I’m currently sitting at the Yawkey train station, watching the entire city of Boston go by. For some reason, even though it’s 5:30 pm, the traffic into the city is heavier than the traffic going out. The last few stragglers are wandering into the Red Sox game. Fenway park is right across the street, and I had to dodge the masses of red and blue, and the hot dog vendors, to get here. I grew up in Yankee territory, so I harbor no particularly sentimental feelings towards the Red Sox despite my love for my adopted city of Boston. Plus, the crowds mean traffic for the buses, and so I almost always miss my train around game time.
The national anthem drifts over the train station parking lot, accompanied to a heavy drum. I finally have a moment to think. I am doing too much this semester, probably. Definitely. But they are all things I love and enjoy, and I’m trying to wring out every last drop of my Wellesley experience before I graduate. And I am doing such, such, cool stuff. I spent Tuesday editing plant genomes with actual CRISPR. ACTUAL CRISPR, as an undergrad! And if you told first year me that I would spend my senior year doing publishable endocrinology research at a Harvard affiliated hospital I would definitely never have believed you. I feel so grateful for this opportunity, and so even when my Western blot bands are a little fainter than what I’d like I remind myself of that, my gratitude.
The beauty I get to come home to every night
I’m trying to practice gratitude more in my daily life. I got new headphones, which means I can listen to a lot of classical music, so that helps. I have a lovely train commute and an even lovelier campus to come back to. Sometimes I can’t believe how lush campus is after coming back from the exhaust fumes and concrete of the Longwood Medical area. Last week, I heard two great-horned owls having a lengthy conversation across Lake Waban before the storm. And I knew they were great horned owls, because I spent a good half an hour listening to videos of bird calls to make sure. That’s the kind of place Wellesley is, where you’ll hear great horned owls if you listen closely, and you’ll run into your friends room at 11:30 to share the news, because she’ll be excited too. Yesterday, we all went to watch this miraculous flower bloom in the greenhouses. It was called the Queen of the Night cactus, and it only blooms one night, once a year…beautiful, showy, spectacular white plumed flowers. Everyone, nearly fifty people, was gathered around this lovely plant with bated breath as it unfurled one last time. It was so nice to have such a symbol of hope bringing our little Wellesley community together.
A flower unfurls
The train just pulled into the station, bringing with it a goodbye for now.
Ever lovely yours,
-Eleanor