Hey Jessie!
Do you remember our senior year of high school when you came to watch me dazzle the stage in the musical Legally Blonde? Yup, that was me in the background dancing Irish jigs and singing “Oh my god omigod you guys!”. Walking on that stage, after hours of rehearsals, I was excited to share with you all of our hard work! Granted, I didn’t have a big role or carry the weight of the show on my shoulders, but I still understood that the energy I brought to that stage brought life to the show as a whole. So naturally I gave it everything I got. And I was bouncing with excitement when I saw you at the end of our performance, just pleasantly happy to share this part of my life with you.
Throughout high school, I loved to act and give speeches. But, like any other high school student still discovering their self-confidence, I would get stage fright. In the wings, I would repeat my lines over and over again before stepping into the blinding light, striding in as someone who wasn’t me. And it was usually this idea that helped me get through it.
When I stepped in front of an audience, I wasn’t Yoli. I was someone else. So in a sense, they were judging the mask I had put on, and not the essence of my true being.
Today however, this way of thinking didn’t come to my aid because I couldn’t hide behind a mask. I had to be my true self. Today, I had to give a morning speech in front of the whole school. 600 students and about 50 faculty to be exact. As a relief, I only stood in front of one class and the rest was livestreamed to each of the students’ classes. I wanted to be like my old self and wow them with my performance, but there was just one problem. My old self, that dramatic Thespian still buried within me, decided she would stay buried.
As I sat patiently, a single bead of sweat clawing down my face, waiting for my turn to speak during the opening ceremony, I tried to stay calm and collected. I felt like being in the wings of the stage all over again as I nervously repeated my speech in my head. I had planned to introduce myself first in Japanese by asking the students if they knew Ohtani Sohei (my feeble attempt at humor because every Japanese person knows him) and surprising them with the fact that I live next to Dodger’s stadium. Then, I had meticulously practiced over and over again to ask them if they could guess what city I was from. At that point, I thought I had a good grip on myself until the sweet, kind, innocent, principal said “And now we would like to introduce your new ALT Yolanda Patzkowski from Los Angeles in America!”.
Well… there goes my act.
To be fair, drama classes really did come in clutch because I improvised, keep in mind in Japanese, my way through the spoiler to my joke. Once I got that fiasco out of the way, I began with my real introduction in English and low and behold, I fumbled by completely forgetting to say “Yes my name is Yolanda but please call me Yoli!” and you know how much I hate being called by my first name. Maybe it was the wrench the principal threw at me, maybe it was having to memorize difficult grammar in Japanese, or maybe it was just my good plain old stage-fright coming back to haunt me, but I couldn’t stop shaking while delivering my speech. I finished it in one piece and could finally sit back down. Yet deep down inside, I wanted to do it all over again and this time get it perfect.
It wasn’t until later that day when I stepped into the calligraphy club’s classroom buzzing with students preparing for the school fair that I came to realize that a perfect introduction wasn’t the goal. My nerves had long passed and I just stood with eager curiosity as I said hello to them all and they welcomed me in with bright smiles. They sat me at a desk and cheerfully challenged me to write difficult kanji using a paintbrush and calligraphy ink. As I let my mind settle and connect to the meditative practice of focusing on the stroke order of the characters, I reflected and took note of my surroundings. Here I was, laughing, joking in my broken Japanese, and asking questions to learn more about my students! Here I got to see them in their element, outside of the stress of having to shyly speak in English class. Here, we could all just be ourselves, no masks required.
The goal was always to build strong and trusting relationships with my students. The quality of my speech wasn’t a holistic reflection of who I am. Sharing who I am takes time and patience and getting to know others takes time and initiative.
So the next day, I’m sure they were feeling the same jitters I did when I stepped up to that podium when they stepped up to that stage in the gym, in front of the actual whole school, not a livestream. I saw some of their hands quiver as they made broad strokes just like my smile quivered. But in the end, when they raised up their immense poster for everyone to see, there was thunderous applause. Perhaps some of them felt that they wished to do it over again, to repaint the words that were etched permanently onto the paper, but I believed nothing needed to be changed. Their hard work had paid off and it was shining. I wonder if they had any Jessie’s in the audience that they were happy to share this experience with.
They beamed as they walked past my seat, all of them turning to me to say thank you as I congratulated them on a job well done. I’m including a picture of what they made so you can see and don’t worry about not being able to read the kanji, I can’t read it either!! But maybe you can read their feelings? What do you think?
Things are slowly coming together here across the big pond. I’m not achieving perfection that’s for sure, but I am making progress little by little.
All my love,
Yoli-sensei (NOT Yolanda-sensei)
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