Big Changes, Small Changes

This was taken a little over a week ago, peeking into the hole for the new Austonian condos. (Much fun has been made of the name since we call ourselves Austinites, but I figure its their hundreds of millions, you know.) Change is happening fast downtown and once ground is broken and hole is dug then before long up it will go. (We hope. Intel shell fiascoes would be bad for high rises.)

Our situation is changing, too, as we prepare in tiny small steps to change residences. We are going to buy new things, pick and choose from our old things, move things.

I like the changes small, really, but occasionally you have to make the big change. In 2000, we put my parents through it by having them decommission a house they'd been in for over thirty years and be homeless for a few weeks and move into a totally new place. My dad is settled into that new situation now and loath to change. FFP's mom and dad are dug into their home of over sixty years. They aren't even accepting of our change. FFP's mom wants to capture some furniture we are getting rid of for the move.

I was thinking yesterday about the subtle difference that small changes can make...in reading habits, writing, exercising. I'm always bellyaching about not accomplishing anything in retirement. But that's just because it's been the small things. Reading more. Becoming more informed. Writing more if only journals and blogs. Exercising and improving the quality of that very slowly.

I've learned where Gambia is located.

I've built up to the point that I used twelve pound weights for my bicep curls.

I've started James Joyce's Ulysses if not finished it.

I've taken the time to turn a single word over in my mind, making sure of the spelling and the dictionary definition. For example, dilettante. It's hard to remember which letter is double in that kind of word. And it's such a powerful word, too. Encompassing both a love for arts and the concept of being a dabbler. FFP says that when our move precipitates a need for new business cards that we will put on them, for a title, that single word. Dilettante. I love it.

Yesterday I was in the gym and I was thinking about sorting through the stuff, collage art and digital photography and a poem I wrote and a list I started of 'everything I owned.' I thought it would be funny to fuse photos of stuff and that list in a digital collage. Ha. I know I'll get that done. Well I went so far as to locate my poem again:

Dabbler, Babbler, Dilettante
Flitting about
Cannot stop.
Focus Free
Excuse me,
I must hop!

And I found my random list of stuff composed over several weeks or months in 2004. Happily or sadly a bunch of that stuff is gone. But not enough of it.