Polar Patio: A Return to Normalcy
In November of 2020, a group of first-years came up to my friend and I behind East and West. It was a Friday evening, and we were sitting on the tan colored benches daring each other to go for a swim in the foul waters of Johnson Pond.
After we introduced ourselves and began talking, one first-year turned to me and asked: What are things normally like at Colby on a weekend night?
I answered fast, conjuring images of packed rooms, loud music, and funny coincidences. I felt like I was bragging, talking about the past as if I were remembering Big Papi’s last at-bat.
But it felt exactly like that – like the life of the College had gone into retirement.
At the time, COVID-19 was booming, vaccines had yet to reach the first arm, and many in the Colby community feared for aging relatives and friends. The uncertainty in the fall of 2020 was at times unbearable – you could feel it everywhere.
Colby felt like a monastery, compelling us to show devotion and temperament. But over many hard months and many stellar vaccines, the dangers have diminished and the mood has changed.
Enter Feb. 12, 2022. As one the largest unofficial events in nearly two years, the Polar Patio saw hundreds gather outside the senior apartments for a night of dancing, mingling, and engaging with elevated surfaces – all under the dubious sponsorship of Polar Seltzer.
The outdoor party came on the back of an all-college email announcing the loosening of masking and testing requirements. It was a debutante ball for a new age.
A giddiness took over as the stream of students hiking up the well-salted paths (you owe me one, Facilities) saw the crowd for the first time. Where last year mass-socializing bordered on the subversive, here it was encouraged.
Looking around at the energetic talking and dancing between friends, acquaintances and near strangers, I couldn’t help but consider the importance of it all.
While the last few years have encouraged us to focus on the necessary, some free-flowing revelry felt essential. Better yet, Polar Patio saw attendance from every corner of the college, putting many students shoulder to shoulder with peers they had never met before.
This was a watershed moment. It stirred us to see a more expansive way of being, a way that gets you to ask questions like: Why the hell am I on a three foot block of snow in a sleeveless vest?
Polar Patio was the shock all of us needed to mark the end of a long and gradual opening of the Colby world. Where at one time we found ourselves counting heads to ten, the invitation this Saturday read “we cordially invite you, and every single Colby student you know, to the return of the Polar Patio.” And it was undoubtedly a return – with many users on YikYak praising this weekend as “old Colby” being “back.”
The mood was clear; a renaissance in student life is under way. This new time we’re entering might be the best yet – more than ever we understand the pleasure of sharing a moment in the cold with everybody we know, and everybody we don’t.
~ Donovan Lynch ‘22
