Hello blog, and happy Wednesday!
This has been a week of a lot of things, as most weeks are. I think one of the best things about Wellesley is that there are always so many different things happening all at once, but sometimes that means you have to bury your head in the sand a little bit and stay focused on your own work and responsibilities.
Instead of talking about all of that, though, I want to focus on something very monumental that happened this weekend: as of October 16th, 2021, I have now officially been all the way around Lake Waban.
For those of you not familiar, Lake Waban is the lake that rests between the Wellesley campus and the Hunnewell family properties, which include the house the movie Knives Out was filmed at and one of Chloe Kardashian’s houses. A lot of Wellesley’s traditions center around the lake, from Lake Day to the end-of-Hoop-Rolling-jump-in-the-lake to the old superstition that if a Wellesley student and their partner walk around the lake together three times, one of them has to propose at the end of the third loop.
When COVID hit last year, the Hunnewells closed the gate separating their side of the lake from the Wellesley owned property, and Wellesley closed our campus to the public, so while in a normal year members of the campus community, the Hunnewell family, and the town of Wellesley could all be seen walking the lake path on any given day, this has not been the case during my time as a student here.
This Saturday was Friends and Family Weekend at the college, and for the first time since March 2020, the Hunnewells reopened the lake path for a few hours only for Wellesley students and their weekend visitors. This information was kept very quiet to keep the number of people on the Hunnewell property pretty low. I actually had no idea about it; my friend Emma and I were walking around by the campus center on Saturday morning and ran into a couple friends who had been let in on the secret, and we ended up joining them on their walk. We were all sophomores, so for all of us this was our first time making it all the way around the lake.
I don’t know if there’s a way I can put into words to you how important this was to me; Lake Waban is such a huge part of the Wellesley community, and not being able to feel like I had fully experienced it because I hadn’t walked around the lake was so disappointing to me in my first year. I think our actual walk took a little over an hour- we stopped in the middle for a picnic sponsored by the Wellesley Friends and Family Day snack bag- but I think it was one of the most important hours I’ve spent this year. The Class of 2024 Tree Planting Ceremony was also held that afternoon, but I don’t regret missing it; I think I would pick the Lake Walk every time. I hope the lake path can be opened again for good before I leave Wellesley, but if it isn’t I’m glad I had that one afternoon around the lake to remember.
Sending you joy,
Andrew