everything must change

like the song says:

“everything must change/nothing stays the same/everyone will change/nothing and no one goes unchanged”.

i first heard it, on a judy collins album no less, the year i graduated from high school. i thought it was goofy and simplistic and i couldn’t believe it ever got recorded. four years later, after college, it began to make a lot more sense. it took some growing up to realize you didn’t need a lot of grandiose words and images to convey such a basic and real fact: everything must change.

i’ve had my share of change and loss (they’re really one and the same, of course). i’m better at accepting it than i used to be, more resigned, definately more philosophical. i might even be close to admitting that when change is difficult and bad, it can end up being ‘for the best’ – a phrase that always annoyed me, regardless of the fact its usually true.

five years ago, sarah and i discovered a gem of a place called ‘the lab’. we both love art, artists, the creative process, and this new institution had it all. anything you could possibly consider art – and most likely some things you wouldn’t – it was all fair game. everything was treated irreverently, with humor and an off-kilter approach, and just enough respect to keep the whole thing from toppling over. we started attending every lecture, and each week we seemed to experience some amazing moment of magic, when the subject matter was unexpectedly illuminated by the speaker or an audience member or some random occurrence. many times i sat shaking my head at the wonderful ways we were learning to see the world, with a new perspective.

after the first few visits, sarah and i coaxed our shy selves into joining the creme of the crowd for the post-lecture dinner. as we got to know people, this became an event in itself. wine-filled, joyous, thought-provoking, hilarious – for me, coming during a difficult period of major change, it was water for a parched soul. it became our education, our social life, our hang out, a new circle of friends. i may even have started recognizing the different seasons not by the weather, but by the lab’s programming.

the lab has always been about art and creativity, which is never static. but somehow i thought our routine – the car pools, the cocktail hour, the always amazing lectures, dinner after, would stay the same. but nothing and no one goes unchanged. as the lab morphs to a new location and a new shape, i know there will be more magic. it can’t help but happen at this level of creativity. but i don’t know what can compare to the unexpected surprises of those first evenings at the beginning, watching the crowds and programming grow, the excitement over the opening of the new building and the first real exhibition, and the feeling that we were there to see it happen – glasses of wine in hand and huge grins on our faces, as the world was laid out before us in a brand new way.