Have You Been to St. Ives?

Remember the old rhyme/riddle about St. Ives?  "As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives.  Every wife had seven sacks; every sack had seven cats, every cat had seven kits.  Kits, cats, Saxon wives sacks, and wives, how many were going to St. Ives?"

We were asked this in a class in elementary school.  So, I did the math.  (One of the few instances, in fact, where "doing the math" involves actual calculations.  You know, like, "So, I'm working in the restaurant, and Joey comes in with Anna Maria, and he pulls out a box, and he gets down on one knee, and she starts crying and nodding yes - well, you do the math" - see, no math involved)

And when I said that there were 2800 going to St. Ives, 2802 if you count your self and the man (because the riddle leaves out the man and the person speaking), I was told that I was wrong.  Because, you see, I was going to St. Ives, and I MET the others as I PASSED them on the road as they were coming BACK from St. Ives.  And I looked at the teacher, and argued about it.  Because that's who I was.  I have always questioned authority.  Now frankly, if I was carrying 7 sacks with 49 cats and 343 kits, as were the other 6 women I was with, we would have been walking slower than one person who was not as encumbered.  Logically, they could have passed us, walking in the same direction, because they were quicker than we were, and they could have met us as they passed us.  Or at a bistro (or rest stop).  The teacher was not pleased with my argument.  I think I saw my first adult facepalm.  The discussion, as I recall, was cut short .  Maybe I just shut down because I was told I was wrong, when, in fact, I was merely thinking outside the box and not giving the expected answer. 

Don't we do that a lot?  We're no longer encouraged to think for ourselves, rather to spew back "expected" answers.  Not just in education situations, but in the workplace, in political dealings, in personal relationships.  We're expected to fit into neat little boxes, where we can stay as long as we like, as long as we please the one who puts the box parameters in place.  It's when we begin to question, when we begin to seek alternatives, when we begin to question the status quo, that we are shamed, as that teacher tried to shame me, into leaving the box.  And that may not be a bad thing. 

It's messy outside the box.  Sometimes a little scary, too.  Outside, though, is where we are best able to find our own parameters, where we can test our ideas and see which work and which don't.  Where we encounter those who, like us, question "expected" answers.  I am thankful for people who have thought outside the box before me, and hope that I still have enough rebel in me to question things that make no sense - or, that make sense in more than one way.  Because, as my husband frequently tells our my felines, there's more than one way to skin a cat.  Let us always look for the unexpected.