the world is a beautiful and mysterious place

A Hundred Years from Now

by David Shumate

I'm sorry I won't be around a hundred years from now. I'd like to

see how it all turns out. What language most of you are speaking.

What country is swaggering across the globe. I'm curious to know

if your medicines cure what ails us now. And how intelligent your

children are as they parachute down through the womb. Have

you invented new vegetables? Have you trained spiders to do your

bidding? Have baseball and opera merged into one melodic sport?

A hundred years....My grandfather lived almost that long. The

doctor who came to the farmhouse to deliver him arrived in a

horse-drawn carriage. Do you still have horses?

The world is a beautiful and mysterious place

will I still think this way a hundred years from now? a hundred days from now? after the magic of college is actually behind me and days and moods are less dependent on the quality of discussions I had in my classes and the lunch partner of that particular afternoon and who I happen to run into - who happens to run into me - all happy and bright, Maaaaadison?! I haven't seen you in forever!

Will I still think this way, mid-career, when I'll probably want to be having a mid-career crisis and feel panic, realizing that I'm realizing my desire to go back to school for something? On those days I will feel stuck, or stagnant, or too consumed with pesky details I have never liked?

Will I still feel this way when my baby gets sick and I realize I never learned how to take care of sick babies, or when that baby starts asking questions about where babies come from or about math (dear God please let me marry a math-science-technology genius who will be patient with me) or when that baby officially declares the end of her babyhood, ignores my curfew and phone calls? Or takes too many selfies? Or is a he?

Not certain. But today, the world is a beautiful and mysterious place. And today, the world was also a beautiful and mysterious place - of these things I am certain. 

There are: horses and beauty and mystery and happiness in the world today.

The world is a beautiful and mysterious place today.