and

BLUE WHITE

the

Columbia University's Undergraduate Magazine. Founded 1890.

Miles Take Love

On taking yourself down the road.

By Duda Kovarky Rotta

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Illustration by Iris Pope

BLUE NOTE

Summer Postcards

Hannah Lui — Las Cruces, NM

Mama,

I am making note of a mundane visit to a Wells Fargo with a yellowing enamel sign out front. I am watching you talk to the bank teller. He has a mustache and may be the most charming man in the world. I realize he must have complimented your shirt because I hear you laugh and tell him, “My son bought it for me!” It’s a graphic tee with a black cat, a rainbow, and white block lettering that reads, HOLD ON, LET ME OVERTHINK THIS.

We need to make a withdrawal because we spent all our cash on stacks of sterling silver rings from a very convincing old European woman at a farmer’s market. You went in first while I filled up our water bottles, but then I got hot and snuck into the bank after you, after the air conditioning, like a bear after honey. It’s a lot of pressure to be on your first ever mother-daughter road trip. Will we have a tearful heart-to-heart in the car? Will the nature of our relationship change dramatically and irrevocably over the next eight days? Will we get matching tattoos?

Illustration by Hannah Lui

I assume you’re talking to the teller about me and my brother when he asks you a question I can’t hear and you start to reply, “I’ve got two …” Then I realize you meant you’ve got two cats, like the cat on your shirt he was probably referencing. I feel a little selfish for thinking you must be telling the bank teller about your own children. I think about how I didn’t care about wearing silver until you told me it looked better on my skin tone than gold.

You finish at the counter. When you come up to me smiling, you say, “Okay, let’s go!” like I’ve been here the whole time. I realize you aren’t surprised I followed you, even though you didn’t see me enter. You hand me the cash, and it’s as if you knew I’d come in, trying to catch up to you, stay close to you, as long as I could.

Holding on,

Hannah