Inside King's-Edgehill School
Dear KES Family:
Like so many, I have found the pandemic hard and, like so many, I have found distraction necessary. At times, being alone with my thoughts has been tough and so I have turned to music and audiobooks to keep me stable. When I am alone, Audible and iTunes have been my companions. The bizarre consequence of this is that now, when out for a walk or run, familiar surroundings will often trigger precise memories of podcasts and audiobooks I have listened to.
Songs, on the other hand, trigger emotional memories. I am sure we have all felt this. We hear an old song and are instantly transported to a different time in our lives. Amazingly, our brains are hard-wired to connect with long-term memory and the emotions attached to those memories. Music assists in the storage of memories and resides in an area of the brain which is resistant to the ravages of time and brain disease.
But this is not really what I want to say…
My story is about two wonderful students from Mexico, Regina Contreras ’23 and Raul Arauzo Cortes ’24. With Raul playing guitar and Regina singing, the pair transported the audience in last night’s Coffee House to another place. Regina’s voice is gorgeous: vulnerable yet strong. She performed Lady Gaga’s Shallow and Christina Perri’s A Thousand Years with evocative delicacy. To my surprise, I realized that while the first song brought back memories of Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in their film A Star is Born, the second song took me back to the spring of 2020 and the heightened emotions of the pandemic’s first wave and the worldwide lockdown. Fortunately, our McLellan Performance Hall was dimly lit, and I was sitting at the back of the room. We were all enjoying the first Coffee House in ages, and my eyes were streaming with tears.
I wondered if I was okay.
And then I thought – yes, I am more than okay. In fact, my tears had more to do with current than past events. The whole evening (indeed the events of the entire week) is an indicator that things are okay. That Hannah Pace ‘22, Mr. Smith, and the IB music class could organize the first Coffee House in a year and a half is fabulous. That the entire School (in their FTUs) were able to see our boys win the regional D1 soccer semi-final on Wednesday was awesome. That we have a record number of families touring our School for today’s Open House, and we are being treated to a preview of our upcoming musical production of Heathers the Musical is really exciting.
This week has been more than okay.