I Know What I Know

I finally booked my flight this morning. It’s so exciting to have it become more and more real as each day goes by. People keep saying “so, India…” and I keep responding with a smile and nod, as if to say, “yes, yes, there is such a place.” It still hasn’t quite sunk in that I’ll be there in 5 weeks. 5 weeks. I’m not sure if it will even sink in until days after I’ve arrived. The older I get, the longer it seems to take for things to have a real impact.

After booking my flight, it occurred to me that India will be the 13th country I’ve been to, 14 if you include the US, but I think that’s kind of cheating. Even Canada is sort of on the fence. Still, it’s a pretty cool thing to be twenty years old and to have already seen so much of the world. I tend to forget that isn’t the norm.

I was once celebrating the departure of a group of friends who were leaving for Europe, and one of their mother’s asked if they would be able to read the flight information at the airport over there. I thought, although I’m sort of ashamed to admit it, that it was by far one of the dumbest questions I’d ever heard asked, especially coming from an adult. Not only do they have the same alphabet, and millions of American tourists, but every airport in the world, no matter how small, accommodates the English language. It’s sort of sad in a way, but certainly makes my life a bit easier, so I shouldn’t complain too greatly.

The point is that it didn’t occur to me at all that perhaps this woman had never set foot in a foreign airport, and I was ashamed of my pretentious judgment of her. The only stupid question, after all, is the one that’s never asked. I really do believe that. She just really didn’t have the answer, and it was so wrong of me to think less of her for wanting it. She just really didn’t know.

It was then that I thought of my own mother, an insanely intelligent woman, who figured out twenty-five years after the release of the popular Village People song, that people were not just throwing their hands up in the air, but were in fact, spelling out the letters Y.M.C.A. What makes it so funny, far beyond her obliviousness to what seems so painfully obvious, is to think of all the events and parties she attend during the years 1977 through 2002 where that song must have been played. Everyone at the party, lifting their hands up, perfectly forming the shapes of each letter in unison, while my mother stood in the middle, flailing her arms about like some wild animal.

What stares she must have gotten, and I’m sure that she assumed it was because she looked like she was having so much fun. I’m sure that she assumed she was the life of the party. I guess in her own, unaware way, she kind of was. That’s the kind of story I’d repeat to all of my friends. “Did you see that woman who didn’t even know she was supposed to be spelling Y.M.C.A? How funny was that?”

It was funny, that moment the song came on the radio in 2002 and my brother and I began to dance around in that cheesy sort of way. It was funny, that moment my mother said “Oh, isn’t that clever, you’re spelling out the letters.” It was funny, that moment of dead silence before my brother and I burst out laughing with a slew of “are you kidding me?” remarks. My poor mother, suddenly so enlightened and so humbled, could do nothing but laugh with us uncontrollably. It was one of my favorite family moments.

That’s the moment I think of every time that I’m inclined to judge someone. We define ourselves based on what we know to be true, and because our perception of truth is infinitely changing, our self-awareness is too. We can only live our lives the way that we believe they should be lived. We can only reside in the reality that we’ve created for ourselves. We can only know what we know, and what I know is that no matter how far I travel or how much I learn, my life will always be filled with those wonderful moments of uncontrollable laughter. I know that I wouldn’t have it any other way.