Do You Believe in Fate?

As Fate Would Have It... A teacher finds her old students years later, unexpectedly!

My story begins this way. My daughter is turning 14 years old and she's about to start high school in a few months. I wanted to take photos of her for her graduation luncheon invitation. It was also a wonderful opportunity for me to spend time with my grouchy teen and show her my old hunting grounds, in my hometown of Frisco (S.F.). We spent the entire afternoon in the Mission, where we ate lunch at my fave Cafe, and got to check out some awesome murals, which the Mission is known for. On this walk, I fell completely in love with a mural of Frida Khalo. I loved it so much, I took a picture of it, but soon forgot all about it.

Almost 2 months passes and I'm finally getting around SAVED posts and links on my FB account. I don't know about you, but I tend to save tons of posts/links when I scroll down, and I don't actually have the time to read or check them out. On this particular day, I find a video posted by a high school classmate of mine (also an alumni of Ruth Asawa School of the Arts), and it was all about two female muralist. Hmmm I definitely saved the link because of two reasons: one, I wanted to learn about local female muralist. Two, seeing the varied murals in the Mission piqued my passion for murals in general. I watched the short video and realized...

The two local female muralist featured in the video are not only alumni of SOTA, but were also my students the year I was doing my Student Teaching under my mentor, Mrs. Pannone. What a lovely, surprise! And at the end of the feature video, the image of the vibrant mural of Frida Khalo pops up! These two talented ladies painted that mural!

Call me sentimental. Call me sappy. Call me bananas! But I see it as FATE!

So 15 years later, here I am about to teach Art again and I hope to get the chance to integrate a lesson on painting murals. Years later, I hope to get the chance to start a dialogue with these lovely ladies and entice them to collaborate on a project with my middle school students. Years later, I hope to get the chance to continue making a positive difference in students' lives by sharing my passion for Fine Arts, that same excitement I had when I began my career, the year I taught these Bay Area artists. Thank you Fate!