Life, Like a Cake Walk
The first time I learned about cake walks, I was in kindergarten at Murray J. Huss School in Three Rivers, Michigan. The cake walk at our annual school carnival was held in the big kindergarten room, which conveniently had a lot of space, about the size of a small gymnasium, and a big circle already painted on the varnished floor. I went to the cake walk every year. Each year I was further removed from kindergarten, a little taller, a little smarter, but returning to the big room where my life outside my home began and to the familiar smell of floor wax was a return to the past I clung to. I don’t recall ever winning a cake.
A cake walk is a little like our life walk, isn’t it? The music plays and we move forward, hopeful, unafraid. When the music suddenly stops, we pause, hope to land in a good spot, glance around anxiously. Sometimes we’re happy, other times we’re disappointed. We laugh, wish others well, and wait for the music so we can walk forward again. Sometimes we walk away with cake. Sometimes not.