Thursday, January 12, 2012

I Live With Children

People (maybe even you) are curious.
I am presently sitting in my room overhearing my roommates talk. It is one of my number one favorite activities that I use to avoid home-working.
They are a source of constant entertainment to me.



Tonight, they are talking about big cities, which is a favorite topic for them. Neither of them had ever left the state of Nebraska until last October. The largest city in Nebraska has a population of 408,958. Their naivete is unceasingly amazing, wonderful and comical to me.

Also, I am pretty sure I scare the hell out of them.

They are telling one another facts about New York (particularly interest in the Bronx) and LA. I have surmised that these are the cities that make up the dream landscapes of Midwestern children. The one just told the other that most of the gangs are in the Bronx (What? Most of the gangs in the world?).

As I listen to them, I feel like a hardened old woman. I first went to New York when I was 19, and to LA when I was 14. Hollywood happened when I was 15, and I left the country for the first time when I was 12, but it didn't seem unusual. My first plane ride was at 11. First concert: 17.

I was a child! They still have yet to do any (except the one who flew for the first time last year) of these activities (they are both 22 years old). I consistently feel like worldly individual whenever I talk to them. I knew Jewish people and black folks! They wonder about them vocally and frequently. One of them had also never met a vegetarian before she met me. I think I dazzle them with having a passport (WITH STAMPS IN IT!!), and tales of a high school graduating class of 1000+ students. That is a population larger than both their hometowns combined and then doubled.

They had no idea what they were getting when they let me move in.

It's good to be reminded of the power of wonderment. 

I wonder what they think of me...

1 comment:

Miss K$ said...

I think this post. I think its really interesting how different everyone is. How unfamiliar someone can seem when they have experienced things. How undesired experiencing different things might be to someone else. Or perhaps, how unttainable any other life style might be from the one we are living in now.... I wonder what I have not attained. I wonder what things I haven't experienced that are not too far above my reach, but seem inivisible to me. LOVES.