I live in the land of I Don't Know.
I remember once being in a car with my older sister. It was not long after she learned to drive, and we were headed down a leafy, suburban street, a side street that was neither busy nor wide nor long. She was at the wheel, I was in the passenger seat. It was a warm, sunny day, and my window was down.
We had just entered a section of road about two blocks long that passed in front of a grade school. At the start of this section of road was a sign about the street now becoming one way, with a rather lengthy explanation, as it was one way only on school days between certain hours in the morning and then again in the afternoon and perhaps something different on alternate Tuesdays. My sister had been down this road before, but whether she had ever stopped to read and digest the information on the sign, well, probably not. I, on the other hand, often read signs and it is likely that I told my sister, as she headed down the sometimes one way street, that it may have indeed, at this moment, become one way. But paying attention to me was not high on my sister's list of things to do, so it was the car coming at us, deliberately head on, that actually caused her to slow down.
Eventually we stopped alongside this car, my open window meeting its open window. A woman stretched across the front seat to speak to us, and a glimpse of her made me collapse like a leaky water balloon. She was indignation defined.
"This is a one way street!" she said loudy and quite clearly.
My sister, who had leaned across our front seat, replied quite cheerily, "But I'm only going one way!"
For a few summers when I was 11, 12, maybe 13 or 14, my dad and I mowed the lawn together. We had an electric mower, and as I pushed it along clipping the grass, he would mind the cord, making sure I was not about to slice it in two, thus causing a commotion. He also cleared the path of sticks, stones, dog poop, and did the bag emptying, which went like this: He would flag me down; I would stop, switch off the mower, the on/off switch being near my right hand; he would unlatch the bag attached to the right side of the mower and empty it into another bag, sometimes having to dig crud out of it or off of it with a putty knife; then he would reattach the bag, give me the "all clear," and I would start her up and continue on.
But one day I was being daydreamy and impatient. As my dad chipped away at some crud I started playing with the on/off switch. On - click/whir. Off - click/quiet. On - click/whir. Off - click/quiet.
"Don't do that," my dad said.
"Why not?" I asked.
Maybe I should add we'd already been working in the hot sun for an hour or more.
"It's not good for the switch," he said.
"What do you mean? I'm just turning it on and off." Now that I think of it, on this day I was probably a lot closer to 13 than 11.
"You can only turn it on and off so many times before it breaks," my dad said.
"Really?" I asked. "How do you know?"
"It's logical. Or did you think you could turn it on and off forever and it would never break?"
I thought about that for a moment. "No," I said. "At some point it would break."
"OK. Then stop doing that."
"But the number of times it would take to break it is huge! I only flipped it on and off a few times. A few times doesn't matter."
"How many times has it been turned on and off overall?"
"I don't know."
"How many times can you turn it on and off before it breaks?"
"I don't know."
And there was my answer.
So you think you know about on/off switches, but you don't. And you think you know about one way streets, but you don't. You think you know about the weather, but how many times have you froze or burnt or gotten caught in a storm? You think you know how to lose weight, but there it is again. And maybe you think you know what someone meant by that, but do you?
You think you know about love, but you don't. And maybe you think you know about life, but I doubt it.
You think you know how to stay young, but still you grow old. You think you know how to win, but you lose. You think you've found the answer, but you're wrong. And you think you've got it made ... until it all comes undone.
You think you can never win, but of course you can. And even though you know you left your keys right there, where are they? Do you know?
I remember once being in a car with my older sister. It was not long after she learned to drive, and we were headed down a leafy, suburban street, a side street that was neither busy nor wide nor long. She was at the wheel, I was in the passenger seat. It was a warm, sunny day, and my window was down.
We had just entered a section of road about two blocks long that passed in front of a grade school. At the start of this section of road was a sign about the street now becoming one way, with a rather lengthy explanation, as it was one way only on school days between certain hours in the morning and then again in the afternoon and perhaps something different on alternate Tuesdays. My sister had been down this road before, but whether she had ever stopped to read and digest the information on the sign, well, probably not. I, on the other hand, often read signs and it is likely that I told my sister, as she headed down the sometimes one way street, that it may have indeed, at this moment, become one way. But paying attention to me was not high on my sister's list of things to do, so it was the car coming at us, deliberately head on, that actually caused her to slow down.
Eventually we stopped alongside this car, my open window meeting its open window. A woman stretched across the front seat to speak to us, and a glimpse of her made me collapse like a leaky water balloon. She was indignation defined.
"This is a one way street!" she said loudy and quite clearly.
My sister, who had leaned across our front seat, replied quite cheerily, "But I'm only going one way!"
For a few summers when I was 11, 12, maybe 13 or 14, my dad and I mowed the lawn together. We had an electric mower, and as I pushed it along clipping the grass, he would mind the cord, making sure I was not about to slice it in two, thus causing a commotion. He also cleared the path of sticks, stones, dog poop, and did the bag emptying, which went like this: He would flag me down; I would stop, switch off the mower, the on/off switch being near my right hand; he would unlatch the bag attached to the right side of the mower and empty it into another bag, sometimes having to dig crud out of it or off of it with a putty knife; then he would reattach the bag, give me the "all clear," and I would start her up and continue on.
But one day I was being daydreamy and impatient. As my dad chipped away at some crud I started playing with the on/off switch. On - click/whir. Off - click/quiet. On - click/whir. Off - click/quiet.
"Don't do that," my dad said.
"Why not?" I asked.
Maybe I should add we'd already been working in the hot sun for an hour or more.
"It's not good for the switch," he said.
"What do you mean? I'm just turning it on and off." Now that I think of it, on this day I was probably a lot closer to 13 than 11.
"You can only turn it on and off so many times before it breaks," my dad said.
"Really?" I asked. "How do you know?"
"It's logical. Or did you think you could turn it on and off forever and it would never break?"
I thought about that for a moment. "No," I said. "At some point it would break."
"OK. Then stop doing that."
"But the number of times it would take to break it is huge! I only flipped it on and off a few times. A few times doesn't matter."
"How many times has it been turned on and off overall?"
"I don't know."
"How many times can you turn it on and off before it breaks?"
"I don't know."
And there was my answer.
So you think you know about on/off switches, but you don't. And you think you know about one way streets, but you don't. You think you know about the weather, but how many times have you froze or burnt or gotten caught in a storm? You think you know how to lose weight, but there it is again. And maybe you think you know what someone meant by that, but do you?
You think you know about love, but you don't. And maybe you think you know about life, but I doubt it.
You think you know how to stay young, but still you grow old. You think you know how to win, but you lose. You think you've found the answer, but you're wrong. And you think you've got it made ... until it all comes undone.
You think you can never win, but of course you can. And even though you know you left your keys right there, where are they? Do you know?
