I know a few of the seniors graduating from Bainbridge High School this June. Some of them I’ve known since they were very small, others I met somewhere along the way. Most of them I’ve watched grow up only from the sidelines, but all of them are really wonderful—the kind of kids that would make any community very, very proud.
Every Spring, the town of Bainbridge Island turns its attention to loving its graduating seniors with its whole heart. From the graduation announcements proudly displayed in Dana’s shop window, to the grad-o-grams, to the exuberant sendoff of new grads on Grad Night Out school buses as they make their way onto the ferry each year, our little community absolutely bursts with excitement in the most loving and infectious way, every single year, starting right around now—a lot like the peonies now blooming with abandon in my garden.
One of my favorite senior traditions at BHS is the senior dance. Each year a group of seniors choreographs a dance to a series of songs carefully chosen for the occasion, practices it (for hours and hours!) and then performs it at the final high school assembly; it’s a choreographed thank-you-good-bye-love-letter from the senior class to their classmates, teachers, staff and each of the younger grades, all of whom have collectively walked alongside the soon-to-be graduates during their high school journey.
This morning, Peyton was driving us home from Safeway when the Maroon 5 song, “Memories,” started playing on the radio. My eyes welled all the way up, and I think Peyton knew why: on more than one drive to school, in our not very distant, pre-pandemic past, Peyton and I had heard the song and agreed that it would be a shoe-in to be included in this year’s senior dance; hearing it today reminded me of yet another special moment—there are so many—that this year’s seniors, and the Bainbridge community who loves them, will miss.
But then the sun came out, like it often does, unexpectedly and with all its might. The sky had been gray all morning, and the dramatic timing of the sun overtaking the gloom was such an unmistakable signal of love and light winning the day, that it instantly transformed my mood: surely our little town will find new, beautiful ways to honor this year’s graduates in spite of the pandemic, and I can’t wait to watch our community rise to the occasion. This year’s graduation season will be one to remember—marked forever by adversity but also by instinctive, irrepressible joy.
Today, celebrating BHS Class of 2020 is my joy. #joyinplace
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