This morning, I went to the dentist. I've been seeing him for years and he's by far my favorite dentist ever. Over time, I've learned to tack on more travel time so I could always be prompt, but since I only see him every six months things can change. He's clear across town. I know how to get there; I'm not directionally challenged and this is my home turf.
I ran into traffic, the kind of traffic that stops across intersections and is three lanes wide as the lights blink ineffectually from red to yellow to green. Probably a wreck, maybe construction, whatever it was my mental GPS started to recalculate.
I zipped through neighborhoods avoiding crosswalk baby carriages and school zones. I wound my way across town only having to turn around in someone's driveway once. I discovered corner lots where the trees have been felled and a shiny new gas station+car wash or a "Welcome All" warehouse church grew up. Where do the birds and squirrels go?
I got to my appointment only a few minutes late but it made me think about how I got there. I was proud of myself for not having to consult the voice in the phone. I can still find my way. But the changes were startling. Sometimes, I drive familiar routes and find from one week to the next that trees or buildings have been removed and I'm momentarily disoriented. Where am I again? Is this the corner I thought it was?
Maybe I'm just getting old and senile. That's always a possibility. The old part is a definite but I think most of my faculties are still intact. I understand more about why older people talk (or complain) about "how things used to be." The longer I'm on the planet and the longer I stay in one locale, the more noticeable the changes are.
Yesterday was the anniversary of 9/11. Again. It happens every year. The eighteenth seems significant because the babies being born back then are pretty nearly grown now. There is a cohort of young people who have no memory of that day. It happens all the time, the national events of one generation become hazy history for the next.
Whether it's D-Day or Kennedy's death, the Challenger or 9/11, all become faded with time as fewer people have direct memories of them. The same is true close to home, in the lives of all of us. Hometowns enlarge or shrink, a childhood house is torn down, cherished people die. The biggest celebrities, the most powerful politicians, wealthiest, most beautiful, most talented people all slip from prominence and fade away.
If you were to ask me for directions, I might be inclined to tell you to turn at the next road after where the K-Mart was that got blown down by the tornado. Or go to the Bojangles where the little post office used to be like I told my wife the other day. Except it turned out the Bojangles wasn't there either and had been replaced by a sketchy convenience store.
Change. I don't think I'll ever catch up.
My old house where I raised kids, now boarded up to be demolished.
