, traditions and beliefs?

            I was particularly interested in the use of vocabulary to describe ideas about intersecting cultures and heritages. Hall explained that is important to be accurate and true when discussing issues of diversity, but also not to explain or describe them in ways that are difficult to relate to or understand.