A Cathedral Without People: Saying Goodbye to the Hill

Asher Joseph ’25 Editor-in-Chief

As I savor the last few months of my time at Hopkins, I return to Joan Didion's seminal essay collection “The White Album,” which I first read over Thanksgiving break. The Hopkins Drama Association had just closed Shakespeare's "The Tempest," our last production in the Woodbridge Club, before we transitioned into the new Academic and Performing Arts Center. Didion writes, “A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.”

As I prepare to venture out into the great unknown, I wonder if I claimed this place hard enough. Like most overzealous freshmen, I arrived at Hopkins hopeful for a high school experience I could talk about for the rest of my life. I signed up for every club, showed up to every dance, and recorded every notable moment in a shared text thread with my friends. In retrospect, though, I wonder if I made any actual impact beyond being a participant.

While I am grateful for the opportunity to perform in an incredible new theater, the opening of the APAC seemed to overwrite the memories of the first three years of my Hopkins acting career. Sure, there are still pictures of past productions floating around SmugMug, but where is the dingy staircase where I ran lines on opening night of "Romeo and Juliet"? What about the desk my friends and I carved our names into during my freshman year?

Every now and again, however, I will find a photo from an old show being used in promotional material. This

past fall, I was honored to be asked to share in conversation with political trailblazer Stacey Abrams; not only because she was the Stacey Abrams, but because I had been asked to represent the school— my school—at such a notable event. In those moments I fleetingly considered myself to be remembered and claimed —but that would be too easy, right?

I found my answer in Raymond Carver’s "Cathedral." The short story follows a man unsettled by his wife’s blind

friend, Robert, yet their bond helps the man realize that there is more to see than just what is in front of you. During a drawing exercise in which the man must draw a cathedral from memory, Robert prompts, “Put some people in there now. What’s a cathedral without people?”

When I arrived at Hopkins, I felt somewhat unfulfilled. My knowledge had begun to shape me, but I had yet to grow into a person capable of change.

Just a few days ago, I was sitting backstage during a “Cabaret” rehearsal, when I took a look around me. For two years, HDA had been kept alive not by a physical space, but by a love for creating art greater than oneself and for one another. I have not been claimed by this place, but by these people. These people have claimed me the hardest. They have coaxed me out of my shell, and encouraged me to take risks. I am the culmination of every person I have gotten to know here at Hopkins, and I carry pieces of them, you, with me wherever I go. Every time I write, I remember the friends, teachers, and advisors who first gave me something to write about.

While I still wrestle with the scope of my impact on this school, I could not be more sure of the impact this community has had on me. It has wrenched me from myself, shaped me, rendered me, and remade me in its own image.

At this point, dear reader, I see a bit of myself in you. For four years, you have given me space to be heard, helping me find my voice and grow. Not into a fully formed person, for we are all works in progress, and certainly not a perfect one, but one who knows his story is worth telling—and that someone will listen.

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A Cathedral Without People: Saying Goodbye to the Hill