onward, onward

there's a line in a song i've been listening to lately, "life is always and never the same". having recently spent a few days at the beach with a crew of under-ten-year-olds followed by a day celebrating an upcoming wedding, i find the words to have a striking clarity.

thirty years ago, it was a different group of parents and friends wrangling a different group of little ones through days at the shore; gathering them up and walking to the beach with plastic pails and strollers, applying sunblock, resolving arguments, and imploring kids to eat a snack or risk melting down. thirty years ago it was a different group of ladies filling a living room, unwrapping crock pots and cooking utensils, having a few laughs at the bride and groom's expenses.

children have an uncanny way of diffusing difficult situations. the world's problems are so easily solved with an ice cream cone or a sheet of jeweled stickers. they can hop and dance at the same time. and despite the sad or maddening days, always, always, there are children there. it helps us keep things the same despite the fact it is all changing, all the time.

many things change - kids now know how to use multiple remotes to work just about everything in the house. they know how to play games on iphones, and they know the difference between popcorn and pirate's booty. in thirty more years, there will be another crew of them, knowing even more than the kids now know, even more than we knew thirty years ago.

i like to complain a bit about having to spend time with so many kids, but really, i enjoy it. i sit back and watch it all go on around me, this balance of new and old, an act that has gone on for years and years, part of the wider play of life in general. sometimes i wonder when it was that i lost my imagination, yet i can still zone out in front of cartoons with the best of them.

lately it has felt like the world was shaken and things didn't end up where they belong. change can be like that. but being around the kids, it reminded me that change is ever-evolving, and we never quite know where we're going to end up.