Adventure

I remember this place.

When I was a kid, my parents would bring me here every year for my birthday.

There was food that I could hardly choke down because I was so excited to go play.

I hear myself telling them the same things, eat your food, wait for desert, don't go to crazy. But there is something different, between them and me and my cousins.

They have grown up with endless lessons on how to fear. How to be afraid of strangers, how to run away from people that talk to you. How to isolate yourself from others, and how to make sure you are never out of your parents eye sight. We would get done with food and be gone. There was no stamp to make sure that the right kids went out with the right parents. There was no cop on duty to make sure everyone was safe.

We learned that adventure is exciting. My children learn that adventure is frightening.

So instead to telling them to stay close, I tell them to run about. To do whatever they want. Then I try to not let my cultural reprogramming to take over when I have a hard time finding one or the other of them. But the only one that is ever hard to find is a. because he has that spirit. That need to wander, and explore, and search. He has adventure buried in his heart. Like all of us he was born with it, and no one has told him to not feel it.

I see a lot of myself in him. And when I see him running and jumping, playing and in general being a wild thing, all I can think is how much I miss that. So I take his hand, and we find ourselves some adventure.

File under virtue.