The best stories in life are cyclical. I was reminded of this watching Hadestown, seeing a tragedy told for centuries and hearing the cast ring out that they’re “gonna sing it again and again.” The church follows the liturgical calendar, celebrating death and life, death and life. We’re living in a media culture obsessed with nostalgia, reboots and adaptations, for better or for worse (looking at you, Disney live action movies).
In the minutiae that we often dissect on the post calvin, I also see these cycles. Every year we get new writers, some fresh-faced from college navigating into moving and jobs and others with a few years under their belts. We write about seasons and about music and about what relationships look like and what we are shedding from childhood and what we are growing into. Being an institution that is perpetually living through our twenties, odds are whatever a writer wants to pen, there’s probably a spiritual sister post somewhere in the archives (or in the past month). This mix of old and new, discovering reinventions and digging into the unknown, sometimes previously half charted by strangers, happens every day on tpc.
But we need to hear things over and over again. We watch the tragedies to hope for the impossible happy ending. We tell anecdotes about jobs and moving over and over until they are polished. We rewatch old TV shows and reread old books. In the familiar, there’s often space for something new.
So another tpc cycle begins anew: a new editorial board, new regular writers. Though the world has changed since 2013, there are stories yet to be told and stories to tell again. Thank you for lending your ears towards the post calvin for these many years, for enriching this space with your thoughts via comments and shares. It has been a privilege to curate this blog for the past six years. We hope you continue to journey with us as this cycle begins again.
– Alex Johnson (‘19), Annaka Koster (‘18), Josh Parks (‘18)
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Greetings to the post calvin universe! We’re thrilled to be taking over the post calvin from the current board’s very experienced hands. This community of writers and readers is a special microcosm of Calvin postgrad life, one that’s been sprouting and thriving for nearly fifteen years. We’re honored to take up the mantle, keep the post calvin flame burning, whatever epic metaphor of stewardship you prefer.
We aren’t looking to rush into any major changes, but we do have some ideas of things we’d like to do—including filling our guest writer slots more consistently. If any lurking Calvin grads under thirty are reading this, and you have a killer idea for a guest post on the 29th-31st of a month, please reach out to us (info@thepostcalvin.com).
– Sam Tuit (‘21), Madeline Witvliet (‘25), Eleanor Lee (‘23)
Alex Johnson (‘19) is a high school English teacher in Massachusetts. She spends her days being an uncool adult who enjoys reading romance novels and explaining niche rhythm game strategies.
