Oh Me, Oh Life

Marion is so depressing to me, and it's not just about me.

Sure, part of it is about me. I had hoped to raise my kids in an environment saturated by culture and what I consider enlightenment. But this is not what is on my mind tonight.

I jogged at a nearby park yesterday while my youngest rode bikes. Then they played on some really nice new park equipment while I watched. The place was teeming with kids.

My kids ran into some other kids they knew. I knew them too. They don't have much, live in a trailer. I think the father might be a migrant. I'm not sure if he lives in the trailer with them or in a hotel room. They're not married.

They're people like we're people. I don't deserve to have a better life than they do... maybe I don't and I'm just deceiving myself. Maybe they're quite happy. I told myself that children don't need much to be happy.

But I was sad for them.

... sad like another day when I was at Wal-Mart, the main meeting place of Marion. A boy was crying with great sadness over a toy he wanted, must have been four or five. I couldn't hear exactly the nature of the dialog with his mother, but it didn't seem like he would get the toy. I pictured a mother who would have liked to get him the toy, but simply couldn't afford it.

Today my youngest and I passed some apartment buildings on our way home from somewhere. "Do people live there?" Sophie said.

"Yes," I responded and went on to tell her how blessed we were to have such a big house. There might be two bed rooms and a little living area off a kitchen in those apartments.

The people of Marion are people, like we're all people. What especially makes me sad is my suspicion that they're not too much different from most of the people of the world. Perhaps many of them have some vague notion of God, but it probably isn't real clear to them what that belief has to do with their lives.

The things that I find rich in life are irrelevant to them. Half of them are seriously overweight. Their life is just "bread and circuses," as Juvenal once described the life of the average Roman.

Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. All flesh is but a mist that disappears from the ground.