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If You Don’t Like Change — You’re on the Wrong Planet
The quote in the post’s title is that of the great Ricochet pontificator – The Archdork Trink. Moi.
Chopping away at the green mat of chickweed under the Norway Spruce yesterday – my trowel clicked and nudged at the smallish, stubborn rocks that the glaciers left behind when they receded ten thousand years ago. That’s just a blink of time in the vast changing geological record of this old planet.
Ten thousand years ago, we were under one mile of ice. Four months ago, it was winter — now it’s Spring. Change.
Life is change. You already knew that, I know, but I’ve only recently — truly — accepted it. From the profound: Bill O’Reilly getting canned (kidding about the profundity), to the prosaic: noticing another gray hair.
It’s no lighthearted notion that wisdom comes with age. Tell you what: turning 70 dispels any myths about out-pacing time’s swift chariot. Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen.
Changes such as: Favorite stores closing, losing friendships over politics, some of the daffodils didn’t come up this year, the view from our cemetery plots has deteriorated, my pants are tight, NASA hasn’t put a man into space in 2,092 days — this is the longest gap in human launches from US soil. I was a girl during those glory days of Shepard and Glenn.
Changes used to rile me a lot more than they do now. So, when a co-conversationalist starts to mourn a middlin’ sort of change that’s disrupted their comfort level with the loss of some sense of the “status quo” — I patiently shake my head, point to Spring’s ephemeral momentum, its moment-to-moment changes — and remind them: If you don’t like change — you’re on the wrong planet.
Now, back to the chickweed, whose seeds, I just learned, may lie dormant for 40 years!
Published in Group Writing
Yes, it definitely has to do with comfort. I’d never thought of it that way.
Since no one else tackled this: Yes, as a matter of fact it does, and I don’t say that just because I have the better part of two acres to mow in the summer.
Because: Plants get energy during the daylight, but they can ‘spend’ it by growing whenever (photosynthesis vs. metabolism). Grass may grow more slowly during the night, since temperature is lower, but with warm nights, yeah, it’s getting ahead on you while you sleep.
The things you learn on Ricochet! Thanks!