Chris, Emily, George, Morningside Park, Sunrise

I was overlooking Morningside Park and kneeling on a pleather cushion salvaged from a couch that sat discarded outside a frat house on 114th st. We had opened a bottle of Conundrum chardonnay and as the sky turned orange and the sun slide over the tops of the trees, we toasted the beginning of the end.

Morningside Park and the sunrise had been a spur of the moment plan, which seemed to fit with a Sunday that had generally been a day of broken agendas magically transformed into new and better ones. I was supposed to have gone to the Senior Ball with another group of friends. In typical fashion, they had forgotten to buy tickets, forgotten to tell me, and opted to stay in instead. I had a new blouse and new heels that needed to be worn. I was going out… somewhere. Chris came through with the idea of intercepting our fellow 07ers at the Ball after-party. So off we troddled to Chelsea and the top of some modernist style hotel that overlooked the Hudson and the lower Manhattan building boom. Michael and Sam and Matt passed through. We caught up with other old floormates and lit humers. And finally, after several overpriced cosmos, we gathered a group and headed back up town to the CU dorms, cheap boozes and conversation. Drinking games gave way to discussions about the most appropriate way to start Graduation week. Skinny dipping in the Barnard pool? (Oh, thank god we didn’t pick that one) The Sunrise won and off we went. Jackets and wine and George were picked up en route. A few members of the party were too tired to carry on, but in the end, four determined souls, Chris, Emily, George and I refused to go to bed without our sunrise. And so, with chardonnay in paper cups and heavy-lidded eyes we toasted Columbia and said hello to Monday morning.