Signs of the Times
I believe in signs. Granted, I am terrible at interpreting them and tend to recognize them better in hindsight, but at least I'm open to the nameless, faceless voice of fate. It's a start. Very much in the throes of my pending "stay or go" decision - which has graduated to full-fledged dilemma status at this point - I am trying even harder to stay awake to the sometimes subtle clues imbedded in everyday living. At this point, I need all the help I can get in unraveling the mystery of my future, even if that means making too much out of the day's stray moments.
I have decided, then, to officially designate Marian's "I'm going to miss you" confession as a sign, an invaluable piece of evidence that must be as carefully weighed as more practical concerns - like finding gainful employment. Differing from more disingenuous sentiments of which students are capable, Marian's words carry truck with me because of their spontaneity and the gentle lilt in her voice. I got the sense that their sincerity caught her as off-guard as it did me. For sure, it was a sign. But of what?
Read one way, Marian's words-as-sign suggest I should stay. Indeed, they seem to do so pretty unambiguously. If this student, and others by extraction, will miss me, as I will miss them, then the obvious solution is to return. Coming back balances the equation nicely. For my admittedly questionable math skills, I wouldn't be at all surprised if I needed a student to solve for "X" in this cosmic calculus before I came around to the answer.
The sign can just as easily be understood to signal the opposite, of course, and Marian's words rang so true and clear that they felt like something more than personal sentiment. Indeed, I couldn't imagine a farewell any fonder, and I don't think I'm a fool to think that this one could have been on behalf of, well, the whole of Palestine. Maybe Marian was just the channel.
Extricating oneself from a school - any school - is usually a messy affair. Uprooting oneself from a community is similarly challenging, especially from one so hospitable as Beit Sahour. I have never been good at saying goodbye either - often saying too much or leaving too much unsaid. In the face of these impossible hurdles, it would take a minor miracle to offer some semblance of a clean break with the past, to close this chapter of my life.
Maybe Marian's words are just such a miracle. It wouldn't be the first time a Palestinian teen of that name pulled off the impossible.