When I was probably like 8 years old, my folks took me to the state fair. Not oaks park, but the STATE fair, you know that really big fair (so it seems when you're 8) with a million different rides, all of which terrify you as greatly as they excite you. And being the baby in the family I was often encouraged to go on the "cool" rides with my big brother and Father (Mother only ever observed us from afar. She knew where her boundaries stood). So the older boys decided I needed to go on the 'Round Up.' It's that ride where you're standing up holding on to these two bars and there is nothing holding you in but a thin chain hooked across your front. As the ride gets going it starts spinning slowly at first and then faster and faster until the ride tilts and you are spinning on your side being held in by the sheer laws of motion. You can understand why my brother and Father wanted to go. You can also understand why a large part of me wanted to go eat cotton candy next to my Mother. But the boys urged me on and though I think I nearly started crying I didn't want to go so badly, once the ride was over do you know what happened? My brother and my Dad were stumbling dizzily off the ride and I was bouncing up and down screaming, "That was so AWESOME!!! Can we do it again?!?"
And even though everything is so much less complicated when you're a little girl I thought about how we're supposed to have faith like a child and how simple that actually is when we let go and choose to trust. Someone told me recently that I can't always get what I want. And in truth, that baffled me. Why not?!! Why can't I always get what I want? I'm quite charming, extremely persuassive, to quote my blonde inspiration, "sometimes Mr. Esmond finds it very hard to say no to me." And what's wrong with that; in knowing how to play any role in a given situation to your advantage to make the liklihood be getting what you want?
Sometimes what we want isn't the amazing ride at the state fair. Sometimes we're settling for cotton candy on the bench and we don't even realize it which is what makes the ride so stellar when we finally step onto it. Of course, sometimes we may be saavy enough to want the ride as we've had our fill of sugar already. But sometimes we can't persuade others to join us, like my brother and Dad could. Not everyone has the trust of a little girl, you know.
I'm going on a date tonight. It's my first date in awhile and I am reminded greatly as I anticipate the evening ahead how much I don't want to go on dates!!! They can be exhausting! Oh sure, they certainly make for great stories no matter how they go. If they're grand, you can relive every detail in giggles over cocktails. And if they're a nightmare you can relive every detail in giggles over cocktails. Once in college while recapping a date from hell I had a stranger turn around and say, "Did that really happen??! That is AWFUL!" There are awkward dates and scandalous dates and dates you actually walk out on (my personal favorite awful date moment: "I'm going to the bathroom, I'll be right back" and then I left and never returned his calls. Sometimes a woman can only tolerate so much, especially from a stranger she hasn't yet learned to love).
But I realized as I got ready for the night that lay in store, that Narcissus was a date I didn't want to go on. I was hung up on the kid I'd been dating before him and I went out on the date mostly to try and make the other kid jealous. "He'll make a nice rebound," I remember thinking. And that rebound turned into the longest, most significant relationship I'd ever had. Of course it was also full of the most heartache and manipulation but sometimes a love story has the ending of "Anna Karenina" not "Pride and Prejudice." And that's ok too. Sometimes we have to try on all the ugly things before we find that sparkly perfection that stands out in the wake of such ugliness.
I drank in the tranquility of the duck park yesterday and thought back over the loves I'd mislaid at that pond. One replaced with indifference, one with disdain and the other, simply lost. But always that park remains my favorite spot and whether walking alone or hand in hand I know I will continue to be drawn there, chapter after chapter. That ride is one I never get tired of, the one where my life circles back to that idyllic spot where I love like a child and have hope like a woman.
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