It snowed overnight. Temperatures bottomed out in the low teens just before sunrise. Everything is frozen, glass-like and preserved. I am up in the dusty pre-dawn light. An unintentional witness to the fresh coat, in its purity. Yet unmarred: no animal tracks, no pine sap droppings, the neighborhood dogs yet to be walked. Time to adjust to the change while still in its innocence.
It will be an impediment later. Something to contend with when I need to drive. When meetings need to be cancelled. When the day needs to undergo a programmatic shift, cancellations and postponements upending an already to-the-gills calendar. When judgement and sacrifice take over. When it becomes difficult and I want the ease of yesterday back.
But for now, it is beautiful. Peaceful. Abundant. Welcome.
Generally speaking, I have a pretty good relationship with change. It is what I do for a living, I suppose, bringing change to people’s lives. An honor, of course, but also a fairly sizeable responsibility. Because change is a complex character at best. It can be unrelenting in its demand on our fragility, obnoxiously testing our capacity to work with it before yielding permission to enjoy its bounty. Even in the best of circumstances it eventually holds court and we have no choice but to stop and give it its due.
But I like the moment of witness before the change becomes marred. The moment you finally say yes to something you had previously negated. The moment you quit something, experiencing the rush of relief at finally stopping. The moment you make the call, get the call, hear the news. That space, in-between what was and what is. Wholly the present. Neither good nor bad. Asking nothing of you yet. It doesn’t ever last terribly long but I like naming it as a significant part of the overall getting from here to there.
I wonder, for our clients, when that moment is. The purity of the project before budget exercises and schedule updates and decision deadlines. Before tearing down every single wall but the four holding the place up. That moment before they need to accept the realities of the months ahead, and simply say “let’s begin”.
Perhaps that is part of the honor of our work. To bear witness to that moment of “yes”. The pause where courage is dominant because certainty is bold. It is fleeting for most I’m sure– I’ve missed it myself all this time. But even if fleeting, I can think of no other purer moment inside our human experience.
Perhaps this is what makes change so seductive—not its result per se, but rather the brief sense of immaculacy when opting into it in the first place.
Let me know if there is anything you’d like to change?
Allison
