Saturday, June 1, 2013

Yes, it can still make me cry…

 

 
How do we know we’re happy?

It sounds like such a simple question and should have an immediately simple answer. Well, for example, when you are young, you get to sing about it: “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!” If you are clapping your hands, well, then you’re happy! I just find it tougher as I get older to have a quick answer about happiness. I mean, for other things, I think I have a quick answer. I know pretty quickly if I feel loved, or if I feel irritated, or if I feel challenged. But happy—oh, it just is a little harder, because as life gets complicated (Gets complicated????!! Maybe it always was and it is just that we now recognize the complications finally!!) or ambiguous I am not sure if happy means convenient, easy answers, or deeply interesting and complicated answers.

I have a quick answer though as a teacher about happiness. If I want to judge my happiness, or look back and wonder if I was happy in a particular year, I think I need look no further than how many times my eyes well up with tears on a graduation day! If I hit over a dozen moments, heck, if I have more than two, maybe that is really the indication of happiness.

If that is my pseudo-scientific method then, Thursday, May 30th at the commencement exercises for the Class of 2013 at KA, I must be really happy. As my 25th year in teaching draws to a close, I am happily not immune to those tears of sorrow for whom I lose, and the tears of joy for what they might accomplish. Oh, graduations…yes, in case you were wondering…they can still make me cry!

As the faculty lined up for the procession (and if you are new to the blog, you should read blog entries in 2010 and 2012 where I explain the complicated and wonderful procession as the entire school processes within each other in our own process) His Majesty arrived and with him came Hussein, my former student, now very much involved as the Crown Prince in governmental affairs. He looked resplendent in his grey suit, very mature, and then he saw me and waved and smiled in a way that reminded me he is still only 18 years old. That made me tear up. Then I processed with my dear friend Lilli, who recently had a medical scare. It will be taken care of, but her friendship and expertise will not be taken for granted. That made me tear up.

We processed past the seniors, looking every bit as excited as someone could as we began the official celebration of their achievements. That made me tear up. As my colleague Mazen’s son read his graduation speech, I teared up…

I won’t recount every single work-out for my tear ducts because, let’s face it, between the ceremony and the hugs and well-wishing afterwards, my goal of restraint and composure was tested. But it is more than just the specifics of a particular class that make me tear up. It is more than the fact that I will miss Faisal and Omar and Hanna and Elias and Faris and Walid and Talal and Li Zi’an and Jin and Izz and Tammara and Aziz and Hamzeh and Moutasem and Renee and—you get the picture, I love these kids. I suppose I was caught up in what Danish philosopher Kierkegard once wrote over 150 years ago: “If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but…for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.” That’s what turns me into one of those characters from Our Town who apologizes, “Oh, I always cry at weddings.” So, yes, I tear up all over the place on graduation day. The possiblenever gets boring! What our young adults may achieve and change never gets boring.

Later in the graduation, Hamzeh, one of my six advisees, was named the valedictorian of the class. This is the second year in a row that one of my advisees earned this top spot! Hamzeh continued to work assiduously, never distracted by senioritis and earned all A’s for this year. If you are a long-time reader of the blog, this is the same young man who last year did his Art History curatorial project on art that proclaimed, “I’m Sexy and I Know It!” He is a gem. Then a few moments later two students were named for the “King Abdullah II Prize,” our all-around prize—essentially, the prize for whom the adults at the school would like to be when they grow up. Emran and Jin had been selected. Both superior scholars and human beings!!! There go the tear ducts again. It is hard to believe that anything is beyond the reach of these outstanding young adults.

Beginning to end, the graduation is ceremony is one hour long. And there really is no rushing, but each of the 100+ graduates has their moment in the sun (literally, of course, it is always sunny in Jordan). Julianne waits with each one alone before ascending the stage to receive the KA diploma from His Majesty. I love to watch that moment as she talks with them, calming their fears and thanking them for their contributions to the school. That is another of my favorite things to watch in the graduation.

Graduation Day for most teachers is a bittersweet affair—it is surely welcome since our summer vacations are just around the corner, but of course, it also contains the hardest part of being a teacher—saying good-bye to beloved students. For 25 years this has been the necessary part of growth—they must leave you.

What will these graduates see in their lifetimes? What are they able to do and access because of this school? Because of these friends? What heartaches will they know? How will they manage those heartaches? How will they take advantage of the technology in the world and keep connected?

The one year I did not tear up during graduation was 2010. That year I felt more relief than sadness. But then I thought of the words of the poet Wendell Berry, and another feeling consumed me. Berry wrote a poem called, “The Peace of Wild Things,” which I will copy here:

“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives might be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
--Wendell Berry


The poem touches on what it is to be human, to know despair and fear and doubt. These graduates will certainly encounter these emotions over the years, but the poem reminds us that we must seek solace and resolution. The speaker heads into nature and finds a peace. The line “I come into the peace of wild things…” and I think back to 360 blog entries ago when I wrote that some of the faculty looked at these new students at this new school, and we saw “wild dogs.” We joked in those early weeks that our students just felt a little raw, a little untrained…and like one man said, “they remind me of wild dogs.”

Here we were again this week—in front of hundreds of attendants, with a proud monarch beaming over the graduates who are off to a stunning assortment of universities, many ivy league universities and other top-tier universities, and I found a peace in the midst of these formerly “wild things.”

Graduation is many things, certainly a time for parties and throwing of hats, and also that solace and resolution and peace. When I came to this place, this nature, this desert, this land of hot sun and stubbly earth, I wondered if I would find solace and resolution. I looked at the faces of the graduates, so untaxed by the grief and despair that will visit them from time to time, and while the bagpipes played, I enjoyed the echoes of grace. And happiness.


No comments: