Unimaginable

A friend told me she saw an American movie and the lakes were frozen so thick people could walk on them. She wanted to know if that really happened. I said sure, my uncle used to take us ice sailing (that picture isn't mine; our sailboat was actually a sled with a tarp stretched across a wooden frame). I've also been asked if people really dress up on Halloween and get candy like in the movies, and if people have lawns that they mow, and if everyone hangs American flags up outside their houses. Europeans are often much better-traveled than we are, but it is still incredibly difficult to imagine how other people live. You would never imagine, say, that all the buttercups in the field bow after it rains, or that goats will do anything to get to the longer grass, or that hundreds of people will gather on May Day in front of a former casino to plan a strike. Even the most vivid imagination would be hard-pressed to create all these details. They'd also find it hard to believe how much it rains. Stay mold-free, my friends.