Changes

In the world of technology, change is constant. You have to change your settings every month, it seems, to accommodate an "upgrade" that promises to improve your ability to complete tasks. Of course, there's that learning curve thing ... programmers seem to forget about that.

But really, all life is change. Some are huge: my sister's life from a year ago to today, or my cousin Sherry's for the same period. Some are very small: sparrows on the back porch yesterday morning, or the lushness of the grass after a frost.

We humans are built for flexibility, to be able to change course in midstream, to stop on a dime and do a 180 degree turn. It gets harder as you get older; you want the stream to be slower and warmer, the path to be smoother. We can still change, but it's more difficult and irksome; and in the last quarter of life is when we most need to.

We can take the lesson from the trees: the ones that can bend survive the storms.

Old companions can help. People who remember you as young can help keep you young. Maybe that's why we treasure time with those who knew us in the "good old days." Those memories warm old bones and remind us of the day we swam all the way out to the floating dock.

New friends help too. Being around young, vibrant people can be restoring and refreshing - right up until it's tiresome and annoying! :)

It's the curse of the "retirement community" or the "old folks home" - if you're only around the elderly and ill, you feel more elderly and ill.

Some people - I think I'm one, sometimes - welcome change, and greet a new experience as a joyful thing. I don't know if you can learn to do that; if I could, I'd teach it to everyone I love!

Charles Dickens said, "The important thing is this: to be ready at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you could become."

Words to live by, I think. But I sure wish they'd quit changing Facebook!

Helmet hair

I read a comment somewhere - perhaps a satirical look at the Republican field - that mentioned that conservatives seem fond of "helmet hair" - the tightly controlled, immobile cap of locks that no breeze can ruffle, even if it's the exhaust from a commercial jet. Newt has it; Callista does too. Sarah had it, and What's-her-name, the nearly-Sarah. Ahhh, yes - Michelle. How quickly we forget the forgettable.

It has to do with control. There's really no mystery.

It's what raised so many hackles back in 1968, what shocked the housewives of 1868, what has ever been a sign of a rebellious youth, a careless man, a slatternly woman. All that hair! Loose, unbound, flying everywhere; the outward sign of an inward disorganization! It's why I consider cutting my own hair - do people think I'm out of control because my hair is? I think some do. (Oh, but I do enjoy keeping people off-balance!)

Of course, to some of us, "helmet hair" has a quite different meaning - it's the result to your hair of pulling a helmet off too fast!