Small changes disrupt our comforts
During the height of the women’s liberation movement years ago, a man I knew prided himself on being a liberated guy. “Except when I’m tired,” he confessed. “Then I’m a male chauvinist pig.”
I pride myself on adapting well to change. When I give talks to young people, I say in a know-it-all voice: “Change is the only constant!” I mean what I say, except when I’m sick with a cold or tired. And I’ve been both for a week.
So when it was announced that The Bon, as we’ve always called the Spokane department store, would officially change its name to Macy’s, I felt negative about the change, small as it seems. I didn’t want to whine alone. So I found some folks who commiserated with me about all the changes we’re expected to accept with a gung-ho attitude.
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk and writer, says: “Change and impermanence have a positive side. Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible. Life itself is possible. If a grain of corn is not impermanent, it can never be transformed into a stalk of corn. If the stalk were not impermanent, it could never provide us with the ear of corn we eat. If your daughter is not impermanent, she cannot grow up to become a woman. Then your grandchildren would never manifest. So instead of complaining about impermanence, we should say, ‘Warm welcome and long live impermanence.’ “
He makes a wise point, but today, I’d like to slam the door on change rather than give it a warm welcome. I’ll hold the grain of corn tightly in my hand and ask, “What was so wrong with the name ‘Bon’ anyway?”
I called some sources in the community who have been at their jobs for a long time. Whenever I see their names in the newspaper, I feel comforted. They seem so rooted in place, still vital in their jobs and in the community. We chatted about change.
Madonna Luers, public information officer for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, recently received a 20-year service award. After Sept. 11, she said, applications for fishing licenses dramatically increased. That day our country and our world changed forever. No one, except perhaps Osama bin Laden and his henchmen, welcomed that change warmly. Madonna thinks people returned to fishing because the rhythms of nature offered stability. We understand patterns of weather and seasons, and times when the fish jump and times when they don’t.
Tonie Fitzgerald, Washington State University extension agent in Spokane County, has worked in that capacity since 1985 and for six years before that she was an assistant in the master gardener program. Her name has shown up in our newspaper for more than 20 years, advising readers through cycles of nature, gardening and life. My musings about The Bon’s name change led to her musings on the changes in baseball. In the old days, players stayed with one team for a long time. Now, with all the trades going on, “it’s harder to be loyal to a team,” she lamented.
Patrick Lynch, director of corporate communications for Avista, has been with the company for 22 years. He started there when it was still Washington Water Power Co., and don’t get me started on that name change right now. He laments how little time we have anymore to unplug from the world and process all the change around us. Our down time has been consumed by cell phones, e-mail, voice mail. We reminisced about our Spokane childhoods when the days stretched for weeks, especially in the summer. Gone forever.
At lunch, I walked over to The Bon and stared at the huge letters on the side of the building that read “The Bon Marche.” Those letters soon will be removed and painted over. In 20 years, when young people hear us old fogies reminisce about the department store, they’ll ask: “What was a Marche?”
I had a sudden craving for a milkshake from the lunch counter at The Crescent. But The Crescent department store is gone, too. Long live impermanence! So I walked my woe-is-me self back to The Spokesman-Review. Thank God it was still there.