What Change?

Things change. Everyone knows that. But the only ones who call it change, are those who knew what came before.

I’m visiting my mom in the hospital this week. Driving from her house to the hospital every morning,  down the winding roads and highways I learned how to drive on when I was sixteen, I see a view of the New York City skyline three times. It’s like that video of the cat that each frame the cat is closer and closer to the camera. Have you seen that one? It’s a riot. The cat keeps a poker face each time, like the human is not going to notice.

Back to the NYC skyline. It’s still there but it’s not. The ‘not’ part is for anyone who has a history with the city. What used to thrill the imagination and cause people to break out in song (“New York, New York”) is no more. But again only for those who have the iconic pattern of the skyline embedded in their memory.

For those who come upon the view for the first time, it is all they know and the thrill is there, I’m sure. For me, I see a mouth of bashed in teeth that as the view gets closer I see the teeth of a creature ready to devour anyone who dares mess with it.

For diehard NYC fans, the skyline is ruined, thanks to nine eleven, thanks to new buildings, thanks to global warming. Threw that last one in there for laughs! Change is only jarring to those who know it is change.

For a skyline of a famous city, not a big deal if people don’t know what they missed. It’s sad though, when history is lost. When a street called “Racetrack Road” has no meaning when it represents a significant history of racing as well as the scene of horrific car accidents back in the day.

It’s even sadder when the history that is unknown is a time or a circumstance that made life sweeter, that had beauty, that supported humanity, that gave freedom, joy, connection to nature. For those who are oblivious to how much has changed, there is only a vague sense that maybe things could be better, but often not enough to dream for better. We hang unto changes that are obvious that appear in rhetoric as great advances meanwhile we let basic human rights slip through our fingers like a sieve not having the perspective that it was not always this way.

I am saddened that humanity seems to swing from one extreme to the other and only those years or generations that are fortunate enough to be in the mid-range of sane, thoughtful leadership enjoy a sense of security.

The rest are lost to ignorant acceptance of less than good. Worse yet, calling it the best ever.