I was sifting through my email that I use for junk (and the email address that got me through junior high and high school) and I came upon a draft of my Validictorian Speech that I gave at my high school graduation. I wanted to post it so I don't lose it.
I have attended Meridian School for fifteen years. My first memory of the school was the day I left my art drawing in my cubby basket upstairs in the pre-school room. My mom scolded me for being forgetful and making us late for dance class, so I rushed up the stairs as fast as I could. As I wheeled around the corner at the top of the stairs, I saw Mrs. Reeder and Miss Gwen, two of my pre-school teachers, standing in front of the oven. I was terrified they would scold me for forgetting my art, so I hid behind the plants so they wouldn’t see me. Mrs. Reeder was holding Miss Gwen’s red hair in her left hand while Miss Gwen, who was now bald, was sitting in the chair in front of her. I watched Mrs. Reeder set down the red hair on the counter, re-arrange some flowers on a white sun hat, and place the hat on Miss Gwen’s head. I decided to leave my artwork there, and quietly left, puzzled. I didn’t understand: Mrs. Reeder already had hair. Why was she taking Miss Gwen’s pretty red hair? When I finally graduated from pre-school, I thought back to that moment of Miss Gwen’s bald head as she placed my paper-bowl and cardstock graduation cap on my head: it was my pretend hair. Miss Gwen died of cancer a year later.
I haven’t told that story to anyone before. In fact, I had forgotten it until I started writing this speech a few weeks ago. This story and more importantly perhaps the process by which I remembered this story underscores what I would like to focus on today: the importance of our stories.
Storytelling is a crucial aspect of being human. Human beings have a natural ability to use verbal communication to teach, explain, and remember important, or, not so important things in our lives According to Reynold Price, author of A Palpable God:
“A need to tell and hear stories is essential to the species Homo sapiens—second in necessity apparently after nourishment and before love and shelter. Millions survive without love or home, almost none in silence; the opposite of silence leads quickly to narrative, and the sound of story is the dominant sound of our lives, from the small accounts of our day’s events to the vast incommunicable constructs...”
It is a bold statement to say that stories are more important than love, and high enough to be next to food on our hierarchy of needs. Love comforts, and shelter protects. Without food we would die. But without our stories, it’s almost as if we never had lived. For most of you, Miss Gwen is given life not because you knew her, because of what I have just told you; For me, this story is the only thing that gives her permanence.
There are different ways to experience stories. Perhaps the most obvious way is reading. At Meridian, we read a lot of stories. And from those stories, I am able to see my life juxtaposed and compared to other characters. I know that my father is not a mentally ill nylon salesman like Willy Loman; I know that I am not a creator of a hideous form of life like Dr. Frankenstein, and I know that Raskolnikov did not murder my friend. But to know these things is not why I picked up the book, nor was it because I wanted to find my “kindred spirit.” It is said that we read to understand who we are and who we are not. Great stories are there to comfort and to challenge our emotions and make us think “Oh. I didn’t know I believed that.”
However, reading is not the only way to experience stories. The Performing Arts is a form of storytelling in itself. In modern dance, the choreographed moves create an emotion along with music to aid in the story that the dancer is portraying. Acting is similar. Theatre allows us to explore the story of another individual and experience them in a more visceral manner for both the actor and the audience. That is when we truly understand the love of Hermia, the passion of Timoune, or the sincerity of Cordelia.
But most of these plays are performed redundantly. Beauty and the Beast has been performed countless times, and will continue to be. And after our umpteenth late night rehearsal I found myself asking why. It’s the same character, the plot doesn’t change, and there is nothing different in the play. What possible good can come from a bunch of high school students stuffing their chests with chest hair to tell a story that’s been told over and over again? The answer might be that in addition to the story itself, the process of recreating that story is paramount. This is what Leslie Marmon Silko claims in her book Ceremony. Her main character, Tayo, must be healed of his mental and cultural illness by a ceremony. That ceremony was learning to tell and preserve the important stories of his tribe.
“Everywhere he looked, he saw a world made of stories, the long ago, time immemorial stories, as old Grandma called them. It was a world alive, always changing and moving; and if you knew where to look, you could see it, sometimes almost imperceptible, like the motion of the stars across the sky.”
The ceremony that Tayo experiences is something like we students have experienced with redoing our own stories.
One of the things I love at Meridian is that not only are we expected to explore a story but we are also expected to create and remember our own stories. For example: My freshmen year was the first year Meridian had ever considered going to the High School Competition at the Utah Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City. Most of the students in our class knew nothing about it except for the fact that people who “like drama” went there to “socialize”. Our 13-person drama class put together a scene from the Comedy of Errors and decided to try our luck. Little did we know what kind of extravagant living we would be enjoying when we reached our motel in Parowan. “The Ace Motel” offered seven luxurious rooms for our enjoyment, all completed with different themes. For three nights we lived in rooms with carpet samples stitched together for the carpet, and showerheads only tall enough for Philip Erickson to kneel and barely clear the spout. But when Saturday night rolled around, our little Meridian School took First place in Ensemble performance, First place in Monologue, and First place Sweepstakes. Our drama class has grown to over 60 students, and suddenly, the Ace Motel means so much more to us.
But not all our stories need to be earth-shattering experiences. Every morning at 7:27 Kellie Higgins and I drove through the Provo center street ad 9th east intersection just south of Meridian on our way to seminary. And every morning, walking to the corner was an older couple, holding hands. Over the last 9 months, Kellie and I have watched the wife get up in her jogging suit and walk her husband to the corner. When they reach the corner, they would give each other a long hug, a small kiss on the cheek, and then part their ways. The husband would cross the street, and the wife would head back to their apartment. After he had crossed the road, they would turn at the same time to wave at each other one last time. Though I don’t know this couple or why they are the way they are, it is a story that Kellie and I share and won’t be forget. I will also never forget this year at the Senior Roast when Elizabeth Clark willed all of her cool clothes and her much sought after platforms to her little sister. Or the time that Hootie sang in a concert, showing off his beautiful voice and little vibrato, possibly more because of nerves than because of training. Stories as sad as Miss Gwen, as happy as our success at Shakespeare, or as insignificant as the couple in the morning are what makes us who we are, and who we can become.
We’ve finally made it to our graduation, the ceremony that is the capstone of our few years together. But in the end, this ceremony in and of itself is meaningless. What matters is the stories behind the ceremony; the stories that make this ceremony more meaningful to our personal lives; the stories that got us sitting in those chairs. I remember reading a graduation speech where the speaker said at this point he should urge you to achieve momentous things. He then said he would not do that because it is too easy, too empty. I would like to borrow that idea and suggest that the most important thing for Meridian and it’s community is to remember our stories. Garrison Keiller said “As long as young people love stories I think there is hope for the world. As long as we love stories and the past, there is hope for the future.” For each one of our graduating class and our beloved school we hope for a great future. May we remember our future is tied to our past and to our stories. Thank you.
