Times of Transition

The cyclical character of life in this dimension is so well known we do not notice it at all—say day and night—unless, in the more complex cases, we invert their order thus: summer and spring, winter and fall. Major transitions, thus in culture, take such long times that we notice them only when, by pure chance, we live our lives at one of the pivotal moments of it, e.g., the French Revolution. That revolution conveniently marked, I would suggest, the start of modernity, but it wasn’t seen quite in that same way. It was thought to be an aberration, a local disturbance, by those not yet affected by it.

When we first moved into our house here 25 years ago, weather events punctuated, with very small black dots and only now and then, the news. For the last three years certainly, major storms, destructions, rains, droughts, fires, floods, and such were not yet weekly consuming almost all time on CNN and thus starving us of other vital BREAKING NEWS like the loss of airliners, the rude remarks of NBA team owners, or mass shooting of children. But if this global warming, or whatever else, causes storms with newfangled names like derechos (the name comes from the Spanish for “straight”) continues to produce these phenomena so that, in future, every spring and summer brings these—and every fall inundates our coasts with tsunami-like ocean attacks—why then the times will have completed their transition and vile weather will have become, as they say, “the new normal.”

Thoughts along these lines occur to us here right at the moment—because we’re ourselves engaged in a time of transition. We are in a prolonged process of moving from this house after a quarter century’s possession into a new home located across the whole wide metro area. About that new house, which we now finally own, in due time. And it looks like it will take some time. In the meantime, this house must be emptied of its contents—and, I’m fairly sure of this, it has never been so full of stuff as it is now. Every habit’s in the air, every routine is disrupted. Blogging under these conditions resembled organizing one’s stamp collection during a tornado.

Hence be surprised when a new post appears—rather than expecting posts at frequent intervals. Busy preparations, and agonizing decisions on what to keep and what to shed, are now becoming the new normal here—and out there somewhere is the hope and prayer of another life with fewer square feet but a larger yard, more sun, and views of a lake.