Ch-ch-ch-changes

"I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same. . ." - David Bowie



Remember "Frogger," that video game where you move the little frog from log to log across the stream?

Some of those logs were bookin'! Even if you barely missed, you got that depressed "wah-wah-wah-wah" noise and there was but a mere ripple to mark your passing.

As soon as you got your confidence up, you'd discover that some of the logs were actually alligators DISGUISED as logs - one wrong tap of a button and CHOMP! Froggie went a' floatin'.

The goal was to make it across the stream safely. And the reward for this accomplishment. . .another set of logs to cross!

A dozen screens later, the kid behind you would go, "You've been on that thing for an hour! How about letting someone else have a turn??" An hour! Where did the time go?



Having teenagers is like playing frogger!

Just when you think you've got the whole thing down and figured out, up pops an alligator! You navigate their activities and obligations, moving nimbly from one to the next, only to realize that you have to do it all over tomorrow.

You float and flounce through the days, keeping your flippers out of the fluid. And when you look back on the week, the season, the last year - like the ripples floating farther away across that stream of warm impermanence - you realize that time has gotten away from you.

This summer, we're going to slow down. We're going to find some way to make the days lazy and long - I declare this to be the "Summer of the Minimal Obligation!" Yeah, wish me luck.

Time has changed me, but I can't trace time.