{"id":125,"date":"2022-05-12T16:09:42","date_gmt":"2022-05-12T20:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/?p=125"},"modified":"2022-05-20T15:04:41","modified_gmt":"2022-05-20T19:04:41","slug":"claire-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/claire-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Claire"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

by Rachel Lawson ’25<\/em><\/h1>\n<\/header>\n
\n

A stranger sits before me. On her right hand is a black support brace: a rock-climbing incident got the best of her. She\u2019s wearing a red t-shirt adorned with cartoon sheep.\u00a0 The curly script below the graphic informs me that the garment is from \u201cB\u00e4 H\u00e4b\u00e4, Maine.\u201d\u00a0 I laugh and tell her I like it. My subject is, unlike the t-shirt, not from Maine \u2013 she hails from the West Coast, having traveled a long way from California to end up in Northampton, Massachusetts. We\u2019re studying together at an outdoor table, both of our laptops open, squinting to see the screens and each other better in the direct sunlight.<\/p>\n

Her given name is Sally, the same as her mother, and her mother\u2019s mother before her. The family name, she tells me, but she goes by her middle name, Claire, instead. It\u2019s simply a better fit.<\/p>\n

For Claire, California is home. Northampton is home, too, if only temporarily. She briefs me about a few other places she\u2019s been. Pisa, Italy, to see the leaning tower. She took a picture with the tower, of course, pretending to hold it up like everyone does, but she won\u2019t show it to me for whatever reason. This doesn\u2019t bother me.\u00a0Keep your secrets<\/i>, I think,\u00a0I don\u2019t need them for this assignment<\/i>. She\u2019s been to Venice, during the same trip. There she fell into a canal, which she tells me was quite a dramatic scene. Luckily she\u2019s a strong swimmer, and a benevolent gondolier was there to help her in her time of need. It seems from an outside perspective that this memory is a special one to her \u2013 or perhaps not. She\u2019s hard to read.<\/p>\n

Claire\u2019s preschool boyfriend was the son of a criminal. Her top song of 2021 was \u201cWild Horses\u201d by the Rolling Stones. She showed me a picture of a beheaded squirrel drying up on the pavement outside of President Kathleen McCartney\u2019s house. All of these things I learned at a Campus Cafe table on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Rachel Lawson ’25 A stranger sits before me. On her right hand is a black support brace: a rock-climbing incident got the best of her. She\u2019s wearing a red t-shirt adorned with cartoon sheep.\u00a0 The curly script below the graphic informs me that the garment is from \u201cB\u00e4 H\u00e4b\u00e4, Maine.\u201d\u00a0 I laugh and tell…Read more Claire<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3782,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonfiction-profiles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3782"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":512,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions\/512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/writers-on-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}