Roaming Towards Myself

My most influential teacher was my high school English and Religion teacher, Sister Beryl.
She was a fantastic teacher, but also a very stern, strict nun. You didn’t mess around in her class… and if you did, you paid for it.
If you mucked up, she’d grab your bag, unzip it, and empty it out the classroom window.
Safe to say, you stayed in line.
But she was also the teacher who opened up my creativity and love of writing. I still remember she’d give us something completely random, like the word “brick,” and ask us to write a 500-word fiction story about it.
I loved it. That’s where I thrived. Taking something ordinary and turning it into something meaningful felt natural, and she gave me the space to do that.
And then there was Religion. I wasn’t even Catholic, but I loved her classes. She had an anonymous question box, and at the start of each lesson she’d pull one out and answer it.
I’m pretty sure I was the main contributor.
I’d ask about exorcisms, demons, evolution… anything my curious brain wanted to explore. And she answered it all openly, without shutting it down.
She made learning feel safe, creative, and a little bit outside the box.
She believed in me so much that she once had a meeting with my parents and said I should follow in her footsteps… become a nun and teach English.
That didn’t exactly happen.
But looking back, she shaped a huge part of who I became. The creativity, the curiosity, the love of writing… that all started there.
You can see why I adored her. She was a fabulous teacher.