What we cling to.

I find myself being clingy these days. Maybe it's because I'm getting older, and the older you get the more you realize that things go away. Friends move away or get cancer. Parents die. Buildings get demolished. I think if I just hang on tight enough, everything will stay the same.

David and I went to Iowa in June for the last wedding hurrah. My sister hosted a reception at her sprawling mansion and lots of relatives and old family friends showed up to wish us well and nibble champagne cakes and tour my sister's house. I suspect they were more interested in the latter than in chatting with us. But still it was nice to know that childhood family friends were still around. In Iowa, roots run deep. When I moved to Chicago 15 years ago I was startled at how transient it felt. Young people (Like I was at the time) moved to the big city for jobs, then a few years later got married and moved away. In Iowa, people seem to plop down in one spot and stay there for generations.

My dad still owns the plot of land my ancestors bought when they emigrated from Scotland 150 years ago. It's 80 acres of hilly land with a stream and view of the Des Moines River valley. A few years ago my dad planted the whole parcel with native prairie grass. David and I went there and sat at the top of the hill, feeling the hot Midwestern sun on our cheeks and listening to the crackling of the grass in the wind. New houses are sprouting up all around, and I'm hopeful that this 80 acres of prairie will stay the same forever. But I doubt it will.

I want the things and people around me to make me feel secure. I want to hang onto something solid and unchanging. That's why I get frightened when it all seems so slippery. But when I feel things sliding through my fingers like water from the bathroom fawcett, I am reminded to trust. And have faith in the one who never changes.