I wondered why everyone else doesn’t wonder, too.

I saw the dead squirrel in the road and I wanted to get close. But Mom hurried up and blocked me with her arm. She said something, I can’t even remember what it was, and I know she thought I was too tenderhearted to see. But she was wrong.

Actually, it didn’t matter if she was wrong or right. How could I find out what I could bear if I never got to run forward myself and take a close look? Facts, facts, facts, I need facts, if I am going to figure out this crazy world we live in.

I know what you are thinking and no, I would never ever harm an animal just to see its insides. I would not even say something mean to another person just to see how they react. I don’t do those kinds of experiments.

I just watch and watch and see what comes up. Then I collate and compare and hypothesize and theorize and that’s how I know.

Then I do it again.

In fact, I usually have five or six theories going at the same time. Did I say five or six? More like thousands, an infinite number, because every new thread that opens never ever gets closed or comes to any resolution.

That’s why I didn’t like Mom stopping me.

Of course my real Mom didn’t stop me, though she did think I was tenderhearted. Sometimes she would sing a sad song just to laugh at me when I cried.

Here is one thread I have never finished following. How could she do that? Did she delight in how tenderhearted I was? How could she possibly have seen that as a plus, given how tough her life was? Did she hope mine would be easy? Did she ever wonder at her own weirdness?

She was very weird, you know. That’s why I wonder so much. It’s all in the W.

Anyway I’m older now, but somehow I secretly suspect I haven’t gained the wisdom she gained in her first fifty years. There it is again, the W: wisdom, weird, wonder.

Why do I feel twelve years old when I think of Mom? Weird. Wonderful. Wishy-washy. Wishful thinking. Went. Went away. Why did you go away, teacher of wonder, wizard of wonder, witch of wonder, winner of wonder?

Wow.

When I sat on the roof that day, you called me down. Why? Did you not want me to see the world from above, the tops of things, normally hidden from me? Why didn’t you want me to see the insides or the tops? Did you think I was too tenderhearted to look outside anything conventional? Were you right?

Thanks, no thanks, for leaving me on my own to discover myself. Where’s my top? What’s inside me?

Whoa! What’s that? A dragonfly whizzing by, yellow and black, masquerading as a giant yellow jacket? I know what you’re heading off to eat. They won’t notice you at all, because their moms wouldn’t let them learn to look out for danger either.

How can you find out the dangers if you can’t visit the whole range of mysteries?

Image: bugguide.net

Freewritten in a creative writing workshop at Or Shalom led by the amazing Karen X. Tulchinsky.