2019 – Music (Anticipated)
But it wasn’t the right one.
From my first UMass tour during my junior year of high school onward, I didn’t see it. It had gone missing completely, or perhaps it had simply exited my memory like a chorus girl jauntily saunters off of the stage at the end of a showstopping number. The well–if I can even call it that–in the middle of campus, something I took special note of for whatever reason while I was supposed to be paying attention to how wonderful the bleak, gray concrete buildings really were, had been absent from the university’s landscape for years. I never knew why.
There wasn’t a single reason why I should have been so curious about its whereabouts. No reason whatsoever! It was seriously just a well, or… something. It didn’t have water in it–a vague memory of steam hissing out of it kept coming up as I persistently racked my brain for intel, but I wasn’t certain–but it did have a grate, was made out of bricks, and was somewhere near what had been the construction site for the future Student Union building. One would think that this is more than enough to have a guess as to where it could be, but alas, it was more complicated than that. Sure, a well-like structure with grating and brick between the parking garage and the Student Union existed, but it was never right. It was probably the right one, there was nothing else that could be the right one, and hell, it fit every bit of my own criteria for being the right one, but it just wasn’t. Not the one in the hazy memories I had of the place, that part was clear. However, where others would likely give up the search, I wasn’t going to. I had to keep looking. The memories that should have been aging like wine, saved for years in the future when I’d laugh with my grandkids about this stupid well I fixated on for so long, were curdling milk, rotting in my subconscious and slipping away from me like all my other memories from high school and beyond. I desperately needed something to hold onto.
~~~
2021 – English (Primary), Education (Unofficially)
But no matter how much I looked, it was nowhere to be found.
Walking with my family around campus, we’d chat about how “grandma’s in the hospital again but she’s okay… she keeps defying the odds, one trip at a time!” with the occasional “I’m working on another project” that was honest every once in a while, and I’d glance around and look for the right well. Getting chased by my theater major friends around campus after rehearsals on our way to Worcester Dining Commons at 9:30 every night, I’d veer off into the mulch and hope that if I tripped, I’d at least hit my head on the right well. On my way to advising appointments to change my major, but, no, I’d like to keep English my primary major and maybe I’ll consider a psychology minor but I can’t anymore, actually, so nevermind, but sociology might work in my schedule, I’d pass Thompson and South College and glance up as I scheduled another meeting in my Google Calendar to see if I was passing the right well. It grew into a bit of an obsession for a while: My holy grail, my White Well.
Between academic meetings, I’d meander around campus looking at wells and thinking about who to go to about declaring each major and minor. It was so frequent that I had started to associate certain wells with certain fields–English was the wrong well in front of South College, Legal Studies and music were the wrong wells over by the marching band building and Thompson, and so on. Perhaps if I found the right well, it would tell me which major to settle on!
~~~
2022 – English (Primary), Theater (Unofficially), Psychology (Unofficially), Music (Unofficially), Classics (Unofficially), Legal Studies (Almost)
But none of them were right.
Amidst all the changes that were taking place in my education, it was the one thing that should have stayed the same, at the very least. I mean, it was a giant hole in the ground. I felt somewhat slighted by the fact that during a time when I desperately needed stability, just a rock to tether myself down and keep myself from careening off into academic open space and getting completely lost, nothing could just settle. Nothing could just stay the same as it was when I was exploring the campus for the first time with a curious, optimistic attitude and my dad. And of all things, even the fucking hole in the ground had to go missing! My understanding was that those were pretty difficult to move, so one could imagine my frustration with its disappearance.
After thinking about it for an embarrassingly long amount of time, I came to the painful realization that I may have to back up once again… My thoughts turned back to the other wells and associated majors around campus. I figured I would make my usual rounds, stopping by and checking to see if any were particularly “right” that day, since I was already going to be out of the dorm. It worked perfectly into my schedule, as I had two meetings (one to declare a legal studies major, then another to talk about outstanding requirements for my English major) in the center of campus with enough time between them for me to hit at least a few of the major stops. The plan was set, the day was about to start; I gathered my belongings and my determination and stepped out the door.
My first meeting was a breeze. I told the advisor that “I want to declare a second major,” and she said “Okay,” and it was done within five minutes of me stepping into the building. It was a breath of fresh air, since I had been dreading the process for weeks at that point, and I was so relieved that I’d almost completely forgotten about the rest of my day’s plans. I packed up my bag, and started walking to the one that started it all: the well between the student union and the garage. And it still wasn’t the right well, but something felt different. I went into the trip knowing it wasn’t right, and I was pleasantly greeted with exactly what I’d expected–brick, metal grating at the bottom, and no steam, though that wasn’t a dealbreaker. It could have been the euphoria of declaring a new major, or the weightlessness that came from nipping at least six others at the bud, but seeing it now, it looked so simple. This thing that had been in the back of my mind for so long was now just a particularly familiar pile of bricks. Smiling, I sat down in the grass, leaned against the well, and started reading a court case for class before my next meeting.
~~~
2023 – English (Primary), Legal Studies (Secondary)
No, it wasn’t right. But honestly, it didn’t have to be.
Heading into my senior year, whenever I’d look back at the number of majors and minors I was so sure I’d be doing, I thought about my fruitless search and just how meaningful a meaningless well had ended up being in my academic journey. All this chaos and there it stood, unchanged, as it was the day I’d seen it, ignored by nearly everyone else.