The journey commenced one innocent autumn day, about mid-morning, beneath the meek basking brilliance of a wattle tree beside the creek just outside of town. Little was there thought of this young, burgeoning life; a life like any other—no more, no less—a simple reminder of what occurs one day, suddenly, under the sun’s passage of progress.
This is no real mystery. It happens all the time with monotonous regularity. This event and set of circumstances—any number of them—is set high amongst the midst of clouds and ether (for all we know), yet it’s nothing to write home about. We come to expect it after a while. It really is quite normal.
As the life grows, like the trees, it morphs and becomes something different to that which it promised or seemed to be initially. It seems to have a mind of its own! How is this so? After all, it’s hard—it’s surprisingly hard and we fail to understand why. Why do these things happen—the change that brings (or more so forces) change reticently, and pain and discomfort also? Why does this life grow and change, and when will it end? Why can’t things just be the same?
The winds of change swept through the copse, and even so unseen, they’re indelibly there. At points both mild and wild it stands barely moving, a dynamic statue, for all to see. It’s visible yet hard to detect. We don’t notice until it’s almost too late. In this life—the person in question, particularly—how can we put a finger on it? As change is, each life is indeterminable.
For all the certainty and yet for the transience, all things stand in testimony. In the aimless and purposeful alike, with flow and restriction, in happiness and sadness, in dark and in light; life stands. It drones on.
And whilst this life profiled gently withers and dies, fading as gracefully as it once appeared, we wonder at the new life before us. We think, ‘The actors change but the landscape remains the same.’ Then we think of ourselves and those close—left wide open. How can this life be?
© S. J. Wickham, 2009.
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