Courtesy of Sophia Faroane
Senior Sophia Faroane sewed fabric letters onto a white tee.On Aug. 13, under a crisp autumn temperature in the low 60s, over 100 students in the Class of ‘26 woke up well before the crack of dawn rushed to the Benny Pierce football field. It was our turn to experience the tradition of watching the dawn on the first day of senior year. Long story short, the sun didn’t rise for us — not until three hours later.
With a sky blanketed by layers of clouds, I remember feeling all of my energy whittle away under the sun’s muted glare.
While most of us sported Hawaiian shirts, some seniors like Sophia Faroane and Julia Leconte sewed fabric letters onto their T-shirts using colored thread. Others took pictures in a handmade cardboard cutout painted with yellow suns and in bold block letters, “SENIOR SUNRISE.”
“It was nice to see everybody come together the morning before our last year together,” Sophia told me later. “I enjoyed reflecting on my experiences at Saratoga High School.”
On the bright side, though it was an anticlimactic sunrise, at least we experienced the sun-less sunrise together (or perhaps, TOGA-ther). And as a class of more than 280 strong, we’ve braved many other similar gloomy moments: social isolation during the pandemic while in middle school, diabolical chemistry tests, feeling down after a heart-breaking sports loss and the bitterness of a failed job application.
Friend groups sat down on the field that morning and offered a shoulder to one another, sharing human connection and warmth through bits of conversation and hot cocoa.
So maybe, just maybe, feeling like you’re not the only one facing one of the many disappointing events in your life grants you a bit of camaraderie. When you’ve felt tired from navigating a friendship, chances are, we’ve all experienced it too.
These experiences we’ve collected as a class translate onwards as well. As a class, we’re a one-of-a-kind group of people. We share so many common memories. We share a class spirit unique to our own.
From our senior sunrise, we’ve learned we can’t control some things (like the weather). But we can control our relationships with one another, and how we handle unforeseen and disappointing circumstances. High school will remain a place of sunrises — with the memory of its sunshine radiating in our lives in the decades to come.
