A common theme has followed me the last little while. It has wound its way through my posts, my thoughts, and it seems in the daily discourse I have with songs I hear or poetry I read. It is the idea that as much as I try to hold on to the way things are, they are still in a constant rhythm of change. It reminds of Heraclitus’ quote: You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you. I find it is more complicated than that, as the same person cannot step into the river. With each ensuing moment, I change and the world I live in and with changes.
Yesterday, as I was driving home, Tommy Castro, a San Francisco blues performer, came on the radio with a song called It Is What it Is. The lyrics of the refrain go like this:
Yeah, I am what I am,
‘Cause I ain’t what I used to be.
‘Cause it is what it is,
But it ain’t what it used to be.
Sometimes, as much as I want things to remain the same or return to an idealized past, they cannot. Part of the reason, a big part, is I am not who I was a moment ago. Today, I flipped open one of the many books of poetry books I enjoy and found this William Stafford poem which echoed the lyrics above.
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you can do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
Thanks for this. I often think about the path we take in life and feel it opens in front of us, we can’t walk back. It’s always forward – and we change as we walk. And so does everything in the landscape.
Life is its own journey and it is taken one step at a time. That has been an incredibly difficult lesson for me to learn, so I find solace in the words of people like William Stafford.
You have a beautiful way with words, as did William Stafford. His poem made me sigh.
Thank you.
I have a phrase that I have tended to say quite a lot throughout the last decade or so; it comforts me and allows me to accept! ‘The only constant, is change’. Seems to work for me, Ivon….
I agree I tell people the three constants in life are death, taxes, and change.
So true, what you write here, Ivon. I think that this realization is part of growing up… we usually don’t realize that particular truth of constant change when we are children… even though that is one of the periods of our lives when the change is most dramatic. But I especially enjoyed the poem you brought from William Stafford. Because after considering the river that is never the same, and this addition you’ve pointed out here, that we ourselves are never the same either… it’s important to remember the lesson of Stafford, that there is a thread that doesn’t change… that ties us to our fate… perhaps an allegorical thread of DNA. Thank you for a very meaningful post.
Thank you for the response Shimon. It is hard some days to accept the way it is and I find much in the words of poets like Stafford.