There has been an air of excitement and optimism in the Brighton Girls community this week. The sun helps, of course, as does the fact that it is Wellbeing Week and students (and staff) have been letting off steam; enjoying the chance to escape from the workaday world; embracing that unfettered feeling that comes when you find yourself on a ride at Chessington, or on surfboard in Devon, or playing manhunt on a campsite in the South Downs.
But there is something else in the ether: a feeling of anticipation and optimism about what is to come.
For some, this is simply the thrill of a half-term holiday on the horizon; for others, it’s the approaching long summer break, now almost within touching-distance. Some will be looking further ahead, to next year, to new beginnings. With the adventures that are afoot for my family, I am particularly sensitive to the winds of change this year, but what I have noticed more than ever is the unique energy that comes when you are on the verge of something new.
How to capture this in words?
A Google search took me to the Icelandic word, framtiđshræring, which roughly translates as a feverish excitement for the future while feeling apprehensive in the present, before I landed on the perfect expression. The word I was searching for was “butterflies”, a word plucked from the lexicon of childhood, and the perfect way to articulate the heady mix of excitement and uncertainty.
I sensed this fluttering energy while talking to Deputy Head Student, Isla, after her A Level Classics exam on Monday. She was glowing with a sense of relief and pride, still super-charged with adrenaline. Isla, like all our Year 13s, is poised on the brink of a new world. Each exam brings her a step closer and, for Isla, her “new world” is both literal and metaphorical: she has been awarded a place at Amherst College in Massachusetts and will soon be walking the corridors once graced by Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson. I have spoken to numerous Year 11s and Year 13 outside the exam hall and have sensed this same energy: exams have arrived but the stresses seem to have dissipated, replaced, it seems, by the more graceful butterflies – nervous, but alive to a world of possibilities.
Something else that has contributed to the feeling of excitement this week is the news that one of our former students, Dr Rosemary Coogan, is being widely tipped to be the first UK astronaut to walk on the moon. You may have seen her in the press last week, following her training mission at the Johnson Space Station in Houston, Texas. Since then, the phones have been ringing, our very-own Mr Marsh has been interviewed for Radio 4; we are beyond excited, and we are all in awe.
Dr Rosemary Coogan might just know a thing or two about butterflies, about what it feels like to embrace endless possibilities; the feeling of weightlessness, of untethering, of letting go.
