In August, we bring a set of new full-time writers to the blog. Today, please welcome Madeline Witvliet (’25), who will be writing for us on the 3rd of each month. Madeline graduated from Calvin with a degree in English. She can be found in coffee shops in Eastown, exploring Michigan’s state parks, or singing with Calvin’s Alumni Choir. Madeline enjoys spending time outdoors, crafting, and cooking Mediterranean-inspired meals.

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in late May, I hopped in the car with my roommate and Phoebe, the dog I was dog-sitting, and headed down the interstate toward Millennium Park. I parked at the end of Veterans Memorial Drive—a place I’d been countless times before—so we could walk the path along the river. About half a mile in, the path split three ways: across the river to the right, across a wetland to the left, or continuing straight between the two. We let Phoebe decide which path to follow. She trotted to the left, and so we made our way over a wooden bridge and onto a gravel path. From then on, she led the way, pulling us through parts of the park I’d never seen before.

We admired clumps of wildflowers and towering trees, exchanged “hellos” with passersby, waited patiently as Phoebe greeted other pups, and witnessed fathers teaching their children how to fish in the shimmering lakes scattered around the park—sights I was thirsty for after the gray skies and cold drizzle that had draped over the week prior. It was a relief to set aside my to-do list to just be—a mindset that had been rare in the busyness of my senior spring semester, a mindset I wish I had more often.

My best friend Alison came into town for a couple days in June without much of a plan. Upon her arrival early on a Wednesday morning, we grabbed coffee with another friend at the Bradbury Cafe on Wealthy Street and went for a walk. As we wandered around the surrounding neighborhoods, we ran into a total of six friends or acquaintances (it seems as though half of my graduating class made a beeline for Eastown immediately following graduation), received two house tours, had an hour-long conversation with a friend, and began our afternoon with a wonderfully vulnerable conversation on our friend’s porch that left us all considering our lives in a new light. Not even an eight-hour shift of work could knock away the glow that conversation gave us.

If we’d stuck to a rigid plan on this Eastown morning, we wouldn’t have discovered the joy in a porch conversation. If we’d continued straight down the Millennium Park path, we never would have glimpsed the hidden lakes and purple flowers. And when I think about it, if I hadn’t been open to spontaneous conversations and new ideas, I wouldn’t have found the job I’m now working or the group of girls I’m living with.

The meandering spirit I was able to embrace in the months of May and June has allowed me to discover new places and ideas, to have long conversations, to notice the beauty in the everyday. It’s helped me wrestle with the messiness of the world and the complexity of my own life. It’s helped me notice and walk through doors I hadn’t known were there.

I’ve noticed, though, that these moments of presence and discovery seem to come much more readily in the breaks between busyness: in between semesters of college, over holidays, on vacations, unplanned weekends.

So my question is this: how does one keep meandering? How do we stay open to discovering new beauty, ideas, delights—new reasons to be grateful? I’d like to keep meandering; I’d like to stay open to the forks in the path.

Madeline Witvliet

Madeline Witvliet (’25) graduated from Calvin with a degree in English. She can be found in coffee shops in Eastown, exploring Michigan’s state parks, or singing with Calvin’s Alumni Choir. Madeline enjoys spending time outdoors, crafting, and cooking Mediterranean-inspired meals.