After Costa Rica

When we headed south along the western coast of Costa Rica, I headed homeward in my psyche. I got up Monday morning to write business letters, to complete my faculty evaluation of the journey, to write to my tax attorney. You get the gist here, all business of the homeward bound type.

There are wonderful people on this ship, but I don't know who will come forward with me into life and who will be a good memory and who will fade from memory. And this is not just about whom I would choose as companions; it's about where they live and what they do for a living and the kinds of things that decide whether our paths will cross again.

I heard yesterday of a young couple who went to the jeweler to have their wedding rings made and asked for a wave-pattern. The jeweler, not surprisingly, thought it an odd choice for a wedding ring and inquired as to its significance. Yes, you guessed it; they met on Semester at Sea. Among the students are some of the most privileged, self-assured, and over-confident of their value young people I have ever met. But I have also had the most beautiful, adventurous, caring, energetic and creative students, and their light is so full of light that it is hard to see anything else when you share space with them. And maybe that says something about being a human life, that the potential for light is much more important than highly rewarded mediocrity.

I have not had in my many years of teaching the sense of really turning over the world to a new generation as I have on this voyage. Maybe it is that I am older now, maybe it is that they are different from 'us,' my generation. (This experience gives me an understanding that the generation up from me sees mine as different, too.) Many of these students have been extremely well cared for, probably unlike any other generation before them, and it shows, though they are not at all aware of it. And this probably sets them up for some rough and tumble loss of innocence experiences. But I like these young people, and I might even trust them with the world if I had a choice!