CHANGE

That’s the thing. It’s swings everywhere all at once when the sun is on the ground. Every damn green thing on the move, getting bigger, taller, more surprising. Plus, millions and millions of years in the past, when those cells got a wild hair up their bum, or the bacteria had dreams of yonder, or whatever the hell made us what we are today. Every time we breathe, every time we have a kid, nothing but growth and change happen until it stops. Stops for you, old Lou, très sad, but the beat goes on. Who would expect a hairy, crawly, wormy thing to change into a winged gossamer number worthy of the fevered mind of Leonardo? Still, we take all this for granted. Seasons pass, creating enormous panoramas of ho-hum, wacky, fabulous, and terrifying spin-the-bottle days. The weather gives us flip-flops when we go out the door, back in for the stash of all-seasons wardrobes in closets stuffed with hockey sticks, old basketballs, dead sneakers, and ancient flotsam long forgotten.

We stand before a mirror, committing to various crusades. I will, say you with watery confidence, fix a drab and a flab that invites displeasure. Like the knights of old, our shaky-quakey skill lays waste to self-esteem. Think, since we were wee, we could remain a stump, resisting all efforts of betterment. Tough luck, the engine of change revs up in school, fitting us to move in civilized society with some finesse. It helps that we’re seized with the want to be like Mary, Bob, Fred, and John, who’d mock us if we didn’t dance to enhance. So, we do it up to the measure of the furrowed gray matter determined long ago between the sheets. School spits us out onto the sidewalk, announcing, be gone! Get out of here! Go! Make something of yourself.

We do, choosing a Goldilocks life, not too hard, not too easy, not too scary. You could be a daredevil and leave a wake of destruction behind. Perhaps you’ve got it going. Damn, you’re good. There you go, climbing the ladder, poking above the low-hanging fruit, making a mark. Look, you brought with you the thing you do that makes people love you, or the opposite. Surprise, you find that person, and wham bam, you’ve added to the species. Son of a gun, you make each other miserable. Alone again after making a mess when you were on the march, in the know, on the go. Do all those changes just happen somehow magically? You put your shoulder to it, and see what happens. Yikes, you discover, there, in the grass, unknown to you, lies a rake. You stepped on it and smack, right in the kisser, made you see stars. Motherfker! What is this GD rake doing here, you yell.

If you go dumb on making a change, you’ll keep finding, in the grass, a Motherfng rake that smacks you between the eyes. Misery finds you like an unruly dog that won’t quit biting your ass. Didn’t you send it away swearing brave words and good intentions? The thing is, you have an ex, kids, a job that burst into flames, and friends who cross the street when they spy you coming. No pill’s going to help this, Fred. What will crack your nut? Maybe when the havoc gets too personal, or risky behavior strips you bare of worldly goods, the old hitting bottom story before the phoenix rises, or not.

I hear for change to come on down, Mr. Brown, the kind that gives no ground. There is truth in there somewhere that needs wanting, finding, and accepting. Victory won’t mean you’re free, but that now you see. Rise him up! The frame-bending potholes that knocked you kablooey, you get it! How could you not? You made the f-ing shovel. So don’t pick it up. Change won’t yield to lies, or why me, or they did it, she did, or bad luck. Ah, luck, you wish. Danny Boy, there is grief that will come without knocking or invitation. Go ahead, run out the door, kick the trash can, go around the bend and back. It will be the same room, with all the same players sitting in chairs along the walls, waiting for you. Things get dire and explosive here. We know this because writers keep telling stories of how all hell breaks loose when the nitty-gritty shreds resistance, blindness, and good old arrogance that the old ones called hubris, leaving blood on the floor or an altered world reconciled to hard truths.