Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Change

On my way home today as I turned on the road just a mile and a half from the house I looked at the beautiful newly cleared field situated on the corner of my road. Just a short month ago, it was a brushy corner that no one even thought about. With all the brush it was difficult to see more than just a few feet from the barbed wire fence surrounding the field. As soon as the big equipment was moved into the field and the clearing of the land began the speculating and worrying began.

Some worried that the land would be subdivided and small plots of ground would be sold off one at a time and a little community of mobile homes would pop up just a mile from the house. In a farming community this is the kiss of death. Roads will wind from one end of the field to the other and wind in and out of individual plots of land. Everyone was asking what was happening but no one seemed to know what was going to happen. I guess time will tell.

Now the freshly plowed field sparkles like black gold across the gently rolling hills with small trees newly covered with tender leaves. The big equipment is gone. The field has been neatly plowed and grass seeds are waiting on the rains. The barbed wire fence is gone on one long side. A small pond in the middle of the field now visible, has been hidden in the midst of the brush all these years. It has dried up but it has been left intact and small blades of grass grow along the banks of the pond.

It is a beautiful field.

As I drove past the field and looked at it today both the beauty of the field and the fear of the unknown struck me. I realized the fear of change that I thought I was so immune to. I thought I welcomed change. Being an artist I always thought change is fun. My students know that in my classroom if the furniture is not nailed down it is subject to rearrangement. From day to day the configuration of the room changed. I think that is one thing I love about my gardening. I can change the look of the yard with just a few little changes (or big ones). I thought old people feared change but not me. I welcomed it. Change means something new happening. And new is fun......but maybe not always.

Maybe today it just has struck me a little harder because of the changes taking place in my work place that are not changes I perceive as good changes.

I guess I still have choices in my life.
I can choose to accept it
or
I can choose to move on and find something different.

1 comment:

  1. Mybe I am getting too old for change. I just seem to be resigned about it all.

    And I thought I was a kinda sorta artist.

    ReplyDelete