One day last week, the sun, as it sometimes does, woke me up. It poured in through the dormer window that illuminates my small, fourth floor room in a building more than five times as old as I.

A view across my room, from my bed.

Maybe I should have thrown a pillow over my face and turned back over to go back to sleep, and some days I would have later regretted that I didn’t, but I got up. It’s an unusual trait for a college student, but I revel in the mornings. The promise of a fresh day always seems laden with hints of magic. The stirrings of life beckon me to my walk across campus. I don’t always make the walk across campus to Erdman—many mornings I merely eat microwaved oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts—but I never regret it when I do. The quiet of campus when few other students are crossing the greens and ducking through senior row is a treasure, a time for me to reflect and think. As if that weren’t reason enough, in and of itself, breakfast often offers one the chance to eat with one of my best friends, Rachel.

A photo from a garden next to New Dorm Dining Hall, showing one of my favorite spots to spend time after eating.

Food has, over my time at Bryn Mawr, become a ritual of friendship. Shared meals in the dining hall, lingering a bit longer than we should are a treasure—everyone needs to eat eventually, so eating together is an easy way to meet. I grew up in a family where we ate together, and as I went off to college I suppose I continued to do so, in a way. I eat supper nearly every night with people who are linked to me through traditions, part of my traditions family, I eat breakfast with a friend from my first-year hall, I eat lunch with friends from my first year, geology field trips, and friends with whom I have similar bonds.

Some days I don’t eat with friends and instead I read, but either way, the time I spend eating is a way of cementing my sense of place here.