Dear Reader,
Similar to many other seniors, I’ve stumbled upon a slightly startling number: 132–the number of days left until Commencement on Sunday, May 29th. Recalling last May, I remember the sentimental farewells and last-minute hugs, all under a downpour of unexpected rain. Now, looking ahead, I wonder what that momentous day will look like for me. Will I leave hoping I had done more during my time at Deerfield, or will I be more reminiscent of the memories I’ve made? Furthermore, I wonder what commencement will feel like as a collective; albeit a dramatic question, how might the Class of 2022 say goodbye, meaningfully, to the Valley?
In those speculative moments, I think, with much romanticized, high-school cliché, of Ferris Bueller’s quote: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Experiencing my first ‘lasts’ as a senior, I can’t help but to agree with Bueller–our lives here are “fast”, and, indeed, we ought to consider stopping once in a while, simply to “look around.”
To me, this process looks like documenting, without bias, my everyday Deerfield life through my lens. Slowly, but surely, I’ve come to create a photo album filled with scenes from chilly Saturday night walks, friends picking up DoorDash deliveries in the snow, early mornings in the Koch, attempts at solving challenging integrals, feedback on essays, Scroll group chat screenshots, and Cloud Atlas annotations. The pixels are stubborn and refuse to follow any set pattern. Some depict joyful moments in which one can only hear laughs through the Live Photo, while in others there is only the sound of writing amidst early morning Dining Hall ambience. As I compose each photo, I pause to consider the Deerfield around me, from the faces that fill my composition to the lighting that illuminates my favorite campus spots.
At the Scroll, we’ve also continued in our 97 year tradition of documenting Deerfield life. In both our recently published COVID-19 broadsheet and this issue, we’ve focused our reportage not only on COVID-19’s rippling effects throughout campus, but also on the most recent developments and conversations. On the Opinion page, you’ll hear voices ranging from Lillian Regal’s perspective on DA’s current culture surrounding COVID-19 to Wyatt Browne’s call for further political discourse. Turning the page, News articles span topics from the recent construction on the Simmons dorm to Deerfield’s plan for COVID testing. Under Features, our writers unpack events from MLK day to visiting Professor Edward J. Hall’s philosophy lecture. In Arts and Sports, our artists and athletes of the issue are featured alongside articles spotlighting student fashion design and girls’ weightlifting.
Reader, whether this is your final, first, or tenth year in the Valley, I invite you to pause and document your everyday life at Deerfield. From seemingly mundane details to moments of celebration, let us recognize and capture our “fast” paced lives, perhaps not only for Bueller’s fear of “missing it” but also such that we can ensure future opportunities for ourselves to reflect upon the memories.
If, by chance, you discover an original, captivating story about the Valley, of any size or length, we at the Scroll earnestly encourage you to join us. As always, we are here to listen, report, and authentically document our ever- evolving Deerfield.
My Best,
Tony He 何程林