Seniors Present Official and Unofficial Meditations

“Man hands on misery to man/ It deepens like a coastal shelf/ Get out as early as you can/ And don’t have any kids yourself.” With sunlight streaming through the the stained-glass windows of Phillips Church, senior Camilla Pelliccia began her senior meditation with a poem by Philip Larkin, captivating rows of Exonians with a powerful and intimate reflection on her family and their vulnerabilities.

Pelliccia is the first of 12 seniors to present their senior meditations this school year. Over the spring break, the Meditation Selection Committee selected meditations written by Camilla Pelliccia, Isadora Kron, Sumit Chandra, Jacky Cho, Andrew Liquigan, Gwyneth Crossman, Nkemjika Emenike, Alan Wu, Gillian Allou, Aaron Willard and Elliot Diaz, who will be reading their pieces in the listed order.

The senior meditation, considered the pinnacle of the Exeter English program, is a months-long winter term assignment for seniors and post-graduates to reflect on their life experiences. While most students who takes a winter senior English course needs to write and read a meditation aloud to their class, only a select few are given the privilege and honor of presenting their piece to the larger Exeter community in the spring.

Many of the selected seniors initially found it challenging to capture their personal reflections in one paper. Many of them scrapped nearly completed drafts, changed topics late into the term or grappled to piece together different ideas.

Pelliccia, who wrote about her family members and the “things that haunt them,” recalled how she struggled to land on a topic. “Writing was really a strange process because there’s just so much to reflect on; it’s your whole life,” she said. “I was actually writing a nearly completely different meditation up until about three days before I turned mine in.”

Wu, who explored the concept of loneliness, also said that his meditation changed dramatically throughout the writing process. “The first version of my meditation was a disaster and I eventually deleted a good half of it,” he said. “After meeting with my teacher about it, I finally found the strand and began placing all the beads in an order that made sense.”

Crossman, whose meditation is about the necessity of fictional personas and characters within reality, noted the unique challenge of writing a speech versus a traditional paper. She said that some of her paper was transcribed from her “rambling” into her phone’s microphone about her topic. “I learned that writing for a silent reader and writing for speech are almost two different endeavors, and with the latter, it’s often helpful to start with speech as well,” she said.

However, many agreed that challenging themselves to consolidate nuanced ideas in an eight-to-twelve page paper ultimately contributed to their personal growth and understanding.

Kron, who wrote about her family history and the way it has influenced her family dynamics, said that she understood herself better after writing her meditation. “The meditation writing process was one that I found to be very introspective and reflective,” she said. “I wrote about something that I hadn’t really given much thought to before, so ultimately, I think I learned a fair amount about myself and my mentality towards my topic.”

Emenike, who wrote about her mental health disorder, said that writing something to be shared pushed her out of her comfort zone but was ultimately a cathartic experience. “When writing my meditation, I knew that it was something I wanted to share with people. I was forced to slow down and reflect on the truly defining moments in my life,” she said. “It was therapeutic in that way.”

After such deep reflection and challenging writing, many seniors were extremely proud and pleasantly surprised when their pieces were selected.

For Chandra, being selected by the Committee had been his goal since the beginning. “I knew I wanted to write a powerful meditation and deliver it in the church ever since attending last year’s senior meditations, so being selected means so much to me,” he said. “It feels surreal.”

Liquigan was less focused on the opportunity to read his piece in church, as it was not his main motivation while writing. “Although I knew there was a small chance I’d get chosen, the main audience in my mind was always my mother,” he said. “At the outset of the assignment, I sort of made myself forget about the public aspect of it, and I wrote this piece specifically for my mother and for myself.”

Pelliccia, who kicked off this term’s program in her March 23 meditation reading, said she was initially anxious about reading her meditation in public due to the intimate subject matter of her piece. “I was really nervous about being selected because my topic was very personal,” she said.

However, once she delivered her meditation, Pelliccia found the reading experience to be immensely rewarding. “Reading was actually a really amazing experience. Everyone was so supportive and I felt really comfortable,” she said. “I feel as though it also brought me closer to the Exeter community.”

Additionally, Class of 2019 Representatives and seniors Janeva Dimen, Adrian Venzon and Dylan Yin have organized their own unofficial weekly readings for seniors whose meditations were not chosen but still want to share their pieces. This spring, reading session opportunities will be held in the church every Tuesday night during the previous time slot for Evening Prayer.

Seniors hope that by sharing their meditations—whether in the traditional setting or at the Tuesday night readings—they will be further connected to the rest of the community.

Wu hoped that his message on loneliness would resonate with and validate other Exonians’ experiences. “I was really proud of my meditation and wanted to share it to a crowd of people not only because it would give me an opportunity to unveil a certain part of myself, but also because I feel like others who have had similar experiences as I have can feel less alone and misunderstood,” he said.

Senior Emily Cloonan, who shared her meditation at the first unofficial Tuesday night reading, said that she appreciated the chance to share her vulnerabilities and stories with other seniors. “It was a really strange experience at first, coping with the idea that all of these people know my family’s deep dark secrets, but everyone was so kind and engaged,” she said. “I remember hearing about the seniors reading their meditations to each other in the past, and I think it’s an important and loving tradition that we have here at Exeter.”