My first job upon graduation from high school was at a traveling carnival that had set up shop at the local “dirt” mall.  There it was in the glory of the Sears parking lot staring at me from the comfort of the local Jack in the Box during the E. coli scare of 93.  I felt a liberation that I had no idea what to do with it.  I thought I would go to college at the local JC.  I was not in to it.

I was swimming in a sea of possibility with no plan for what lay ahead.  Most of my friends were of to college in exotic far away places like Santa Barbara, Colorado, Texas, and Northridge. I on the other hand was awakening to the glorious possibilities within.

I am a late bloomer. I look around at who I am this day & imagine what could have been if I had only known what I know now back then or some other random time period.

I love this song because of the “what-if” it offers to me and the period time it marks for me.  The carnival is over but there is always the next city, the next show, the next…whatever.  The storm clouds are gathering and raining on the parade. That same rain also feeds the strength of the ground beneath us and in time the flowers shall bloom and in due season another carnival will come.