Change

This is my first blog entry...I'll just dive right in.

I watched "Pleasantville" the other night, which I hadn't seen in years. The movie ended up profoundly speaking to me about change. I was flicking through and decided to stop, because I remembered Jan Fortune-Wood quoting the movie in "With Consent: Parenting for All to Win." The quote is "...I know you want it to stay pleasant around here, but there are so many things that are so much better, like silly or sexy or dangerous or brief and everyone of those things is in you all of the time if you just have the guts to look for it..." I said "the TCSers love this movie."

What I didn't remember is that Pleasantville is a parable about change. Everything is perfect in Pleasantville. The sky is always clear, all of the neighbors are friendly and "normal," all of the children are well behaved and respectful, there are no conflicts. There is no change or GROWTH! And, when things start changing boy do some folks resist it...just wanting things to go back to being pleasant.

George: What happened? One minute everything was fine and the next...What went wrong?
David/Bud: Nothing went wrong...People change.
George: How?
David/Bud: Well...Sometimes they realize that what they thought they needed isn't what they need anymore...Sometimes they see that what they're scared of--they don't need to be scared of anymore. Sometimes they just...let go.
George: Can they change back?
David/Bud: I don't kow. I think that's harder.
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David's Mom: When your father was here, I used to think, "This was it. This is the way it was always going to be. I had the right house. I had the right car. I had the right life."
David: There is no right house. There is no right car.
David's Mom: I'm 40 years old. I mean it's not supposed to be like this.
David: It's not supposed to be anything.

These words keep coming back to me lately, when worrying about the future is giving me pause. I keep thinking of how "it's not supposed to be anything."

And I keep thinking about how if everything was always pleasant, and if we could always depend on the outcome, there would be no growth! Wow!