Change is the only certainty we have in life. Each new day brings with it some shift from the day that preceded it. We lose a job. We fall out of love. We move across the country. We find a new passion. We get a new work opportunity. We fall in love once more. Often, the pace of life is so quick, and the changes so constant, that we hardly have time to stop and reflect. But as we begin the new year, we are moved to contemplate these changes, and the changes we may want to make. We ask ourselves: what are the changes we can control? How can we adapt to those changes that are out of our control?
We’ve gathered together five pieces from our archives which explore ideas of change, new beginnings, and the ways in which we let go, or carry with us, the past.
A New Year by Curtis Smith
A reflection on how we experience change, and how that experience itself changes with time. Can we ever recapture the wonder and the hope we once felt?
A Paean to Change by Ed Nugent
How are we like the land around us? What can the natural world teach us about our life’s seismic, grand shifts? Its subtle, granular movements?
Letting Go: In Her Words by Lea Page
The author grapples with sending her young daughter to school. Is it possible to reconcile our fear of change with the knowledge that it is for the best?
Leavings by Connor Ferguson
An ode to physical change. The author reflects on how we trace our individual lives through our casual, daily interactions with our environment, and our possessions. But how does this phenomenon work in an increasingly digital age, if it does at all?
Newborn Sparrow by Teri McDowell-Ott
A poetic contemplation on the mixture of joy, trepidation, and grief we experience when confronted with immense change, and the surprising resilience of the human spirit in the face of such things.