Chloë’s Parting Words

by Chloë  Moore ’24

T.S. Eliot wrote that “April is the cruelest month,” and it seems he predicted my current plight: celebrating the first real spring day by beginning this goodbye letter to the English Department. While objectively I knew this day would come, it still feels slightly surreal to formalize my farewell to this place, which has been my home away from home for the past four years. I’ve had the joy of working here since my very first day on campus. In fact, the first person I met when I got to Minnesota was none other than the incomparable Jan Beebe. I remember it so vividly: I was walking from the Leonard Center, where I’d just taken a covid spit test (remember those?!), towards Dupre. As I passed under the Link, I saw a woman wearing a bright pink T-shirt with “Macalester College English Department” on the back. “Cool shirt!” I said, “I’m going to be a student worker there!” Despite knowing me only through the few emails we’d exchanged during the hiring process, Jan responded immediately: “Oh, you must be Chloë! Welcome to Mac!” If that’s not a sign that I’d found my place, I don’t know what is.

Of course, my first year was full of covid complications. I did most of my work virtually from my dorm, coming in only occasionally in the spring to sit in what would become “the Chloë chair,” separated from Jan by a plexiglass screen. We made it through that year, and the rest is history. Over the course of my time in the department, I’ve worked nearly every position we have —I’ve made countless copies on Sir Reginald, posted my fair share of English-y memes to Instagram, had the pleasure of writing and editing for the Words, and most recently have been in charge of helping coordinate our Literary Salons. Each role taught me something new: that printers can in fact smell fear, that professors make wonderful niche internet micro celebrities, and that the English department really is the best place on Earth.

Apart from working in the department, I’ve also somehow managed to fulfill both tracks of the English major; it’s a good thing I’m graduating, since I literally can’t take any more English classes. The classes I’ve taken here, from my FYC with Professor Kaston Tange to my capstones with Professors Dawes and Prior, plus everything in between, have been the most rewarding, productively challenging, and fun classes of my time at Macalester. I am more grateful than I can put into words for those first and last classes especially, which were perfect bookends to my time in the major. Thanks also to the other wonderful professors I’ve had (Profs. Geng, English, Elkins, Törzs, Burgess, Masum-Javed, Woodward), and to those who I know only outside of the classroom (Profs. Bognanni, Lumbley, Gold, Klippenstein, Voigt); the office and elevator conversations I’ve had with faculty are some of my favorite memories of the department. I’m equally indebted to the wonderful coworkers and classmates I’ve had here, who have become fast friends, and in two cases, roommates! A special shoutout is due to Birdie and Charley, my best friends in the world, without whom I am simply a collection of words and yearnings.

Traditionally, the “parting Words” letter has also been a time for graduating seniors to offer any tidbits of wisdom we’ve gleaned from the past few years. I still feel like I have more questions than answers on most days—I’m graduating with no clear plans for what comes next—but perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is to take comfort in that space of uncertainty, to approach the world with curiosity, openness, and gratitude. My father’s slogan for life is, “Be a student, not an alarmist.” As I leave campus, I am committing to being a perpetual student, looking not for hard and fast answers to the big questions, but rather for more questions to ask, and more things to learn. The art of asking has been one of the most important things I’ve learned at Macalester; how to ask good questions in class or in research, yes, but also how to ask for support (your professors are generous, a lot of problems can be solved with an email, and your friends care about you!), and how to ask things of myself. In closing, here’s what I ask of you, reader: open yourself to the world, work hard and play harder, don’t take yourself (or anyone) too seriously, and find joy in anything you can. People are all we have, hope is our best resource. There is hard and serious work to do out there, and there are also sunlit desks with fabulous plants, brilliant books to be written and read, and endless cups of K-pod coffee to be made. There is always more to say, but I’ve already dragged this on for a while. I’ll be available to the department forever (I keep trying to get Jan to let me live here), so this is less of a goodbye, and more of a “see you on the flip!”

With love, gratitude, and bagels,

Chloë