Love Comes Softly

Ironically I have been watching more American television over here than while in the States, and the above title comes from a classic western romance. My roommate introduced me - bootstraps, shotguns, and cowboy hats. Assuredly couples such as the one in this movie grow to love each other over the course of time, though tonight I have found that a similar vein of heartstrings can be pulled through the embrace of school family.

Tonight was the art and science show/graduation/whatever else we needed to fit into the last performance event of the year. Now my second graduation at our school, we have doubled our numbers - from one to two. In short, I adore these girls. Perchance my mood is influenced by the sedating haze of stage lights over flowers and hugs, speeches with inspirational quotes, and the tossing of grad caps after a rousing rendition of "We're All In This Together", compliments of the ever-popular High School Musical. Real life movie scenes have that romantic pull. Yet I constantly find myself puzzling over who these kids are that we teach? Yes they are Korean and Japanese and French and German and Polish and Taiwanese and...and...

They are, or at the moment seem to be, unreal. Our high schoolers all genuinely care, and if I might, love each other. Our seniors challenged the younger grades to care about our community, to welcome newbies as family. They challenged each other to a new place of sisterhood, to stand by no matter what. Our graduates on stage, their language improvement seemed the surface joy, their persons the deeper love.

For the moment, I am the proud parent, the lover of beauty and romance, the reciter of poems, the hiker upon the vista, the scientist upon a breakthrough, the student upon an aced exam. No other profession can tempt me. No mistake and faltering of the past can be toted. For as we were reminded this morning in staff meeting, "what was meant for evil, He meant for good". I boarded the plane close to 2 years ago knowing little about the place I was to be. Tonight I know there is no place I would rather be. I know a bit more now, details such as lesson plans and grade books and staff members. I get in my work zone of task after task. I know. Yet there are still moments of wonder, such as this evening.

What am I doing here? What is this place? Can such a school really exist? Yes. It can and it does. Tomorrow I will have to write an exam, the next grade papers, and one day consider if this school should hold a place in my life for longer than four years. That anxious day will come soon. (We cried over those leaving tonight.) For now, though, I want to allow such a moment as the snap of a photograph or the bowing greeting with a Korean parent to linger like gazing into a lover's eyes. Softly and for right now.