The days are long here.
In no way am I complaining about this. I wake up sometime around seven or eight, dress quickly, wake the boys in the cabin next to us, walk through the woods to the lake, walk around the lake to breakfast, head back for my first lesson with the mom of one of my campers. After an hour I prepare my next lesson. (Yesterday I had extra time, so I painted my nails. Humanity restored.) When the campers return from the beach we have two hours of lessons about American things, like NASA or apple pie. They learn to say 'Boo, Yankees suck!' I learn that more miles of highway were destroyed by Mt. St. Helens than there are miles of highway in Poland. We go to lunch. They have activities. I plan the next day's lesson, sitting by the lake. There is one table in the corner of the hotel patio that I like. (Though I no longer think of it as walking to the hotel. I think of it as walking to the internet.) I never order anything, but no one cares. We meet for supper, then we have a game. They like Mafia, and they got the hang of Fishbowl. Somehow Skribblish turned into an all out Yankees vs. Phillies war. I have another adult student from 9 to 10. By eleven I am unconscious.
Between 10 and 11 the girl's cabin is silent. (The boys are up all night, as far as I can tell. It's exactly like the dorms at TMC, almost laughably so.) Silently we shuffle in and out of the only bathroom to brush our teeth, take a shower, change into pajamas. The lights are out in forty minutes. Everyone is sleeping. In those quiet moments, when everything slows (my mental processes, primarily), in the dark as I fade to sleep, I realize all over againthat this adventure is, ultimately, directed to vocation. I exhaust what's left of my energy trying to untangle the knot that is my life's calling. I am asleep before I have an answer. Maybe I dream it in the night.
Like most kids, when I was an itty bitty baby person, I wanted to be everything. I especially wanted to be Indiana Jones, who could do anything. As I got older, the idea fixed itself in my mind that I could only be one thing. We have one calling, and the rest is filler and fodder for the meantime. None of that for me, no meantime, no waiting. I would cut right to the chase.
Since I could read and write my name, one very loud voice has repeated over and over again that I should teach. I have resisted. Once, I was told I should never teach. I wasn't happy about that, either. Mostly, all I've wanted to do is write, travel, and host fantastic dinner parties. During these travels, when my hosts have asked what I want to do, I tell them host dinner parties. They laugh, then ask what I study.
Philosophy. Literature. History. Theology. Aristotle.
What, they ask, can I do with that? One even happily announced, Oh, you will teach, then.
Well, I told her, I want to write.
It is fascinating to watch the look break on her face, the calm reserve with which one explains No, Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. She patiently mentions that I will have to make money somehow. I don't point out that we have talked at great length about how teachers make almost no money at all.
When I arrived here on Friday, my only class consisted of an interview, in which the students asked me questions and I asked a few back. I asked them, If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be? This question fascinated my host. Later, she asked what kind of fruit she was; we decided guava, because it's exotic but not overpowering, and very content to be guava. Her daughter, we determined, is a dorian, because they're pleasant looking but spikey and the peels are tough to break, but they're sweet, once you put the work in.
She laughs for a moment, then says, That's it. You have described her exactly. You should be a writer.
She found me out, I guess. I've been exposed. I'm here teaching English, and believe me, I care about teaching these kids. Not, however, because I care about teaching, or English, but because I care about these kids. They are funny, intelligent, good natured; they're sarcastic, competitive, and challenging. They're the kind of people I could write about forever. They're the kind of people I have written about and it's a dream come true to meet them.
I have spent this entire post talking about me for a reason. I have been thinking about my vocation. But if I really want to determine my vocation, I should be thinking about them.
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