Graduation time makes me feel prophetically nostalgic.

Just went to a graduate party last night in Saudi Arabia and saw my seniors dressed to the nines doing imitations of their teachers, looking innocently excited/scared at the future; and I saw glimpses of the men and women they would become.

Today I received an email about the long-anticipated debut novel of a former student and flashbacked to those wonderful evenings spent grading (read: treasuring) her nascent talent.

It seems none of them arrive at the place they started heading for, but I love it when my English-teacher-sense tingles and life makes sense.

I click the microphone so the umpteenth student can once again tell the world the essence of Margaret Atwood’s “Spelling” for her taped IB Oral Commentary.

I want to listen, but it seems so unfocused compared to the poet’s own words which are so precise and ordered.  I must pay attention.  She is trying so valiantly.

I am distracted by a finch outside the window that darts in and out of my line of vision trying to land in some unseen nest hidden under the eaves.  I want to help it, but I don’t have wings.

This, too, is a metaphor.

Feeling spiritually numb.

The pervasive Muslim milieu gets a bit much at times.  If the dog wakes me at 4 a.m. to go to the bathroom, even he is bothered by the moaning call to prayer that permeates the morning air.  

For such an obtrusive faith, it is terribly secretive as well.  As outsiders to the Muslim faith, we must adhere to cultural rules for women and explanation is never offered.  It is demeaning, but the worst casualty is personal faith.

We miss corporate worship and free exchange of religious ideas, but knowledge, like the women here, remains veiled and silent.