Surprise! by Jamie Kirkpatrick

Who doesn’t like surprises? Well, pleasant surprises, anyway. As a noun, a surprise is just something unexpected or astonishing, like a crocodile in the swimming pool. As a verb, surprise might cause someone to feel mild astonishment or shock, as in “I was surprised there was a crocodile in the swimming pool.” Don’t worry; I survived to tell this tale…

One of the most wonderful elements of life on the Eastern Shore is that it’s full of surprises. For example, we’ve had several consecutive days of sweltering weather, then—surprise!—all of a sudden, a cool front reared its welcome head, and life as we knew it could resume on the porch just in time for a gathering of friends on the First Friday of August. That was a very sweet surprise indeed, all the more so because it came just in time to make our monthly party a more comfortable and fun event. 

Sometimes, I am beyond surprised; I’m flabbergasted. For example, I like to think my vocabulary is pretty extensive, but then I encounter a new word and I’m surprised, amazed, flabbergasted. This week’s new word was “bildungsroman.” (Raise your hand if you know it.) A bildungsroman is a novel dealing with a person’s formative years or spiritual awakening—a coming of age story. Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations” is a classic example of a bildungsroman. In it, an orphan boy named Pip navigates the complexities of social class and personal growth in 19th Century England. A hundred years later, J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” introduced my generation to another poster boy for bildungsroman: Holden Caulfield. Holden’s coming of age story had just enough sensationalism thrown in to keep us awake in English class: every copy of the book I ever saw fell open to the page when Holden encounters the prostitute. That nothing happens is almost superfluous; the word “prostitute” was enough to make each of us fantasize about our own personal bildungsroman.

I have come to the conclusion that there is no proscribed schedule for an individual’s bildungsroman. We tend to think of that time of life as roughly equivalent to adolescence, but experience has taught me otherwise. One can come of age at almost anytime. Sooner is probably better than later, but later is better than never. I have known a few people who have never come of age and they strike me as somewhat lost at sea. 

We know that coming of age can be painful, but it’s as much a part of the cycle of life as birth and death. I’ve mulled over my own bildungsroman countless times, and have come to another conclusion: that my own coming of age began sometime in my mid-forties when I signed on to be a college counselor, teacher, and coach at an all-boys school in the Washington suburbs. It was a demanding crucible at times, but when I retired after twenty-two years of coming of age, I felt I was on the other side of my life. The better side.

But here’s the rub: having finally come of age, I’m now much more painfully aware of the gallop of time. I wish there were more of it. Having lived through my own bildungsroman, I feel I deserve a few more years of relative wisdom. But surprise! There’s a crocodile in the pool, and just like the one in “Peter Pan”—the bildungsroman of a boy who never came of age—this crocodile has swallowed a clock. Tick, tock…..

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay. His editorials and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His most recent novel, “The Tales of Bismuth; Dispatches from Palestine, 1945-1948” explores the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is available on Amazon and in local bookstores. His newest novel, “The People Game,” hits the market in February, 2026. His website is musingjamie.net.