Jessai Flores
There’s an old millstone in the Branford courtyard, large and round with a hole in the center perfect for ankle twisting. Brought over from the town of Branford when the courtyard was constructed, it now sits under the shadow of Harkness Tower. Allegedly, it’s cursed. As I was strolling by it one evening, my friend told me that stepping on it brings bad luck — so I did. Scoffing and stomping, I planted my foot directly and purposefully into the middle of that ill-fated stone as if to say “I don’t believe in that stuff.” The rest of the week was a disaster. I fought with a close friend, had a questionable rendezvous, lost my headphones and got the worst grades of my Yale career. The following week, another friend of mine trod on it on our way to Atticus. I didn’t warn her about its evil powers. I thought that perhaps curses can have a placebo effect. Yet, as we were leaving the cafe, she fell head first over the radiator, smacked into the glass, and splattered her iced latte across the window like a crime scene. My first thought? It was the stone. From then on, I vowed never to touch it again.
On the opposite spectrum of Yale superstitions is the Theodore Woolsey Statue on Old Campus. As a tour guide, I get to tell hopeful 17-year-olds and their parents about Woolsey’s lucky foot. I claim that I rub it on the way to a test, or interview, or date. I offer it like a talisman, like a secret I’m letting only them in on. I watch them touch it and take photos with it, believing it will help with their applications or whatever else they’re worrying about, and that always makes me smile.
Truth is, I never rubbed the foot before telling the story, but I’ve started too. On the way to my morning Italian classes, I reach out and pat it in passing. I don’t necessarily believe that the foot or the stone hold any sort of power, but I do like the ritual. I find something warm and comforting in these little habits, these little illusions of control.
Then hitchhiking changed everything. Over a spring break trip to Puerto Rico, my friends and I spent a day hunting waterfalls in the El Yunque forest. We clambered through the jungle, trudging in squelching mud, hopping precariously across wet rocks and futilely applying bug spray every few minutes. When we finally arrived at the waterfalls, the light had begun to turn orange, letting us know the sunset was close at hand. Panic set in. We’d hiked too far too late and the road that we needed to get down the mountain was going to close long before we could get there.
That’s when two fellow hikers rounded the corner. They were college girls, a couple years older than us, sun-drenched and smiling. We struck up a conversation, and when we learned they had a car, our luck turned around.
“Could we get a ride back down?”
Suddenly, four of us were crammed into the back of their rental jeep, our shoes caked in orange mud, our knees knocking with every pothole. Then they asked if we wanted to go to a beach with them. My friends and I looked at eachother, all thinking the same thing: at this point, why not?
They took us to the opposite side of the island. We waded into the ocean then sat on the sand and watched the sunset, chatting with each other like old friends. When we parted ways it started to rain. As they went in search of dinner, we realized we were now stranded far from our Airbnb.
We loitered outside the nearest food stall like lost kids, huddling for shelter under the awning, when the owner called out, “Hey I’m closing!”
We braced for a rejection, ready to be tossed into the rain. But his tone softened.
“Are you guys hungry?”
He didn’t want to waste his unsold food so we walked away with two bags of steaming hot empanadas of all kinds, plantain cakes and fried dough — a free meal fit for ten. As we began to chow down, our miraculous drivers reappeared and offered to give us a ride back to the city.
When we finally got home, sunburnt, soaked, with salty hair and sand crusted ankles, we all agreed we had never had more fun. It was the kind of day that makes you want to believe in things. In a universe that has your back. That gives you waterfalls, new friends and free empanadas. But how did we get so lucky? There hadn’t been a stone to step on or a foot to rub — was there another force at work?
What’s more, we ran into the same girls at the beach the next day. Sat on a towel, calling us over like we’d planned to meet up. Even more miraculous, the day after that, our last day there, I saw them sitting on a bench in Old San Juan and we waved in passing as if we were classmates going in opposite directions on old campus. I realized then and there that maybe the foot and the stone were never the point.
At our age, we’ve never had as much freedom or as little direction. We pick our classes, our friends, our future paths; life feels consequential. That’s why college superstitions are so meaningful. Most of us are too rational to say we believe in such forces — but too young, and too lost, not to wish for them.
At the same time, it’s important to see the value in letting go. There’s joy to be found in randomness. In having faith that something is waiting around the corner — a ride, a beach, a man with warm empanadas. Something that you don’t have to summon with the touch of a foot or by stepping on a stone. Something that will come fleetingly but continuously throughout your life like a person you meet once, and then see again and again in the most peculiar ways.
So while I won’t give up on seeing signs quite yet — I still won’t step on the Branford stone — I have started to find comfort in being powerless and not trying to know exactly what’s coming my way.