“Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes. Turn and face the strange….ch-ch-ch-changes”  Remember that song?  It was an all skate song.  Every Friday night.  Funny how my life seems life a never ending Davied Bowie song- still.

I think it is fair to say the strange is upon me.  Swathed in it I am.  But then again, from very early on in my young bell bottomed Apple Chill hippie days-I walked always in the direction of strange.  As if, we had made a pact-us two,that, throughout this life- we would be side by side.  God forbid I rest at the pitstop of comfort or ease.  No, it was not to be.  Ever.  There is no before or after.  There just is not.  There is just the ongoing of change-the incoming of strange. And it all takes as much time as it takes.  No sooner.  No later.  I reflect on this many times when I am trying to once again, figure it all out and come up with an answer.  But no.  Then I make peace with it all- well sort of-but sometimes, no-and realize I would never have been happy any other way.  I would never have the stories and true encounters that shape and mold, bend and break-without choosing the path of strange.  Not that I had a choice.  For me, when nothing is happening-something is happening.  Always.  Though I never really know it until I am on the other side.

I don’t know when to stop.  It is a fault, I know.  But because of this, I have been able to allow change for others-and through that some kind of change for myself.  I think.  The other day I received some pictures in the mail.  They were taken the August after I graduated from high school.  I was with one of my brothers in another country-surrounded by heritage and ancestors.  I looked through them all-and remember still to this day, the feelings I had that summer.  Preparing to go off to a very prestigious womens college ( I was terrified), ready to leave home ( I was elated), and yet, there I was free spirited on the back of a moped-tan and waving.  Wanting so much to be different and “European” and be damned…..or vice a versa.  I was so young.  My brother was so young and awkward.  Gangly and full of adolescent angst himself.  I had not one clue as to the where or what of me was to be.  That girl in that picture was so many life times ago and so much has happened( as one would hope) since then.  That August.

That feeling is with me still at times.  Even now.  To be different and be damned-forget the European-but not so much angst anymore.  Just restlessness…with all the other layers grown over and over again through time.  Add to that the change that only motherhood, marriage, death and disappointment can bring…and here I am.  Not angry.  Not ashamed.  Not embarrassed- or incomplete.  Just still feeling my change-my strange.