Teacher

I have always bent toward being a teacher. Perhaps sometimes too much, I have always wanted to teach others. Not all that teaching has been welcome, and I have gradually learned when not to teach. Now that I am in my elder years, I am much more casual and subtle in my teaching. More than anything, I have learned that I can be an inviter and less of a shower. I invite people into an experience, and they can do their own teaching to themselves.

I don’t tell others as much I once did. I more often show them. One way I do this is my my casual openness. I invite others to experience openness by my relaxed, focused openness to them. It can be as simple as nodding or speaking to someone I am passing in a passage way. I can be the way I talk to the checkout person at the store. I invite others into a bubble of openness, and they can experience what it feels like. If they want to.

This is a key part of my falling in love multiple times a day. My falling in love is simply my being open to another person or thing. For me it is a loving invitation for them to reciprocate, to fall in love as well. It can be quite vulnerable, it can be awkward, it can be off-putting. It can also be an experience of what vulnerability and openness feels like.

That is a risk I am more and more willing to take. It is what it means for me to be a teacher. Others are invited to experience what I experience. Being an elder is my last chance to be a master of loving, a master teacher. I want to make the most of my being a teacher.