School lunchtime. Anyone remember that? At a signal, scores of children spill out of classrooms into the hallway to storm the lunchroom. But what’s this? At the cafeteria entrance, one girl is coaxed out of line and told to wait outside. But she’ll miss her lunch, she points out. She’s not to get any, she is informed. Continue reading
We say birds are free because they can do what we cannot, fly. We put them in cages where we can watch, but they cannot fly. Trapped, they die, dusty, crusty, shabby, lonely, and — what we’ll never know — heartbroken. Our bodies suffer a similar fate. Continue reading
We don’t cross the street when someone tells us to. We look for ourselves before crossing. While some may see this as egotistic, it has ensured the survival of humankind during its early and most arduous millennia. Some would have us believe such selfish acquisition of personal knowledge is no longer necessary. Continue reading
“Normal doesn’t exist.”
I glanced at my girlfriend, who was staring defiantly at me, as if aware that she had just shattered my fondest illusion. She was well into her sixties, as was I, and a professional. I assumed she would have learned about “normal” earlier in life. Continue reading
Maybe it was because the sauna had opened late that day. The sauna attendant could have been a little tense, irritable, not himself. Or perhaps it just took too long to explain the rules of the sauna, especially to someone so blithe about violating them. Continue reading
A neighborhood stroll turns into a laborious attempt to help a homeless woman find shelter. And my efforts yielded real knowledge: She wasn’t homeless, and I wasn’t really helping. Continue reading