Last week, the teachers and I spoke about the importance of ordinary things in a time of fear and uncertainty. We spoke about the comfort that familiar faces and habits and expectations can bring. The knowledge that we will greet each other every morning, by name, ask after each other’s health, laugh together – these small, daily rituals keep us going. And when we are teaching and learning remotely, these rituals do more than that – they keep us together.

Those of us on campus are sustained by signs of seasonal maintenance: the cleaning of the gutters, pruning of our trees and rose bushes, and the mending of the shingles on the chapel roof – the flurry of activity in response to what Irish poet Eavan Boland calls “the natural world with its renewals and catastrophes,” reminds us, incredibly, that life does go on. Spring and summer will follow soon.

At the time of writing, the Little Saints and Grade 0 children are here, clamouring to be read to, and listened to, running around the playground, and scattering their curiosity and noise across the campus. Last week the Grade 0s went on their first visit to the Science lab and Mrs Jennett showed them how to look at feathers and flowers and leaves under a microscope. Those little hands manipulating the lenses, and intent heads bent in study were our Grade 7s once – will be our Grade 7s in 2028. This is our great joy: knowing it will all begin again.

Last Thursday, Grade 1D presented their virtual assembly (curated by Mrs Di Benedetto, Mrs de Boni and Mr Potgieter) and reminded us to put our best foot forward in what might seem, at times, like ludicrously unfavourable conditions. When they spoke about all the different things girls can do and be – from game rangers to robotics engineers to artists to models to teachers – the Grade 1s reminded us not to give up on our dreams at a time when dreaming and hoping can seem like a foolish and irresponsible act. In the words of a writer, who stole this from a preacher:

Hope is revolutionary patience. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.

According to American poet, Emily Dickinson, a survivor in so many ways:

“Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul / And sings the tune without the words / And never stops at all.”

And hope doesn’t only fly and sing and carry on – hope laughs in the face of impossible odds. What this means is that hope laughs at the most unlikely time, when everything seems serious and grim. When one of the Grade 1 girls said she wanted to be a comedian when she grew up so that she could help people when they felt sad, I wanted to cheer. I also wanted to hug her, but we know that’s not allowed at the moment.

I want us to keep the image of that Grade 1 girl with us over the next few weeks – that St Mary’s girl who understands the importance of making people laugh. I want us to think of our laughing together and keeping our sense of joy and wonder through difficult times. Let it sustain us and keep us stubbornly hoping and waiting and working and watching for the dawn.

Like the spring and summer we are preparing for on campus, it will follow soon.

SARAH WARNER
JUNIOR SCHOOL HEADMISTRESS