Change

Well, we didn't go to Colorado because we all got sick, so we're going next weekend instead. I was struck by how devastated I was on Friday when Rocket Boy told me he just couldn't do it and we would have to change our plans. I mean, OK, there was a cost involved, but that's not what I was upset about. I wanted so much to be in Boulder the next day. I was just longing, yearning to be there. I wanted to see our house again. I wanted to go next door and see our neighbor, before he dies (I still can't get my mind around that). I wanted to walk to the park and on to the grocery store, where I wanted to buy some bulk food (which Ridgecrest doesn't have). I wanted to visit my old office and the boos' old daycare. I wanted to go to the library and the Pearl Street Mall and Chautauqua. I wanted to walk up into the mountains.

Instead I had to go to the grocery store in Ridgecrest. It was painful.

I've been thinking about time passing, and change. Earlier this summer, when I spent those 3 weeks in Palo Alto, I was struck by how different things seemed there. I've been visiting a few times a year ever since I left, 21 years ago, so how is it that it changed so much without my noticing? Of course the big change happened when we sold my mother's house and the new owners remodeled it. Now I have no "center" in that town, no home. There are probably still people in town that I used to know, people I went to high school with who have stayed around. But as my sister said, if I ran into them, they wouldn't recognize me and I wouldn't recognize them. It's been too long. We have aged and changed.

When I went back to Ann Arbor a few years ago for a conference, I was amazed by the changes. Even the venerable University of Michigan has put up many new (and ugly) buildings. The apartment complex where I used to live looked the same. My old best friends who we stayed with looked pretty much the same. And I had a wonderful reunion with the old friends who flew in from all over the world for the conference. But some people looked very different. And I expect I will never see most of them again.

I think I am dreading that Boulder will change too much while we are gone. We don't know how long we'll be here -- 2 years? 5 years? 20 years? Will too much time pass and we won't want to go back? We have a number of "older" friends -- will they all die while we're gone? Will there still be a Boulder Bird Club? I want to go back while it's still my Boulder, before it changes the way Palo Alto has changed and I don't feel at home there anymore. Ridgecrest is not home. It is where I live but it is not home.