Changes

When I was born in 1963, the surroundings in which I arrived had not changed in years. By surroundings I mean the suburbs, the streets, the cars, the shops, the parks and the houses that nestled all amongst this static place.

My husband, who is ten years older than me, arrived in that same sort of still world.

For a long, long time changes just rarely happened. Or, the changes were too irrelevant for me, as a child, to take notice of.

Small things like bakeries opening up on a Sunday morning, the day of rest, made the evening news on the big black and white television that sat in the corner of our small lounge room. I remember the baker being hounded by the news reporter and having to defend his dreadful crime of opening on a Sunday morning to sell bread to locals who chose not to go to Church.

People drove the same car for years and years. Kept their lawn mower for a lifetime. Stayed in the same house for most of their life. Fixed things that broke. Made things out of the unfixable. Took a shopping trolley to the local grocer so often that they knew each other by name and talked about mutual goings on each time they met. Life just had some sort of silent continuity about it that left one with a sense of being part of that process.

Even the shows on television stayed the same for years.

Changes were incremental for many, many years. The odd old house started to disappear from a side street and was replaced by a more modern home, making a statement by showing those around that they owners were "different" and "progressive" and "with it". Then, as the owners have grown old their own modern house has been pulled down and replaced with a more "now" home.

For years I could drive past places I remembered seeing as a child and never did that place change. Same butcher around the corner from where I lived as a six year old. Sawdust once on the floor, soft under my barefeet. Wooden butcher's block in the corner, the top misshapen by years of sharp knives striking the surface as the butcher chopped slabs of raw meat. My mum would sometimes ask for a few sheets of butchers paper to take home for me to draw on.

One day I drove past that butcher's shop and it was a florist. A couple of years later I drove past and it was a gift shop. Then, when my son was about three years old, I drove past and the butcher was now a furniture shop selling fashionable "hand made" shabby chic homeware.

I stopped the car and took my son with me to take a look at what they sold. I bought a small lidded box which holds lots of personal items relating to my son. His candle that was given to him on his day of christening along with a letter written by the minister which is for my son to read when he is older. Baby cards, birthday cars, ribbon that wrapped presents given to him when he was born and small items collected over the years and slipped into the wooden trunk for purely sentimental reasons.

I have not been back to the shop since. No reason, other than things I do now do not take me anywhere near there anymore.

About a week ago I drove down to the supermarket that is situated in the suburb of Hampton which is where I moved to when I was twelve years old and spent my teenage years, and in fact, is where I lived until I moved out and left the family home for good. I like going there. Despite the fact I have not lived there since I was nineteen, I feel it is still home for me in a way. Not that I even know anyone who lives there, except my father and it is not likely I am going to knock on his front door ever.

Anyway, I was driving along and it was a Sunday and the traffic was so busy. On a Sunday. It seemed liked a week day. This is a fairly recent thing. And by recent, I mean that it is in the past five years that the traffic on a Sunday has become so busy that it makes a trip to the shops an almost stressful event. Everyone seems to feel the need to be somewhere other than home. They are not at the supermarket, so the occupants in the cars on the road must continue on to other places.

On the way home from the shops, I was driving down the road that eventually takes me to the big local strip shop near my home. When I moved to here in 1991 (thereabouts), this local shopping centre was small. Mostly full of older people. Not so many young people. You could cross the road anytime without fear of being skittled over. Now, almost nineteen years later, it is long, busy and full of many shops. Lots of teenagers. Full of cars. Busy, busy and busy.

I sat in the car waiting for the line of traffic to move and wondered why I did not notice all this change going on sooner. But I then realised that the change is non stop now. Like a big snowball. Just rolling and rolling and getting bigger. Just keeping out of it's way is nigh impossible.

I see so much change now that I find it very disconcerting. Is it because I am older? I don't think so because my husband notices the same constant change. My brother also finds that constant change in the local area very irritating. It unsettles him and at the end of the day when he turns off the busy road and drives down his long and quiet street he finally relaxes. I feel the same way when I turn my car into the driveway at the end of the day.

It made me think about what my son thinks of the world now. So I ask him. I ask him if he thinks his world, his school, his streets change? He told me that the world seems to be always changing. Outside changes all the time. Lots of traffic. The school is bigger and more kids are in it. Two things have stayed the same he told me. Two things that make him feel relaxed and so happy. I leant forward in anticipation.

"Soft drink is one. Pepsi and Coke have never changed", he tells me, a big smile of delight on his face.

I stare at him. How interesting. Soft drink. Well, not quite the comfort food of my childhood years, but obviously meaningful to him. I wait for his second revelation.

"Getting home after school. I walk in the door, drop my school bag on the floor and feel so relaxed. That never changes", he leans back into the couch and crosses his arms. I silently agree with him.

So, if at his young age he thinks the world it constantly changing does that mean he will never know a life without change? Will he have to keep that stillness, that continuity happening in his own home and just step out into the chaotic world of change? Will he be so conditioned to it that it will seem normal to him. Just the way children grow up now?

I suppose that children are just like new trees. Take root and work in with the environment around them. Bend with the change. Quite different to an old and rigid tree like myself. I can only sway a little bit. Then it gets a bit hard.

Maybe I am just getting old.

And that is all okay as well.

Just another change.

Ciao
LC