It’s Tuesday around 11 o’clock. You’re looking for a cozy, quiet spot to read Chaucer—homework that was meant for the weekend prior. You have an hour so. How long could it possibly take? After a few moments of worrying and wandering, you plop down under a towering tree. The grass is tickly, slightly dewy, but sigh—nothing comes close to beating a mid-day break on one of Poly’s favorite R & R destinations.
Dexter Lawn.
Attracted by sparse shade and Subway’s less-than-friendly aroma, students studious or sleepy, coordinated and not so coordinated come together in joyous chillage on Building 34’s Dexter’s Lawn.
Barefoot nappers sprinkle the area, while hula hoopers trot, prance, and dance. There’s baton twirling, acrobatic yoga doing, and book reading; small talk, deep talk, and talk of the symmetries and integers of a 248-dimensional…something-or-other. A tour guide rambles on to a group of sweaty high schoolers and their inquisitive parents. Across the way, a professor fumbles with their afternoon coffee and a stack of “I’ll get these back to you by Monday,” but it’s already Tuesday exams. Bike riders, frisbee players and volleyball bumpers gather whether it’s lunchtime or crunch time. Some go to Dexter just to think. Between all the crisscrossed exchange of hello’s, goodbye’s and Snapchats sent, 11:50 a.m. flashes across your phone screen (along with a text from a classmate asking, “OMG have u done the reading yet???? [panic face emoji]”). 11:50? You swore just a minute ago it was 11:00!
Before you know it, it’s time for class. And you forgot to read. Again. But, you’re just too intrigued to worry! All it takes is an hour on Dexter Lawn to crave coming back the next day. Maybe tomorrow you’ll fall into a grassy snooze yourself, consider the art of flexibility, or perhaps even do some actual studying. There’s just something about Dexter Lawn that makes Mustangs feel right at home, no matter where on the spectrum of normality their hobbies happen to fall. Now hurry on to class; that big, ol’ patch of grass isn’t going anywhere.