Games and Gravel

I visited a friend at Middlebury College in Vermont over Intersession. More than a dozen of us made the short trip to my friend's nearby lake home where, turning on the heat, we established our base camp. Then we covered exposed skin and went on a long hike up a nearby mountain. Squinting through falling snow, we picked our way through virgin landscape. We huddled together for warmth while taking photos of the white-grey scenery. Someone murmured an ironic "Kumbaya." Back at the house, we built an aggressive fire that warmed the beers in our hands as we reminisced about our hike to nowhere.

I set out to write a Princeton memory, not a poor man's Robert Frost poem. Sometimes I wish there were more unconventional social activities, like this intrepid yet spontaneous hike, in my Princeton life.

This is why I adore spring barbecues. Inevitably the campus thaws and someone volunteers to make a Wegmans run for kielbasa, marshmallows and hint-of-lime tortilla chips. After numerous e-mails, we locate the portable barbecue that we never returned to the senior boy who lent it to us years ago for onetime use. Spreading the word through viral e-mailing, we congregate on Cannon Green and call passersby into our games of Frisbee and "keep away." Grass-stained and rosy-cheeked is the best way to eat a s'more.

I remember one particular barbecue on Newman's Day my sophomore year. As usual, friends of friends made for an eclectic group who earnestly advised me on how to throw a football properly. It was somewhat cheeky (read: cheap thrills) of us to be so obviously partaking in the spirit of the day in close proximity to Nassau Hall. Speaking of falling over, I got too invested in a game of "keep away" and did this superhero flying-leap interception. It was beautiful, except for the landing. Legs caught in the "stay off the grass!" ropes around Cannon Green, I found myself eating gravel.

Lying stunned on the ground, the first face that I registered was not of a concerned friend but of a prefrosh in a nearby tour group. She was staring awestruck at Nassau Hall with the kind of wide-eyed appreciation reserved for such mind-blowing places. I knew how she felt.

An aesthete at heart, I am won over by powerful architecture. Seduced by McCosh's gargoyles and the sloping stone of the Blair arch steps worn by foot and rain, this campus blows me away. The first time that I stood in the East Pyne courtyard, I was overwhelmed. It is part Hogwarts and part Narnia and may be a physical manifestation of Plato's ivory tower. Every time I'm there I wonder who was here before me. What did they see? What did they leave behind?

One of my favorite juxtapositions at Princeton is the modern vibe of Chancellor Green cafe housed within East Pyne's traditional exterior. The library's stained-glass lined, polished wood framed rotunda hums with broadband Internet traffic. This is the soundtrack of student life at Princeton, too. Lying on the gravel, maybe I should have been ashamed that my antics were so out of synch with Princeton's erudite spirit of higher learning, but I felt in tune with centuries of undergraduate lust for life.

We are paradoxical creatures seamlessly migrating from the Harkness table to the dance floor. Princeton whispers of the past and resonates with the chaos of the present. Great thoughts and epic monkeyshines have gone down here. Oh, and some memorable afternoon barbecues.