I have recently found myself contemplating the temporary friendships we forge, as we go about our individual ways we are inevitably thrown into the lives of those around us.  This musing is prompted particularly with respect to planes; proximity forces us to bypass the traditional British “see nothing, hear nothing, maintain silence”.  When my kitten died two months ago I cried for much of my flight to London that day, and only when I was ready to talk about it the lady next to me confessed she’d been wondering, but would never ask.

Today it is so easy to just have a small insight into what an old colleague or schoolfriend is up to – via the blessed curse of social media – and you feel connected in some way.  You would like to think you would have an idea of the reason for their tears or joy if you bumped into them.  A brief acquaintance, albeit a forced closeness (sharing an armrest, toilet queues, frustrating fellow fliers) starts slowly from the single fact that this stranger wants to travel the same a to b, and ends abruptly on landing.  There may be a silent smile goodbye in the passport queue, but that’s it.  Gone to continue the route they traverse in this world.

I occasionally think about people I’ve met in the past and where their path led.  My seating companion on a flight back to the Canaries just before New Year wrote the name of one of my favourite books on the back inner cover of her novel, with the intention of reading it as soon as she could: I wonder if she will, and if she in turn will think of me.  I would like to think that it becomes an important book to her; a novel of friendship and love that can be sustained across decades and different countries, when you know that you could just walk back into someone’s life and nothing will have changed between you.  Perhaps she will suggest it to someone else in turn.  It is a strange thing to touch someone’s path and not ever know of the outcome.

Which connects to my new sailing life; if I succeed in this little mission I’ve set myself, within two months I should be eligible to teach.  I remember all the instructors I’ve had since I first came into this world in 2009 – albeit just for fun back then, who knew that it could become such a big part of my life now, some of those same instructors I can call close friends – and I’m sure we each have some memory or another of all of our school teachers once we’re of a certain age.  For me anyway, these are mostly positive; moments when something has finally come clear, or when they have gone out of their way to explain or make a tough lesson an interesting one.  My teachers from college particularly, that point when you’re about to go off into the world, with just enough knowledge behind you, but very little actual experience and an almost absolute guarantee that you will make mistakes.

And I think that’s it, I’ll be trying to empower people enough to make sure that their mistakes will be few and fairly harmless, whilst the same ladder connects me to those who have got me this far: perhaps they too think of me occasionally, and wonder.