Have you ever questioned the defined? If everything is defined, and we have these words like certain and definitely, why are we always questioning? Is it a mere tease to taunt us into thinking we are all invincible minds and that we are all geniuses in our own ways, or is it a way to make us skip the questions, a way to close all the intersections into one way streets? Have you ever wondered why or who would do this to a nation that has so many questions? Is it for a reason, or is this a punishment? As I am taken to a place that gives me nothing to do but think, I start to wonder, these questions that may seem random to a peer but if you knew me, you’d know nothing is random. It is all constructive thinking in my head, set with many steps and turns, but I am one of those people that doesn’t say anything in the open until I am certain of how it will sound. I think all the steps through in my head, and the only thing that I let anyone else in on is my final product, usually a question that is untraceable and leaves people thinking ‘what made her ask that?’ But what happens when you have a question that just won’t create a polish? Do we ask the unfinished question and let the observer finish it up? Or do we keep it locked in our minds, sometimes just to let other thoughts and interests fill in the gaps? Are we complex enough to recollect these questions and dust the neglected time off of them, and start back where we left off? Sadly, I think not.



I remember one cold morning, our family was out on another trip, which I can’t recollect perfectly, but I do remember one thing very precisely. They stopped the red Subaru, and we all go out, and aligned ourselves next to my mother, our heads molding with her hips, every walk sent me up, or Sophie down, and we walked a few hundred feet. I could see above in the distance fences, and a big bridge. I could hear rushing water, pouring, pounding, and thrashing downward, but I couldn’t see any. We finally got to the fences, and my dad put me on his shoulders, and my neck craned upward, till I saw what I learned is now the unquestionable; water. It was a huge river, bigger than anything I’d ever seen in real life, but this was not a peaceful lake; this was a site that I still have dreams about every once in awhile. As the thrashing river moved along, instead of just flowing, there was a huge, huge gap in the middle of it. Almost like a portal, water poured into it, 100’s of feet down, where was it all going? What was going on? For some reason a chill swept over my entire body and I shivered. I looked at my mother, who was resting her head on the fence, watching the water as if she was listening to a poem. But this site didn’t have any words to me, and I remember what I felt at that moment. I felt like my whole world was out of proportion, I had a never seen a river that would treat its water so awfully, dropping it into the abyss. If water was sacred and dear, why was nature its abuser? My dad, being his own comedian, hoisted me up to get the best seat in the whole house, then he made a dropping motion, maybe to him it was a joke, but that is when I was breath taken. Why would he do that? I looked at him and said “Daddy! Don’t do that, do you have any idea where that goes? That was scary, don’t do that again”. He looked confused and said “Honey, don’t worry I’ll always catch you and don’t worry you wouldn’t have fallen.” That wasn’t the answer I wanted, I preserved this question “Daddy, if you had dropped me, where would I have fallen and if you couldn’t catch me what would happen to me?” This really struck him, hard. He just stood there for a second, and then he looked down at his watch and muttered some words to my mother, who announced to the family that it was time to go. We got in the car, and as everyone sang to a tape my mother had bought, I sat, looking out the window. It felt as if I was clinging on to the car door. As my parents pulled me off, I looked behind me at the dizzying sight wishing I could mentally draw everyone back to that moment. I wanted my answer, I hadn’t gotten it, and to this day, I can’t figure out why. Was it my mind that my parents were protecting, or was it theirs? Now I can’t recall whatever question was on my mind that morning. Time and misunderstanding have gotten in the way, now it is always going to be a step away from my reach. To this day I still ponder over this, and when I see children ushered away from these questions, my thoughts return to this day, perfectly organized and perfectly disoriented.



In our life we all have personal experiences, but sometimes it feels like everyone is living the same life. We have so many environments, so many personalities and still we can somehow relate to each others’ experiences. It amazes me to think of all the things that could, and do happen to us everyday, and how we, so diverse in every way, can still relate. But, at what point can we not share these experiences? I feel that very young children are barriers to each other, they don’t share their experiences with each other and I think in a way that traps all those questions in their brains, and when they do start talking about constructive things, they can’t remember all those pondering and wandering questions that they had before when it really mattered to them. When the little girl with curly blond hair, and big blue eyes looks up to you, not because of height, but for hope, you realize maybe when they ask ‘why’ it’s a plead, not a question, but a call for mental help. How is it that we get scared or annoyed, and try to avoid these inevitable questions that our children ask? Maybe it’s because we can’t tell them the answer, or maybe it’s because we don’t want to help. At what point does the child’s innocence cross to ignorance? Are we, the parents, the big sisters, and the mentors drawing our own lines, making our children so confused about the things that might really matter to them, even if we don’t understand what they are thinking in their tiny heads?


I think that we are becoming more and more oblivious to our youth’s pleads. When I see the blond girl asking these questions, praying silently for answers that she can use, I feel so hopeless, because I too can’t answer these questions, they have been In my head waiting for someone to come and clean off the dust and clean out the clogged pores for so long, that they too have become antiques, ones that are worthless and senseless. If only my parents, and their parents could of really given these simple explanations to why daddy was yelling at the professional looking man on the TV, or why moms hands were shaking as she dropped the plain looking envelope into the mail box on April 15th morning, or how the stories that mom would tell us at dinner of the tortured children in the shelter could be true, or why the bunny wasn’t in her cage anymore, maybe, just maybe we could define things. Maybe for once, all those words in our dictionary could finally bring meaning and closure to us, instead of bewilderment. It is hard to turn down the wondering eye, but it is even harder to focus the wandering mind.