It was a fifties family trip, and we had stopped for ice cream.
I was only three, so to choose a flavor wasn’t easy.
I went back and forth, one and then the other.
Finally I picked,
and was handed a delicious treat.
It wasn’t what I wanted!
Dismayed by this great injustice, chocolate having staged a coup
unseating dear vanilla and sitting smugly on the cone,
I threw it on the ground.
Hustled in the backseat by embarrassed parents,
I sobbed out my unmet desire.
Choice is curse and blessing.
What is it that I know I truly want?
Who do I want to be?
With whom do I want to spend my life?
What purpose do I want to animate my days?
Asked that way, there are far too many choices,
a multitude of flavors I have trouble even understanding.
Better to remember I’m already on a path
that I decided I would follow long ago,
or, even more, that chose me
back before I first drew breath.
I want the gain but not the loss,
the excitement, not the boredom,
the joy but not the shame,
bliss without the bitterness,
connections, not the separations,
but life doesn’t offer ice cream
free of fat and sticky fingers.
So, don’t ask me what I want;
Ask instead if today I have
sufficient light to see my path
and sense enough to follow it.
Life Assays 