April 26th, 2017: Day 1
Today, while crossing the road on the way back home, the sky started to fill with mist. It was the kind of mist which suffuses everything; not the opal-pale one, but the one that distorts the light, everything flecked with grey, or smoke, or that something indistinct, almost beyond colour. It was especially bad on the roads; with the streetlights, everything was a shapeless white.
Only the houses were spared; standing apart, as they were, they were darkly distinct, more defined for being in the dark. Walking on the pavement, I felt the border as the wet on my skin - the mist, light obscuring everything, and the inky definition of night. The cars, as they made turns, only made floods of light.
April 27th, 2017: Day 2
The mist continued today; if anything, it was even a bit worse, a bit more indistinct than the day before. I really do hope the weather improves by Spring Fling; it’s been terribly dreary the last two years, and I was really hoping for some sun this year. It seems a bit ironic, but you can only really tell how bad the mist is when the light illuminates it. Over by the intersection of Boston Avenue and Winthrop, where the traffic is heavy, the mist lies damply over everything; the streetlights, traffic lights, shop lights, all that light suffusing, flooding the intersection in white. The cars are still distinct, but even their signals are horribly bright, almost distracting from the cars themselves.
April 29th, Day 4
I never really understood that puritanical, Gothic terror until now; Massachusetts was always oscillating between the terrible weather of winter and the terrible weather of might-as-well-be-winter, with the occasional gorgeous sunset colouring the hills. But now, with this mist, this indistinct, damp, wet mist...walking along Professors Row, Ballou looms at the top of the hill, this ominous, darkly lit up structure, the spectre of the administration over campus. And walking up Packard, West is almost indistinct; you can barely tell the difference between its gables and the night sky, and the glow of the rooms, though warm, almost seems like the licks of flame on wood.
May 1st, Day 6
I’ve noticed the mist only really sets in at night, right as the dining halls are closing and they kick you out. It’s almost spectacular, if not for the fact that everything is perpetually fuzzy, as if your eyesight’s all wrong. Walking past the intersection of Boston Ave, on the way back home, I’m struck by the train tracks; at the golden hour of evening, or a good sunset, or even on a clear day, the tracks are always lit up, an Instagram picture waiting to happen. And yet, now, darkly painted in mist, they seem like a road to nowhere, yet everywhere; like if you could only get past the fence, and walk to the edge of the black, and brush aside the inky softness… But I digress; I almost want to take a photo, but with finals, I keep feeling like I can’t linger, like I have to be somewhere doing something else.
May, Day 10
Carm, though decked out in lights, is only more hidden now. If West is indistinct except for the glow of flames, Carm is almost a vision of whiteness, like this campus in the winter. All around the Res Quad are lights, but nowhere more so than Carm; you normally wouldn’t notice it, except for this pervasive mist. In the midst of the indistinct glare, Carm appears like a vision, like a memory of somewhere else. Walking back home, I could almost fancy that I see myself walking back to Carm too, sophomore year, hoping against hope that the hot water was running.
Day 16
This mist is still here, like the most miserable weather I’ve ever had at Tufts, and that’s with experiencing the snowstorm of 2015 as a freshman from a tropical island. Walking up Packard, the mist only gets worse and worse; the tennis courts are a flare of light every day now, a whitefire blaze you can see the moment you turn onto Pro Row. Disembodied, the floodlights seem detached, weightless, above - so blindingly bright, their glare almost like the eyes of heaven, judging, watching. You never realize how much light there is, constant, endless light, throughout campus, on streetlamps, windows, glowing through the mist, wetness visible, always everywhere, till you look at the mist.
Day
The mist is everywhere now. It almost feels like it’s creeping into the buildings - but I know it’s just my glasses all fogged up, dust and other particles trapped on the lenses. I know I should wash them, but with finals it always feels like there’s no time; though everything’s indistinct, I keep rushing home, always feeling like there’s something I’m missing. I keep walking down the rainbow steps - or what I think are the rainbow steps, this mist changing everything, making the colours strange, almost like I’m layering memory onto land.
And as I keep rushing home, the roads are just constantly filled with lights, with the turns of cars and their flood lights flooding the roads with floods of light, and even the houses are less and less distinct now, receding into the ink of night. Only my house, my front door still seems solid, only my footsteps on the wood of the porch.
But when I open the door, all that greets me is mist.