A slightly breezy
June morning, the sun trying to find its way around and through the light cloud
cover, the trees dancing in time to the music in the wind – everything is green
again and it seems like maybe we’re safe to say it will soon be summer. The evenings are still cool but the
mid-day sun is packing a punch of refreshing warmth that will later intensify
to the point where we may dare to call it too hot, but after the winter we
experienced, we’ll take our chances.
And so it’s June, school here is almost done for another year and I’ve
been gone from here too long, busy with changes again.
Or maybe
still. The changes this time
around are many and at times have overlapped to the point where we’ve been
forced to just accept life is lived inside a construction site some times, and
I’m grateful that no one has plotted a mutiny, not that anyone could blame them
– but still, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve been spared this long only because
they need me around to finish the job…
Change for the sake
of change is what this appears to those on the outside, enlarging the kitchen
by way of relocating the stairs and walls that originally kept this house a
series of distinct rooms, each with a singular purpose, connected yet still
apart. A few weeks of coordinated
demolition took care of that, and after careful reconstruction we have the
bones of a unified space that flows between areas, allowing light and air to
circulate and for us to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. I was looking at old pictures of the house
from when we bought it 19 years ago, and save for 3 original doorway locations,
it doesn’t resemble it’s former self in any respect. By the time I finish this project, there will not be any
space we haven’t touched, altered, refined or relocated.
I’m reminded of
that philosophical question all first-year students are asked to consider: if
you take your brand-new car and replace it piece by piece with new and
identical parts – at what point does it cease to be the same car? Or does it remain the same
regardless? From the street, from
the aerial view, and from almost every vantage point inside this building, it
is not the same house it was before it became ours. But yet it is and always will be. Gradual changes do not
seem to reduce the nature of things, though we know on some level that things
are not what they were, not different, not the same.
And so it is with
us – like the car in that philosophy question, physically we have undergone
many complete changes of the basic building blocks of human existence as our
cells die and get replaced, yet we are still who we were, just older perhaps,
age and growth of course alter appearances, but the underlying you-ness
remains. Mentally though I’m not
sure the comparison remains valid, as this seems to be the area in which we can
more easily measure larger changes over time, and where it seems more likely
you could argue that we do not remain that which we were. We age and we grow, but we’re still
us. Same, but different.
And so it is with
the house, to those of us who see the changes day by day and who will
experience the results of those changes for years to come, that this round of
changes is not just for the sake of change but has been planned and designed to
increase our enjoyment and efficiency of our time here, mindful of what we had
and what we endured along the way inside these walls, all the while maintaining
the history of the structure in balance with the new additions.
Bigger, more useful
spaces offset by reductions in areas that create more intimate spaces. Growth and alterations that remove
signs of age yet will, in time, show their age. Postponing the inevitable perhaps. Different, but same.
Like Spring now
turning into Summer, life is all about changes. Many small, gradual ones that over time amount to something
bigger and more noticeable, like the bare trees, which are now green. The petals from the blossoms have
fallen, about to be replaced with fruit; the flowers busy bursting with color
and texture. The grass grows high
and we mow it down to size to keep it manageable. Exams are being written, and soon the school doors will be
thrown open and the kids will be free for a few months to forget what they
learned over the previous ten, until they return in the Fall.
It’s June. And we’re talking changes. Constant, natural, evident ones in the
trees and flowers on the outside, and for some of us deliberate, planned, and
sometimes less obvious ones on the inside. Both types move us forward closer to our goals, further to
the ultimate design and when the dust settles long enough for us to see things
clearly, it’s obvious that we are all really just carpenters in this lifetime, each
of us building lives as we go. Hopefully we finish the job before our deadline.
