The Fantastic Hospitality of a Fantastic Teacher

And carrying on my own version of Fantastic Friday

Mrs. Glazer presenting baby Alexis with the prize for a singing competition.

There were few days in high school that I looked forward to more than Fantastic Friday in Mrs. Glazer’s choir class.

Fantastic Friday served as a reward for us after stretches of diligently honing our craft, sharing the arts with our little community, and recognizing that it’s good to make space for rest.

It was an entire class period centered around the random karaoke and performance choices of us teenagers. We just hung out on the risers, relaxed, chit chatted, and enjoyed the little community created by Mrs. Glazer’s hospitality.

There was always music, often snacks, sometimes stand up comedy, and never any real pressure to perform.

The exact schedule of Fantastic Fridays was never official or even completely predictable. The short runways for anticipating Fantastic Fridays as a reward or reprieve made them that much more fantastic to me. Mrs. Glazer simply felt when we needed a break from work and a moment of shelter from the not-so-fantastic parts of a teenager’s day.

When the Arts Are Hospitable

That choir room was my consistent shelter throughout high school. Not just because of Fantastic Fridays, but truly because of Mrs. Glazer and her hospitality and encouragement in all things performing arts.

In a little rural school district, she was my middle school and then high school choir director. But she opened the door to me to experience the wonder and expression of creativity through participating in choir, musicals, color guard, singing competitions, and even the prom committee (she’s always been in charge of all sorts of fun things).

She had to be thrifty with the small budgets she worked with in each program. I watched Mrs. Glazer design sets with upcycled cardboard from the cafeteria, lead students in transforming found scraps into bedazzled costume elements, sew a zillion beautiful color guard flags, strategically rotate old sheet music, and personally choreograph every single routine we ever did with show choir and color guard.

There was no rifle trick, flag toss, or dance move she asked us to do that she couldn’t do herself—or wouldn’t learn how to do along with us. She worked hard for it and showed me how to follow suit with joy in the work of honing my craft. (She’s still doing all this today, so I’m assuming she’s found the special spring from Tuck Everlasting, because how else?!)

Mrs. Glazer made it clear that art is for sharing. Some of my favorite high school memories are of sharing these arts with our community. Watching the surprise and delight on children’s faces during plays and the elderly crying with joy as they hummed Christmas carols with us at the nursing home—there is nothing like it.

It was through honing my craft in the performing arts that I had a constant stream of goodness and beauty amid my family’s divorce/custody fallout, the fun highs and the inevitable lows of blended family life, and the overall roller coaster of teenage social experiences. My deepest high school friendships grew in those spaces between collaborating, performing, competing, and celebrating in our little arts world.

And through it all, Fantastic Friday was a little way of getting to share with each other how our own favorite music was connecting with us individually. We would sing sad songs or epic songs or even just silly songs to make each other laugh. My bestie Alicia and I performed an epic rendition of His Cheeseburger and that’s a core memory just as important as the memories of our choir singing at the magical Disney World.

Have a Fantastic Friday With Me

The magic continues as I get the honor of guiding my daughters into the beauty of the arts. They love music, sing soundtracks from musicals, and today they are starting a little arts program in our homeschool community. After a week of diligent work, they get their own space to let loose creatively with other teachers guiding them and celebrating the exploration of the arts. On Fridays. Fantastic.

OBVIOUSLY I’M NOSTALGIC but just go with me on this one…How about we meet here on Fridays and we all take a moment to celebrate a little bit? To let loose with random delights to share with each other?

I don’t know what your week looked like, how hard you’ve been pushing, what refinement you/your talents are experiencing right now. But I bet you could use a little bit of Fantastic Friday fun. (I’m sorry, I cannot help the alliteration, but Mrs. Glazer started it so…)

I have a fun post for the end of today to kick us off!

On Fantastic Friday, I will tell you what song I would perform that day if I was to show up in the choir room with a random not-a-real-karaoke-CD ready to let loose. And you’ll get a little list of whatever other perfectly random delights I would need to share with you while we chit-chatted in the risers between our friends’ karaoke performances, not wanting the class period to end.

There will always be music, often snacks, sometimes comedy, and never any real pressure to perform.

But this is especially fun if you participate. So what would be your karaoke song? What are you belting out in the car when you’re alone? What avenue of creativity is giving you joy right now? Whose work and craft is blessing you right now? What’s something silly, something random, something fantastic to celebrate Friday with?