On the day I received a full four-year tuition scholarship to Wesleyan, the red cardinal that had been frequenting our Brooklyn backyard had rested on the tree in front of me and sat there with me in awe of my new reality. I hadn’t wanted to go to Wesleyan, as I was anxious about the open campus and it being in a small town, so different from the hustle and bustle of the concrete jungle. The scholarship, while binding me to the school, pushed me to give Wes a try and experience something new. As the cardinal finally flew away from its perch and I officially accepted my seat, I glimpsed a foreshadowing of the Wesleyan experience I would have over the next four years.
In my sophomore fall, I started going to more basketball games at the Athletic Center and I would run into our mascot, The Cardinal (who I have named Cardi B. – short for Cardinal Bird. Trust me, it’s more unique than the name we currently don’t have). Something about The Cardinal always attracted me. I knew it was a person in there whose purpose was to bring some school pride to the games, but there was something liberating in its movements and the way its menacing face protected it from the judgment of the crowd it serves to please. The bird seemed free to be itself, and seemed proud to do so. As I watched him, I pondered how cool it would be to be the Cardinal one day.
When I became an Orientation Leader (OL) in my senior year, my moment finally arrived. We were practicing for our Welcome Ceremony performance for the incoming freshman in the class of 2027. Joanne, the director of Student Involvement and our boss, kept mentioning things like “Whoever is in the Cardinal will do____” and “Once we figure out who the Cardinal will be____”. In one rehearsal, I paused in the room of over 50 OLs and asked Joanne if they needed a volunteer. I don’t know what led me to ask, but the answer she gave prompted me to go further and actually sign up to be the bird for the Ceremony. Joanne, knowing my history as a dancer on campus, was overjoyed that I was going to be the bird for the momentous occasion.
On the day of, I suited up with red crocs for added Wesleyan flair and took a deep breath holding the bird’s head in my hand. Once I put it on, I would assume the anonymous role of whomever I wanted the Cardinal to be. At the ceremony, I walked through the crowd, engaging with the new freshmen in the cringiest and corniest of ways (dancing and fist bumping, and trying to flap my wings even though my short arms did not fill the bird’s wingspan). I watched as some Freshman were scared, some were excited and some were just confused, annoyed and wanting the moment to be over. During our performance, I was eager to shake my tail feathers to the OL’s remake of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me”. As we proclaimed, “You belong at We-e-essssss!”, I felt so overjoyed to be doing something beyond the scale of what I ever imagined for myself. It was thrilling to step outside the Brianna campus knew, become something else for a moment, and to contribute to someone’s odd or nostalgic memory of their first night on campus. Being the bird was truly a magical experience and one that set the tone for the rest of my time at Wes as I continue to do the unexpected, take risks and just try. I guess you could say I found my wings.
