April 5, 2020

Merry-Go-Round: Price of Admission

I feel like I'm cheating. If something is too easy,
I must not be doing it right. I must be missing
something. There is no easy button, I think. No
easy buttons and no unicorns. And no free rides
on the unicorn at the county fair either.
So I am wary of ease, wary of comfort, wary
of the idea that I might have it figured out.
The thing is, there's really just one thing I know:
that I don't know what I don't know. I don't
know if there are easy buttons or unicorns.
       
I don't know if I will see my children grow
up, graduate from high school and college,
marry, and have kids of their own, named
William or Charlotte or Jane, or whether one
of them will love the giant stuffed unicorn
Grandpa wins for them at the county fair,
playing two dozen games of skee ball, while
the rest of the family makes the rounds on the
rides and through the live farm animal exhibits.
He wins that unicorn fair and square, no cheating.
  
I don't know any of this. I don't know whether I
or they or he or we will live to see that day. And
that's hard, the not knowing. So I guess I'm not
cheating after all, because I know I don't know
any of this. But now I can enjoy my turn on the ride.