ANSWERING A QUESTION

What is in an answer? An answer tells us everything about how the question has been answered. It may depend on the circumstances in which one is when the question is asked. For example, take the question, “How much?”

You may be asking the price of a cabbage. You will be told the price exactly and you may decide to pay up and go or head for another grocer who may stock better quality or a cheaper price or if you are lucky, you may get both. You may still decide not to purchase the cabbage and go ahead to buy cauliflower instead. You may then ask yourself, “how much?” talking about how much time you would want to spend shopping for vegetables when you have to see to the cooking and the cleaning back home. This time may not be so exact, but you know it would not be more than a half-hour. However, you may get distracted by the shoes in a store window and then you would not have time left for grocery shopping and you would then decide to buy the first cabbage on your return and say what the hell. You go home and see the mess the kids have made and you can ask yourself the question, “How much…. more of this can I take?” as you leave the bag of groceries at the door and bend down to pick up the toy car, the colored pencil and trip on the carpet gone askew. You land on your back and see the kids grinning over you as they try to help you up and you know your question will have to wait awhile as you hug them.

Your husband returns home from work and you serve him coffee and you know how much sugar he takes but you still ask inanely, “How much?” and he looks at you and grins stupidly and you realize how much you love him and you cannot really quantify this and don’t want to even. When you watch him looking at the sexy women on T.V. while you are with sauce on your shirt and smell of the garlic in the sandwich you are making, you realize you want to sock him, how much? Lots. You bend over his shoulder and ask him how much he loves you and he switches channels absently and murmurs lots and continues to fix his eyes on the T.V. and you know just how much of a housewife you have become. So the next day you are at the tailor’s and you want him to make your dress higher and he says how much and you wonder at how much more of your skin you can show to be called sexy but not sluttish. There is a fine line drawn here, but you don’t know how much. And you say let it be and you know you will wear the dress as it is because you tell yourself that your sexiness lies in your mind. How much? Got to be all of it.

How much is not enough, more than enough, or will do- it all depends on you. If you are passionate about something, more is less. If you hate something, a little is enough. If you are indifferent, how much is immaterial. If you are a dreamer, a little goes a long way. If you are a stockbroker, too much is too much less. If you are a writer, you never answer questions like this, only write about them.