Nice To Be Part of the Village in Everyday Ramblings

So here she is, our beloved Miss E. center stage accepting her diploma.

She was afraid her mother was going to be disappointed because of one grade in calculus she graduated with honors instead of high honors.

The graduating class was only 66 young people for this very special school of the arts and sciences but the ceremony was long and remarkably well produced.

My favorite part was right at the beginning in this very posh large theater where the opera performs when they had a band playing an upbeat jazz piece and all the graduates ran up the aisles one by one onto the stage in their pretty dresses and suits.

It was very exciting and built energy for the rest of the evening. There was singing and a theater piece and dancing and music and some short speeches and an appreciation and…then they had each graduate in alphabetical order come center stage into the spotlight and told a little story about their best traits and said what college they were headed off to. As you can see they had pictures from previous years up behind them.

There were also video clips of them answering a few questions about their futures and school experience interspersed throughout the evening. Miss E. made her mother cry by saying…that when she was quite young, her (very liberal) mother told her that she would disown her if she became a lawyer and what she hoped to do was to find a way to pursue law that would convince her mother otherwise.

Much to our surprise she has decided to become a lawyer, a civil rights or immigration rights lawyer and she is going to a college in Maryland that has a good success rate at getting those that graduate it’s rigorous program in literature into good law schools.

First she is going (on her own at 17) to Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin. She has not been to Ireland or Germany before and is looking forward particularly to seeing those cities as well as speaking French in Paris. She was on her own for a time in Paris last year so she knows her way around.

Then she comes back for a pass at crewing a tall ship and working on a very well respected organic farm and then at the end of the summer goes back to D.C. for additional training (her third) with the ACLU.

I am not proud, no…to us she has always been exceptional but it was interesting because all her friends from school are exceptional too in all sorts of ways from robotics to athletics to singing to…

And they had so much support and encouragement from a group of remarkable and dedicated teachers.

I stayed at this nifty hotel that was built in 1918 as a residence and workshop for blacksmiths recruited to work for the Ford Motor Company. All the rooms used to be basically studio apartments. They are big and have kitchens (no stove though) and full baths with a big tub. My room had a view of Puget Sound and the Olympics with a little transitional city thrown in.

We used the hotel as a staging area and had bar food in the Tin Lizzie restaurant downstairs in our own private(ish) room.

It all played out well and I made it back on the train yesterday in time to teach my class and revel in the fact that I was not working.

Gosh I enjoyed that!

And now I am off to my first yoga class for myself at the studio where the physical therapists teach. I am a little nervous so wish me luck!

Last updated June 07, 2018