School Days

Driving on a pleasant fall afternoon, I saw numbers of kids on their way home from school. They seemed light, carefree, at ease.

I remembered my sense of stepping into the outside freedom from school and regimen. It felt good! So much was possible in the open.

But I now realized an important difference for my afternoons then and now. When I was young, my grasp of the world around me was limited. In particular, I had not realized the extent and depth that a sad corruption governed so much, so visible and discouraging. So often one turns to see it again.

When I was young, I had not grasped so much constriction.