Wellesley understands sunlight.
Its students hail from near and far, from the sunny reaches of California to the other side of the world. We come from all environments and expect our weather, but our weather becomes Boston’s as soon as we arrive. Boston weather is humid, often grey, with more rain and heat than in my native state. But the sun shines here too, and when it shines, Wellesley knows to gather it, spread it, hold it sacred.
I wasn’t looking for a beautiful campus. I wasn’t looking for trees that stretch indefinitely long in the mornings, when the sun falls on them and their shadows streak across the grass. I wasn’t looking for buildings that glow in the sunlight, whose edges ripple with shade and sun in alternating patterns. I wasn’t looking for a dining hall that sits in the treetops, its poles extending down a hundred feet to the rocks far below.
There’s not much better than dappled light, its designs swaying in the breeze. It makes patterns like water on the faithfully-cut grass. Our buildings are open, with windows as walls, which makes them cold but bright. Sheets of glass overlooking sky-high halls rule the architecture—our buildings are meant to hold light, life, color.
Everything is built on a hill, gently sloping and not so much, making our legs reach for the sun even if our backpacks groan. The companion valleys are made into fields, where the rugby and Frisbee teams run and yell and laugh. Everywhere is lined by trees; labeled trees, rare trees, soaring trees that have been here for decades. Trees with a class year marked by a stone at the bottom, a tradition. Trees for climbing and beauty and air.
Wellesley lets us rise with the sun if we so wish. 8:30 am classes, sports teams, light creeping around our shades until we whisk them up and send it pouring in. Swimming from six to eight am—when the sun rises with your teammates around you, when shafts of light finally fall on your lane of water. Watching the power of swimmers underwater, the whole-body surge of butterfly. Stepping out, drying off, heading to breakfast where the chefs ask for your name. Frozen blueberries on a sunlit bench.
Many truly rise at night. Wellesley has its iconic lampposts, which served as my class’s introductory theme: “light your way.” These lights cast their circles, spread evenly and regularly, as one walks the campus. It’s a safe campus, a comfortable campus, good for walking at night, easy and calm to slip into the shadows. There are women out at any hour, wrapped up in puffy jackets and scarves and bookbags. In the buildings, we huddle at tables and white boards, studying with friends or alone in the presence of friends. There’s laughter and chatter and the almost-silence of flipping pages and a patient scrawl.
The light brings out the color in people’s cheeks, their bright outfits in all sorts of styles. In my community, the swim team here, we often congratulate each other for not wearing sweats. But there are dresses, a fashion magazine, outfits so precisely put together that they should be framed. There’s a diversity of people, of headscarves and jeans and high heels and boots, of rainbow-colored umbrellas and jackets and backpacks. Of laptops, always of laptops. Of textbooks and accessories and school and work and fun.
Where isn’t there light on this campus? What buildings don’t have ivy framing windows of all shapes and sizes? Where isn’t there the echo of space, of students, of light, of learning?
Wellesley understands its sunlight. It cherishes, gathers, holds it. Grows its light, its women, its community. Trees and shadows. Glass and water. Scarves and pencils.
We understand our sunlight.
Do you?
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Comments, questions, and swim team. Emails welcome, as always :).
Monica
