When I started at Mount Holyoke, I was overwhelmed. What a rich history. What a legacy. I came from an educated-but-not-wealthy family. Clergy. Harvard educated, but not reaping Harvard rewards. Because clergy.
And at Seaford High, I was regularly mocked. No one took me seriously, except quite possibly my teachers (and I wasn’t sure about that). I wore the wrong clothes, had the wrong passions. I came to college convinced I had nothing to offer anyone, and only everything to learn.
The ancient buildings. The stone steps, worn by so many feet before me. The library, where I had a carrel, where there were easy chairs and hassocks to put our feet up. The chapel, and the garden next to it, with the sundial. Mary Lyon’s grave, where once a year everyone met up for ice cream to celebrate her founding of the institution.
So many traditions, going back to 1837. Going back to the first college for women in the US. No wonder my dad moved heaven and earth to get me there. As a Harvard guy, he’d dated Mount Holyoke women. And he wanted me to be one of them.
I am one of them. And what’s so great about Mount Holyoke women is that we are ridiculously undefined. Not capable of containment.
But when I look back on my arrival there, as a freshman, after experiencing the trauma of a K-12 education in Seaford, Delaware, one of the most racist and patriarchal and misogynistic armpits on the Eastern Seaboard, I am shocked at how I was listened to. Even on my first day.
I don’t even remember what I said. I just remember being listened to. And trying not to cry when that happened. Because after that, I wanted to be careful of what I said – I wanted it to mean something. Someone heard what I said. Someone thought it mattered.
To be listened to. To be taken seriously. I have not found that outside of Mount Holyoke. And I never will find it again. I am an old woman now. I will never be taken seriously again.
At your peril. Because I have always had something to say.
At your peril.
New Virago 
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