Winds of Change
February 3, 2009, by Cathy Fischer
Sculpture by Andy Goldsworthy
When we decided to write about change, I didn’t realize how omnipresent it was. It’s everywhere. Change pricks up my ears and engages my senses.
The artist Andy Goldsworthy comes to mind. I recently re-watched his documentary Rivers and Tides to inspire my chemo flow visualizations. His creations are often ephemeral; captured in time, mostly by photographs or film. His work consists of painstaking ice sculptures that melt away; bursts of colored rock powders that disappear into thin air; leaves held together by fragile twigs which flow down a river, shaped by the rocks, shaped by the river, shaped by the rain.
The weather is warm in California. It’s February and the trees are confused. Magnolias are blooming and my pedicure is seeing the light of day. Biologists document the disappearance of a butterfly in the Bay Area.
I’m seeing change in my urban life as well. Just this past week I found three places that have closed their doors. Once a treasure box, my local stationary store looked as if had been looted; pathetic and perky leather-bound organizers, the only color left on the shelves. In my brother’s neighborhood, both the hardware store that had been there since my college days and the soda fountain/drugstore that time and time again phoenix-like rose from the ashes, are now boarded up.
People are spending less money going out and spending more time together in simpler ways. Maybe when we tighten our wallets and are less distracted, our hearts expand? Change while often difficult, can bring much good and hope is on the horizon.
It’s a flow thing, this change. Changes large and small, physical and spiritual move us along life’s path, like rivers and tides. As my Jamaican friend would often remind me, “Ease mon. Eaaaase…”
“I haven’t simply made the piece to be destroyed by the sea, the work has been given to the sea as a gift and the sea has taken the work made more of it than I ever could have ever hoped for…. If I can see in that ways of understanding those things that happen to us in life that changes our lives…” —Andy Goldsworthy
February 3rd, 2009 at 10:10 am
The butterfly imagery really hits home, Cathy. When I was a child in Pasadena, spring (which started in late March back then, but now starts in mid-February) was heralded by the arrival of thousands of light blue butterflies. Their disappearance was gradual, and today, when I revist my haunts of youth, there are none of those sky-hued creatures at all–not in February, March, April or any other time of year. I don’t even know what they were called…but I feel a loss for both myself and the hundreds of thousands of other little children who will never see their beautiful blue wings again.
February 3rd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Whether we like it or not, change is gonna come, oh yes it will…
February 3rd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Oh my…the soda fountain is gone. I loved that place and the hardware store too. I find I am not handling change with any kind of aplomb be it good or challenging flat out anxiety seems to be the rule. Ease mon! Or as Geena Davis’ character says in Earthgirls are Easy, “Breathe in the good air, breathe out the bad air!”
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Prudence,
I hope the day will never come when we have to go to butterfly preserves or zoos to see those delicate and beautiful creatures. I pray it’s not to late to undo the damage of the past eight years of Bush administration greed and disrespect for the environment.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
mellimel,
I’m being the eternal optimist, thinking the soda fountain will once again rise up in a new/old school incarnation. The people behind these places, all connected, with lives, loves, families, hopefully the change will be good for everyone in the long run. And yes, it’s not all that easy (ease mon) to be zen about it.