In Junior Secondary School 1, the first year of what many school system would call middle school, before every Social Studies class, a subject that introduces students to how the society works, its culture, government, citizenship, as well as its environment, our teacher would always make us recite a poem.

It was a ritual, one that stood apart from the usual "good morning" or "good afternoon". We started saying the poem in JS1 and we said it every term for three years, through JS2 and JS3. By the time we got to Senior Secondary School, the equivalent of high school, we stopped taking the subject, so the poem no longer came, as well as the class. After that, each time I saw her around school, it remained one of the things I always remembered her by. A quiet imprint. Something about it lingering, made it feel like more than just a poem; it was a seed she planted in us, one that, at least for me, bloomed much later.

Today, 14 years later, and I am able to recite it, word for word.

It took me right back to that moment. I saw the half-tired, half-bored faces of classmates who had grown weary from repeating it daily. I felt again the tiny thrill that came when it was the 'period' (as we say here in Nigeria—meaning a stretch of about 40 minutes) just before break time, when our snacks and little bowls of jollof rice or puff-puffs waited, or maybe it was the last period of the day, when we had our long walks home ahead, talking about everything and nothing, dreaming out loud, giggling about what it would feel like to be 'a big university gyal' /gæł/ (pronounced girl, a playful way of saying "girl"), meaning a confident, grown woman who's stepped into her own, full of dreams and on the edge of a new world).

And now, in this quiet moment as I write, I hold the image of the girl who once recited the poem beside the woman reciting it now, and i realise the latter is who i want to become. The one in whom the blood of consistency has seeped all from a single poem.

The kind of woman who let the rhythm of her becoming unfold without even know it. A woman shaped and steadied by doing.

A woman who lives by a mantra that once got oiled into her hair like a prayer: "In doing, I become."

Sometimes, I catch myself reciting this poem out of the blue, mid-thought, mid-chore, mid-life, and it always stops me in my tracks. A reminder that something so simple, done over time, can settle so deeply into who we are.

In reciting a poem everyday before class,

I became the woman, 14 years later, who could still recite it without a single miss.

I became the woman who could randomly remember a class ritual and be moved to write.

I became the woman who now understand that feelings are fleeting, but doing?

Doing shapes you.

Miss N., as I'll call you,

Thank you.

May you find eternal rest in the One who has gently called you home to Himself.