MoHome Sickness: Shared Spaces

Graphic by Trinity Kendrick ‘21

By Tishya Khanna ’23

Staff Writer

Some of us keep our rooms messy, some tidy and some a mix of the two. Nostalgia creeps in as I recollect wanting to make space in my friend’s messy res hall room to listen to music, study or even just sit and chat. Usually we ended up sitting on the floor. When I didn’t feel like walking back to my room on busy days, a friend’s space was a haven I went to for my habitual afternoon naps. 

I’ve never had a meticulously tidy or an entirely messy room. Well, it could be horribly disheveled at times, but it’s usually a combination of orderly and cluttered. I also barely live in my room. I like to think of the campus as an extended, lavish home — the Dining Commons is the kitchen, the library is the study, the Makerspace is the art room, the rooms in Blanchard Hall are offices and the dorms are living areas and rooms to sleep in. It’s a shared living space. There, your friends are your family — your community is your family. 

I also miss the movement itself. Tired of studying? Walk to the Dining Commons, Grab ’n Go or the Cochary Pub & Kitchen to get a coffee or snack. Nice day out? Walk across the lakes. Can’t understand a concept from class? Take a walk to your professor’s building for office hours. Only five minutes left for class? Grab your bag and sprint. 

Now, in quarantine, I appreciate having that space to move freely between places on our small map even more. I liked the freedom to allocate different spots for different purposes, unlike in quarantine, where space is confined. For many of us, our bedrooms are now for studying, sleeping, working, making art, living and everything in between. 

I liked bumping into friends now and then — the casual domesticity of it, the dailyness, the mundanity. A benefit of shared spaces is that your daily frustrations dissolve more easily when others surround you than when you’re by yourself. We’re all struggling to keep pace with our hectic personal worlds: the module system, a pandemic that seems to have no end in sight, the never-ending work. Our common frustrations are now divided into individual ones. When trying to converse with a friend, we struggle to decide upon a time to meet. We have to make more effort than before the pandemic, when we could just walk up to their room or meet them somewhere on campus.

For some of us, the struggle extends further, to a difficult home life, the death of a loved one, declining mental health and more. College is a safe space that, for some, is more of a home than their own. The lack of a physical support system around manifests in wild, unpleasant ways. It’s easier to be kind to yourself when the people around you are kind to you too. An extended hand, a simple knock on the door or a genuine inquiry make an essential difference.

Our shared spaces offer shared emotions and shared tenderness. Sometimes shared misery is laughter. I’d rather be crying about the ever-growing list of things wrong with the world with a friend who’s just as miserable and willing to ease the pain through humor. Then we’d go to the Dining Commons and have ice cream with hot fudge. 

Now our relationships translate to long phone calls and Zoom study sessions. If anything, it brings to light one of the hallmarks of being a Mount Holyoke student: our community. Even when we are miles apart from each other, the faculty and students alike come together with a diligent, ceaseless effort to preserve some virtual version of the shared space so many of us call home.