Today, they cut down my Granddaddy's trees.

I used to think that the phrase, "Life goes on," was meant as a comforting lie that life would one day be as good as it was before the negative event that warranted said phrase (either that, or "suck it up.")  I now realize that it doesn't have a hidden meaning at all.   It means that life goes on whether you want it to or not.  It doesn't promise that life will ever be the same, and it shouldn't, because it won't.  Life is a series of moments, some good, some bad, in an ever waving sea of change.  Constant change.  Even during a pattern of good moments or bad ones all grouped into a stretch of time, change is happening.

It's easy to look back on a summer, which mom and I remember to be particularly joyous, and sometimes, we wish that we were in that place again.  But, if I inspect it a bit more closely, at the time, we were in the midst of a colossal change.  That was an in between moment, and I'm willing to bet that if we were thrown back into that summer, we'd both be scared shitless.

The other afternoon at the grocery store, mom mentioned that she missed the time in her life when she used to run into her dad there.  She obviously found those moments comforting and wanted to return to such a happy time.  But, upon further thought, I realized that those moments happened during the times in her life when she was struggling with the loss of a child, an unhappy marriage, being a single mom, finding a new love, and having a baby who didn't sleep until she was four.  And this is probably why she found the chance encounters worth storing away.  They meant something to her.  They meant a moment of peace.  Or maybe support.

As soon as we moved into our "new" house when I was eight, Dad set to chopping down all the trees one by one.  They were big and messy and were all in danger of blowing over during a good windstorm.   When I was eighteen, dad planted a new tree in the front yard-- a little potted Bradford Pear that dad had purchased for use in our Senior year production of "Alabama Rain."  Eventually, we found a better prop to use, and the young tree was shoved into the darkness of back stage.  But, that little tree fought and fought, and it bloomed despite the lack of water or light.  And so, it earned its place in our yard.  Likewise, when I was twenty-two and dad saw fit to finally dig a pool (three years after I moved out), Uncle Bobby brought mom a Weeping Willow and planted it nearby.  It was her dream to float around and stare at a graceful Willow tree whilst sipping on an icy Margarita, and so it was. 

Those are our special trees, now, but as a child, our special trees were the ones planted in Mimi and Granddaddy's front yard.  My mother was a child when they were planted, and they were very tall by the time I came along.  Mom tells a story of when hundreds of blackbirds took up residence in those trees.  My grandfather didn't like the idea of me playing in an area used as a blackbird potty, and he set to removing the birds by example.  A good, honest Christian man, Granddaddy called the city to alert them of the situation and to warn them that he was about to use a firearm within city limits.  They sent an officer out to observe as he fired a few shots into the trees, permanently grounding a few of the vermin while the others scattered.  The fallen comrades were then hoisted on ropes into the trees as a warning to future visitors, and the problem was solved.

Today, I drove by that house to find stumps where those trees once stood, and it hit me right in the feels.  As soon as I saw my mother, I ripped off the bandaid of news, and we both drove over to stare at the house, wood shavings coating most everything in sight.  Of course, we know how monstrous the trees had become, and with tornado season approaching, it made perfect sense that the current owners of the house would have had the giants chopped down, just as we had done with the trees at our own house.  Because those trees were just trees to us.  They were big and messy and kept the grass from growing.  They were liabilities and hassles.  They were nothing to us.  Now, I wonder if they may have been something to someone else. 

But, life goes on.  New trees may be planted someday-- trees special to the new family.  And sometime after that, those trees will be cut down or blown over or sucked out of the earth by a twister.  And guess what?  Life will go on.  Life is never stagnant.  It may be boring.  It may seem hopeless at times.  But, it never stands still.  The world keeps moving around us.  People die, and new ones are born.  People get married, divorced, get jobs, retire, make plans, and change them.  No two days are alike.  Heck, no two hours are alike.  As someone who has become somewhat terrified of change, I find that fact kind of funny.  Essentially, it doesn't matter whether I choose to have things change.  They're going to change anyway.  My invisible sand timer was flipped the day I was pulled out of Mom, and it's constantly running, just like everyone else's.  There is only one guarantee in life:  it will go on...until the sand runs out. 

Then again...

September sounds like the perfect moving month to me!

Sixteen days.  Wow.  That number might have more significance if I told you that I've planned to move to LA since the 4th Grade (which was also around the start of my Saved By the Bell obsession.  That's probably unrelated, though.)  Anywho, my plan to go to college in LA took a last minute detour when I got a phone call from a somewhat exclusive conservatory in NYC, so I moved North and lived there for 3.5 years.  I loved it, but I continued to venture further and further off my path until I was no longer sure which way to go.  As is often the case when one gets lost, I headed home. 

The "home" portion of my journey was supposed to last 10 months.  Then, I would head back to NYC.  Tomorrow will be the eight year anniversary of my arrival home.  The ten month thing didn't happen.  In 2009, there was a new plan to move back and room with Paul.  This was during the height of the recession, and it turns out that Alabama is more cost-of-living friendly than NYC during a recession.

But, I guess there was a silver lining to that recession.  NYC, like Alabama, is comfortable.  It's homey to me now.  And moving back would be just that-- a more expensive, lots of stuff to do, closer to my NY friends version of Tuscumbia.  And soon, that old voice was back in my head, urging me West.  So, I made a new plan two years ago, and I set a date:  August 2013.  But, who wants to drive across the country in the heat of August when gas prices are high for vacationers?  So, October it would be, although that's right before my birthday.  And then there's Thanksgiving and Christmas, and who needs to spend all that time flying home when I've only just arrived in LA?  So, January 2014 was a go.  The 2nd.  No, the 11th.  But, really, how could I expect to make such a big move when I'm still coming out of Holiday mode???  February 22nd sounds good.  But, then, why not just wait until the fist of the month?  And really, if I wait to leave until the 8th, I can skip paying that California sales tax on my car.  And you know, April would also work...

Except that the March 8th thing appears to be sticking.  And that scares the heck out of me because I have less of a plan than ever of exactly what I want to do with my life.  Screenwriting.  Production.  Script Supervising.  Directing.  Casting.  Management.  PR.  Something in entertainment.  Will that make me happy?  What if I'm already as happy as I'm going to be?  What if I miss something big with my family or my local friends?  What if I want to come back?  What if I don't want to come back?

It doesn't matter.  It's no longer a plan or even a choice.  It's a compulsion, which is why I have decided to stop saying that I'm "moving to LA" or "taking an open ended trip too LA" (as has been my description over the last couple of weeks).  Now, the word I'm using is Sabbatical.  Of course, technically, that means a break from work, but I think it still applies here.  The purpose is essentially to stop what you're doing and spend a year doing what you really want to do.  To accomplish something.  I'm not sure exactly what that accomplishment will be or how the next year will go, but I guess we'll find out.

In sixteen days.