By a certain age, most of us are able to recognize our own imprints on the paths our lives have taken. For better or for worse. We know ourselves well enough and, if we’re at all self-aware, we have an inkling of how we’re perceived by others. Then something unexpected happens, and we realize we don’t know anything at all.
This week, on the island of Maui, I have spent time at the school where I once taught and it feels like I have been dropped into my own, long-ago past. Everything is different. Everything is the same.
I was twenty-six - on the cusp of my own adulthood - when I arrived the first time. I came alone to this tropical paradise with a newborn baby and no teaching experience, to work with kids less than a decade younger than myself. How I managed to stay one step ahead of them, I’ll never know, but we sang, and laughed, and talked about life. Some 39 years later, some of those same students gathered over dinner to tell stories on me – each sharing a pivotal moment in their lives at which I had the honor to be present. We sang, we laughed, and we talked about life. Though they are adults now, I cannot help but think of them as my ‘girls,’ and feel protective and proud of where their own paths have led them.
Maui is a magical place all on its own. But for me it is also the place where we grew up together, these girls and I, and that experience is relived as easily as the heady scent of gardenias out the window, the sight of lush, green valleys that roll down the mountainside, and the cacophony of raucous doves at dawn. I feel humbled beyond words by the honor they pay, and the warmth we share even after all these years. The experience is a reminder of the importance of being ‘present’ in our lives and open to the people around us, no matter on what island we happen to land.
And then there is this: None of us pay close enough attention to the influence teachers have well beyond the classroom – for better and for worse. The things we say and do leave indelible marks on the kids who cross our paths. They matter. We matter. We cannot know the influence we have in forming the people those children will become. But if we’re very, very lucky, they’ll invite us over for dinner and remind us.
