Yesterday, after several solid months in Massachusetts, I commuted back to New Hampshire to teach a summer school lit class at Keene State. Last summer, several large construction projects changed the face of Keene while I was away, but this year, those construction projects are long completed. For the most part, the Keene I returned to yesterday looked pretty the same as it had the last time I was there more than a month ago. Last year, a field bindweed clung to the fence outside my favorite abandoned factory; this year, field bindweed is clinging to the same fence, but the factory is gone. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Jul 3, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Change itself is a constant, in my view.
And how interesting that while the factory is, relatively speaking, “static”—made up of inert and dead material—it vanishes. Whereas the plant, which is “dynamic”–undergoing seasonal cycles of change–endures.