Kindred Spirits. Or Not.

"Once in a generation a woman comes along who changes everything. Tina Fey is not that woman, but she met that woman once and acted weird around her." - Leading quotation from the back cover of Bossypants, also a helpful analogy for an episode in my Bryanston life.

If, in this analogy, the English Poet Laureate is "the woman who comes along and changes everything," I am Tina Fey.

A few weeks back, the school had somehow wrangled Carol Ann Duffy (current English Poet Laureate, first woman to do it) into coming and performing some of her poetry to the kids. She would also, as poets do, be eating lunch here.

As a member of the English department, I'd been encouraged to attend the lunch (a standing-up, nibbling finger food affair) and do my bit to minimize the chance of awkward silences between Bryanston and Carol Ann Duffy. The logic was that we could all "hide behind each other," which I thought a splendid idea, until I forgot.

I don't know what came over me. I'd first read and enjoyed her poetry at the tender age of two hours ago, so there was no hero-worship to blame for my enthusiasm.

I was seized, I think, by the deep-seated instinct to "Be Nice to Comp'ny." Similar to the "Don't Eat Those, They're For Comp'ny," edict, the "Be Nice" corollary dictates that one banish all concern for personal comfort in favor of welcoming the visitor. I'd internalized this rule to mean that, in these luncheon party trenches, there was a social bullet with my name on it. Ergo the second she walked into the room, I stepped forward and introduced myself.

"Hi, my name's Sarah Kate. We've both got double-barreled first names! Do people get confused with yours, too?"

A pause. If I'd been able to, I'd have clapped both hands over my mouth.

"Sometimes they drop the Ann," she replied.

"Oh, I so get that. We just can't give up though, can we?"

SHUT UP, said my brain.

And fortunately, I did shut up. We were saved by another English teacher coming over to introduce some students who were vastly more poised than I had just proven to be.

Through further chit chat, and greater filter control on my part, the lunch was redeemed, but it was a close shave.

That evening, after she had finished a performance of her poetry, the other English faculty were getting her to sign copies of her work. My head of department flipped open a just-signed copy, found a poem she liked, and chuckled to read the title out loud. She passed the book to me, and I smiled as I started reading the poem to myself.

"Well, now you have to read it to us," said her husband.
"What? No way; I can't follow that," I blurted, gesturing toward Carol Ann Duffy, who stood listening to this exchange.
"Oh, come on."

And I thought it would be childish to persist in buttoning my lip, so I just read the thing. In front of Carol Ann Duffy. Which is sort of like showing an artist a digital picture you took of their painting.

I took my leave soon after, thanking Carol Ann Duffy for her visit and pleading Chess Club as my excuse.

"Oh, a chess club. Are you any good at chess?" she asked me.
"Oh, no. Not at all. That's why I go to Chess Club," I said, idiotically. And like an awkward phantom, I was gone.


The next time I meet the English Poet Laureate, I'll think of something better to say.

OH WAIT.

So there was this wedding.

No, I didn't go to London to see it.
No, I didn't cry.
No, I wasn't clutching a bottle of Royal Wedding Special Edition Champagne when it happened.
But yes, I did squeal a little bit at the First Glimpse of That Dress

(One of the kids had informed us the First Glimpse would be possible when, according to the published itinerary, Kate left the hotel at exactly 10:51 am and got into her limousine / lucite hearse / popemobile to drive to Westminster Abbey).

For my part, I hadn't been all that jazzed about the nuptials until that fateful Friday, when you could practically feel the vibrations from fluttering teenage-girl heartstrings as you walked the corridors. It was, after all, the day Kate Middleton would become a REAL LIVE PRINCESS.

Lessons between the morning tea break and lunch had been cancelled to allow the children to watch the event on the television. A wise choice, I thought, so as to allow a communal moment of rejoicing with minimal interruption of scholarship.

Stuff that. A child walked into Julia's boarding house. "How's your morning been?" Julia asked the girl. "Great!" the girl answered brightly. "I had French. We watched the wedding."

I was informed that every minute of the morning had required at least three hours of planning in the way of security, decoration, crowd-control, altar-buffing, carriage-restoration, and the like. Of course most of us were going to take all morning to watch the thing. It would have seemed rude not to. After all, the girls chattered, it's the future King and Queen, the capital city's looking its stately best, and did I mention she's going to be a PRINCESS?

To observe the event-around-the-event, Julia and I went to her boarding house common room. We were surrounded on the one side by a table full of fairy cakes and the cleaning ladies busily judging Camilla Barker-Bowles. On our other side were couches crammed full of teenage girls all agog at the spectacle. Julia bustled around, chronicling the event with her camera while I observed the bunting and paper hearts that the girls had hung around the room.

Of course, the boys were all outside at this point. You know, shooting things and playing rugby and and rubbing dirt in their wounds. Being guys. Not caring at all about this froo-froo wedding business.

Except they weren't. Their boarding-houses, too, had jam-packed common rooms, where apparently hordes watched the wedding with equal avidity.

However, when asked by one of their male teachers why they were so attentive, the boys' interest was a bit less elaborately justifiable.

"She's fit, sir."
"And so's her sister," they widely agreed after both women walked down the aisle.

I had never seen anything like it. I can't remember a Super Bowl that ever got this much attention. Maybe that's why I had approached the event like a bit of a grinch, wondering, really, what all the fuss was about. People got married all the time.

But the kids were just too excited. There was just too much jam and clotted cream in the fairy cakes. Too many fancy hats. Too much red carpet. In a voyeuristic sugar rush, I finally let myself get swept away. And it was so fun, and the dress was gorgeous; I don't care what anyone says.

So on this day, I wish a happy one-month wedding anniversary to what the tabloids have dubbed "Wills and Kate." May their love endure much longer than their honeymoon tans.

Forgive me

Yes, yes, I know. I realize I've been a delinquent. I offer no excuses, only updates.

Since last I wrote the weather has improved and my mandolin skills have declined, each with equal sharpness. The sky remains light until nine in the evening, making it a pleasure indeed to stroll the Bryanston grounds and neglect indoor pursuits.

Even the week where my boarding house was on "School Duty" was pleasant because of the weather.

NB: School Duty is the week where you and the other faculty attached to your boarding house police the dining hall queue, provide supervision of school activities, and trawl the nooks and crannies of the school's acreage for smokers.

With the weather so mild, I could complete my patrolling of said smokers' favorite hideouts in relative comfort. I'd go out accompanied by the scent of fresh-mown grass and encounter the scent of tobacco; I'd begin my walk accompanied by the sight of bluebells languidly draping the slopes and end it spying skinny-jean-clad teens scampering off into the dusk. Better luck next time, I'd think.

Whenever I did manage to corner them, the smokers seemed less embittered than usual to be caught and have their lighters confiscated. The sunshine had lulled them into apathy even over losing six quid in good German tobacco.

Meanwhile, I'm tackling Twelfth Night with my English class.

I welcome the practical grind of constant resistance to Shakespeare. The kids walk in with that special thousand-yard stare they acquire from reading Elizabethan blank verse, saying "I read the whole act. I'm still so confused." I mentally steeple my fingers and think: Excellent. Here we go.

On good days it's hilarious and fun. On difficult days it's like herding cats, then training those cats to perform Swan Lake.

But it's Summer Term. The weather is fine, and I'm doing what I ought. Call me spoiled, and you'd be close; call me blessed, and you'd be right on the money.