Returning

Going back to teach at CHS is a spooky feeling. The school has changed very little - too little, given the five years that have passed. In the mornings, going for assembly, the terraces are still lined with boys in uniform, and the band is still in the middle of the football field. The flags are still raised to the rising sun. And throughout the day, walking around the school, I see familiar faces in the teachers and the staff: people who taught me, people who have become almost as steadfast as fixtures. The canteen staff, the bookshop ladies, the administrative staff in the office. Sometimes, when I'm not careful, I slip into a simpler mindset, and it becomes like walking through memory.

And it is telling, how the times echo. Something brings things back, something causes eddies and undercurrents in the river of time. And even as time passes people still return, and some things don't change, for better or for worse. For better or for worse. But there is a particular way that the sunlight strikes the earth in school, and it is comforting to be back, if only because it is so easy to sink back into something that is familiar and thus reassuring. At any moment, looking out of a window at the beautiful campus bathed in a shade of sunlight particular to the time, I get the feeling that I have seen this before, and I have found this pleasant before. I have known this place well, I have known the people well: so well, perhaps, that my mind will fill in with nostalgia what parts of reality differ from my memory.

My students are, generally, good. I've only seen them for three days, and it's still far too early to develop a detailed impression, but what I've seen so far has been encouraging. I'm taking three classes for English Language, and they seem to be competent enough that I can sneak in some literature in spite of myself. Am going through a unit on Science Fiction now, and taking real pleasure in returning to my first love through Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. Some of the work I'm doing hasn't been changed in five years: this could be a testament to the timeless quality of the work, but no matter how good the storytelling may be this is no Shakespearan play or Brontean novel. So I'm taking some liberties in introducing some of the pieces I've come across myself. I figure that since I'm teaching, I might as well teach something I like, and this liking will make my teaching better. Or at least, that's the plan.

It's not at all what I'd expected to end up doing this gap year, but for a job it's not bad, and it promises to be rewarding in its own right. As long as I can be in contact with people, work with them and see them working, then I am in my element.

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And I say again and again, people are the key. They hold the key to yourself, and in seeking people out you know the heart of yourself better. This is a concept that I came across first in Jeanette Winterson, but only lately have I come to a deeper understanding of the concept. Been receiving a lot of communications from abroad, on the occasion of my 21st. These are the things above all that make it special, the consideration that other people give to it, turning an arbitrary day into something to remember.

And beyond this one day, the important work still remains in people. I remember the homily that I heard in Kota Kinabalu on the Sunday that I passed in the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart there: the greatest calling that we have on this Earth is to minister to one another. We remember Him and give Him glory and praise, but our compassion, our understanding and care should be directed to the people around us. God does not need us to take care of him; but we should take care of each other, and in that way allow ourselves to become examples of the infinitely greater compassion we have in Him.

Does that make sense? I have this idea in my mind about this sort of humanistic approach to the divine, and it fits nicely in my head. But I also realise that I really have no way to perceive whether this comforting, self-reassuring viewpoint is reflective of the truth, just as I find it hard to put it in words. But after all, the words on this blog are ultimately of little importance, compared to what one does in real life. Because, no matter how hard I try to maintain a presence by proxy in the lives of others, real, physical proximity is still the strongest statement of solidarity and reassurance that anyone can give to anyone else.

But for what it is worth, know that I keep many people in my thoughts, and though you may not be here, I still try to live as you remember me, and try to find a way to reconcile that with what the present calls me to do. And I still look to your return. I look to the coming summer.