“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the campus offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild ibis, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of SSAF-funded things.”
— Mary Oliver, “Wild Ibis”
It’s embarrassing to admit, but I haven’t felt loneliness quite like I did this year.
Nursing a broken heart, I left my job and my university cohort to slave away at the terrible two: Honi and Honours. Things at home erupted and I couldn’t use the correct language to talk about it for far too long. I used to order books to a fellow editor’s house, because at times I didn’t know where I’d be living in a fortnight. It hit me all at once and I felt lonely.
At the closing night of the Student Journalism Conference, I gave a speech about how much it all meant to me. I toiled away on the notes app, desperate to convey my gratitude. I somehow also planned to ruin everyone’s evening by delivering a navel-gazing lament on how lonely life can feel.
But as I scrolled to that section of my speech, I looked into the audience and suddenly felt very stupid. Making eye contact with my exquisite Honi team, university friends who sacrificed their mid-semester break to support their friend who went stujo-mad, and new friends who had travelled across the country to tend to a stujo dream, I felt very, very stupid. I was not lonely at all. I was surrounded by the loveliest visionaries and creators.
Though access to campus culture is uneven and runs on class, gendered and racial lines, it buoys us more than we realise. We meet lifelong friends at society events, we debrief over Courtyard Café pasta specials, we learn about each other by reading the student newspaper. So many students don’t know what the Student Services Amenities Fee (SSAF) they pay actually funds. In an indirect way, the SSAF we pay serves as salves to our loneliness, if we know where to look.
I don’t feel a skerrick of loneliness when I leaf through this edition. Anthony-James Kanaan appeals to my cartoonishly-loving heart with the cover. Canberra correspondents Charlie Crawford and Ally Pitt take a cross-campus approach to SSAF and the campus novel genre respectively. Marlow Hurst and I look fondly on Honi campaign stunts past. Imogen Sabey scans lesbian invisibility in the print archives. Shania O’Brien, Isla Mowbray and Airlie Cullen perfect the edition with beautiful illustrations, and Sachi Pirola looks at campus through a new lens.
Huw, Valerie, Aidan, Victoria, Angus, Zeina, Amelia, Sandra and Simone, there’s not a Sunday where I wish I was anywhere else but in the office, laughing and gossiping and drinking bubble tea, with you all.
My mum and I linger a little longer around the breakfast table each morning. The orange stray cat kisses my ankles on my walk home. The red fur of banksia sprouts on the tree. When I sit on the swings, the wind rushes into my face as quickly as it pulls away.
We are in good company.
