ANTHEM FOR THE CLASS OF 2021

ANTHEM FOR

THE CLASS OF 2021

SOO GYUNG BAK (she/her) G12 STUDENT

I’ve been asked to write, a poem, an anthem for the titter-totter of our feet, barely adults we’re still kids when laid along the length of the universe, it’s sweet, that we’re almost at the last floor of this tower, tonight, and with foot off the edge of a building sky high I swear we’ll be alright, remember each room we left breathless, or entered collapsing, imploding frustration, self-deprecation, struggling to find the next breath, yet somehow we’ve found our ways here today and tomorrow is only a few twirls of the hour hand away so who’s to say we can’t make it to tomorrow, and so we breathe, and so we reminisce.

Remember middle school, and its hesitance that grew from easy consequence, what was serious we know now isn’t and it’s hard to realise but the foolishness of youth wasn’t foolish at the time, and that’s just fine. just breathe. we had the map tests, with the capitals for bonus marks to get, the taste of hi-chew and white rabbit, plus design class don’t forget it’s “may I go to the washroom” not “can I” Mr. Gilley, it’s the taste of challenge to figure out what you found fun. recall discomfort, recall chatter, squirming under sweat-slick skin with the rush from PE, the change room between 2 classes almost akin to quicksand as we begin to tiptoe among gym bags, half the lockers untrustworthy, and the air with its humidity, tis puberty, humour me, liberty’s middle school’s property—

remember dancing? before COVID’s rapid spiel, when hand in hand and breath in breath we would just bounce like awkward seals against the floor in time to swing, in time to salsa, hiphop, jazz, the bitter pills of showcase on the backtrack.

and what of Kirkwood? that we watched get trounced like every homeroom but Ms. Brunswick’s.

when fidget spinners were the thing, clever fingers selling slime, entrepreneurs shut down because “that’s a parallel market” and teachers banned it but that’s not why, because slipping into the world of media and news we became startlingly aware of what money does to people. Unit of account, store of value, econ students we know, sure, but perhaps the friendships of grade 8 could have crumbled under the allure of money.

we’ve lived pre-COVID, breathed preTrump, mere 8th graders brushing back hair behind ears on the blurred doorstep of chaos. when Toradora and Charlotte still saw the light of day, when Eagle Starter Band was ‘bout to be the talk of town with chant of trains on water, boats on tracks, those are the times that we can never quite get back but we’re not Orpheus, and we’re all allowed to still look back. for when we get lonely in the skin of teens that we’ll soon shed like winter coats seeking spring and summer what isn’t forgotten won’t quite leave.

First time sitting exams in the gym, half of us finished with still an hour left on the clock, sitting ducks in the cold of the squeaky gym floors, squeaky foldable desks and the chair legs. And so they count heads, while we count threads either bored out of our minds or stupid anxious because those were our exams! And that was 3 years ago.

Time skip, step into the senior school, dancing on the edge just flitting hops as we navigate the chasm of DP while still tethered to the kindness of the MYP, extended math crushed many, but I’m sure it’s better now, I hope, with the curriculum rush I’m not quite sure but it’s better than Kuroko no Basuke’s Japanese Lunchtime Rush!

Torvald, Norvald, and the socratic seminars with taps on backs, April fool’s essays on theatres as vehicles of intention, grade 10, Camp Squeah, the food not the most horrible, but barefoot in the cafeteria, orienteering, haunted chapel, no coffee tea for us in sight.

A few months later, Manning Park, snow flurries, crystallize your breath on sight and feel the sting the lightning sing within your nose, within your lungs from all the cold. Flattening snow

to set up shelter, later packing snow into some counters for a breakfast, rushed and stressed, but Setareh, please don’t doubt me when I say your pancakes were the best.

Skiing and tubing, cabins alight like fairy lights, for many, perhaps, the thought that this is the best time of my life, just for a moment, a flitting thought rang true, the mindless enjoyment, the exhilaration of losing your thought process just to simply enjoy and enjoy and delight in—please please never forget, never forget it.

Grade 11 camp, flipped canoes, pink tomato soup, horrible food, semi-formal: tipsy twirls, buffets, enthuse the dance floor, view the jewels stringing from the soles of our shoes, twinkling like the glitter of friends’ eyes, their eyes, her eyes, his eyes, everyone aglow with crystal-crusted corals under the refraction of dawn-light diving past the surface of the sea.

But the sea is temperamental, before long the water darkened, distress churned sadistically in throats as COVID took and took and took, and we were all afraid it would tear our world asunder. And it did.

Online, touch-starved, the consequence of even dining out too frightening, vaccines hurried along, we didn’t know if they would work, or what would work, if we’d have school, if our relatives ‘cross seas were still okay, would be alright, and what if what if what if fight just left us. all those older, oh our parents, teachers, babushka, grandfather, they can’t they can’t they can’t—

and then the sea vaporised, afire as the injustices of our systems burned into our retinas the rawness of murder the foul stench of singed hair burned hearts charred tongues as we fought for what we needed but still confined at home, tenderness wrenched into burning by all the steam.

still aching, we couldn’t relax. EEs, failed chemistry experiments, IAs, IAs, IAs, SATs and ACTs, wondering when we’d recover we peer beyond our tower up up and out towards a future, university, applications, interviews atrocities playing dress-up, dress shoeclad feet still raised over our confidence we play with chances finding just the right sliver of humility to balance on, fumbling our hands over numbers spilling past test sheets as we wait for predicted grades, result delays, acceptances, the like we tumbled into mock exams with all the grace of quivering hippopotamuses, within the test rooms feel like Jekyll’s devolution taken place, reduced to` amoebas unsure of what just happened in the exam rooms once we leave we were all unsure, and that is what we were sure of.

but in uncertainty we were given the chance to build our certainty. Mulgrave walls and corridors alight with art just look at what your hands have made. Be proud of what you’ve made of living in this world, and all the ship masts that you’ve stayed with your own beauty, let’s set ourselves a-sea, like pirates— novice ones reduced to writing math tests in semi suits and dresses, “special lunches” we wrenched from treasure chests in search of newfound normalcy.

And things did get better, I believe. Yes drama paper 1s we first found frightening but jujutsu kaisen and genshin took our minds off them. Chauvin guilty of all charges, the gutter of the world is perpetual but sometimes we get to peek at the starlit sky beyond and think that ah, this is worth fighting for.

we breathe life into each new day for the thrill of gotcha, the wet stick of a shirt to a back, the temptation to lean back and recall memories: Artsapalooza, Bhangra, the delight of ‘Blue Stocking’ and Mulgrave’s other plays, a time when we didn’t know the ending of Banana Fish, the little huff of laughter for having Mr. Wilson folders for his emails, the ridiculousness of edublog, sports tournaments, dance recitals, vacations overseas, many many birthdays— we measure our lives in memories. when we are gone they’ll be gone with us, and so we trek further. Dampened by Vancouver rain, we froze in the embraces of youthful turmoil, only to melt as we found pieces of ourselves in what we came to mean to others.

There may be countless things we couldn’t say, couldn’t have said, ended up not saying, I’m saying that this is the end to all such chances. Farewell is farewell, and stepping through the threshold we leave behind chances and moments we can never get back. Even as we hold onto the threads of silvery connections, some flimsy, some bold, some strengthened by the slow trickle of amber, we crystallize and crystallize that which we refuse to let go of. But a fundamental change is exactly that, and as we feel the last few pieces of high school fall into place, we cement the fact that we’ve completed that stage, and it’s time to move on to another.

Farewell is imminent. Bittersweet it’s the treat of the last few traces of childhood. It’s good things we lock under picture frames, glass untouchable, youth under casing, we are forced to look past the picture frame the bitter we turn into lines in a diary, to close and only look back on when we want the sting of embarrassment and shame to see how far we’ve come since then. And success isn’t the only thing heralding flight, for no matter how you choose to live your life, forward is forward, and time doesn’t tread back.

All of us, the philosophers, historians, economists, geographers, mathematicians, scientists, linguists, artists, actors, siblings, friends, we craft new chances, we do it ‘cause we can.

And so I wrap this poem up to bring it to a close, because there is a certain confidence in me that we’ll be fine, we’ll be alright. So here’s to us, here’s to our future, here’s to new memories, faith, love.