Beyond Candyland

Beyond Candyland

Only two days until Christmas Eve! I dashed to a nearby store to get a few last minute essentials, which coincidentally were on shelves near the aisles with toys and games. The shelves stocked with games of all sorts (board, card, memory, challenge, etc.) were quite popular with shoppers on this particular day. This was the time of year when people reached out for such games as Scrabble, Boggle, Rummy, and Operation. Games from childhood. I overheard a young couple saying they couldn’t find the Candyland game.

I thought “Wow, I know what that game looks like. My kids and grandkids played with that.” So, I entered the search, walking back and forth along the wall of games, scanning the shelves knowing I’d spot the game in a second. But, no. No Candyland game.

So, like that couple, I walked away to do other shopping. And a few minutes later, as I rounded one end aisle display, I saw a stack of Candyland games! I thought “Wow! I’ve found it. Now to find the people who want the game. “ But then I realized that I hadn’t even looked at the people. I had no idea what they looked like.

Still, I thought I could find them, as though I’d recognize them right away from some innate feeling. I wandered around the store, up and down aisles, back and forth, looking for the couple in search of a Candyland game. So intent on finding the people that I even thought about having them paged!

Then I remembered I had several things to do and I told myself it was silly of me to continue to look for these people. They didn’t even know I’d found the game. Maybe they, too, had found the big display of Candyland. I was upset with myself for not looking at the people, as I’d made myself so interested in finding the game that I had not even cared enough to see who they were. I had no image of them. They were faceless. Is this what we do in life? Get so busy with tasks at hand that we don’t really know people?

It was also a stark moment of me realizing that I’d plunged myself too far into being distracted off my mission at hand and not focusing on what I had to do. Or was it rather a case of me taking a break from reality, from always trying to cross things off my “to do” list, of not getting to know people beyond an immediate moment….of trying to live in some sort of Candyland myself?