Metamorphosis

A friend who went to Australia sent me a pretty amazing postcard the other day. One of those images that reaches out and grabs you, that goes beyond depicting a pretty scene or a fun experience. The kind of picture that makes you think deep, philosophical thoughts and drives vivid memories from your past back into the bright foreground of consciousness.

OK, maybe I'm overstating it, but only just a little.

At first glance, it's just four shots of limestone rock formations on the coast of Victoria, Australia. Then... wait a minute... each one is captioned with a different date. 2 July 2005; 3 July 2005; 14 January 1990; and 15 January 1990. While the pictures are all of the "Twelve Apostles" and the "London Bridge," each is very different.

For starters, on January 14, 1990, when the place was still called London Bridge, it was a natural bridge from land to sea. Overnight, the part that connected the bridge to the land was gone. 

Fifteen years later, you can see why they changed the name. Bridge? What bridge? On July 2, 2005 it's simply stacks of rocks: presumably twelve of them, though in the photo you can only see six - and, then, well, just five by sunset July 3.

The ocean and tides had been doing that hard (or do I mean easy?) work of changing the landscape forever.

Which reminded me that in the 1990's, I was living in Santa Cruz, California, trying to be a vegan, dating a boy far too young for me, and frequently visiting a place called Natural Bridges State Beach. In 1990, there was only one mudstone bridge remaining of the original three. Today, there's no bridge at all, and the literature provided by the park service deemphasizes the rock formation and focuses on the main tourist attraction: the eucalyptus forest that forms the temporary home of over 100,000 Monarch butterflies during their annual migration.

If you had told me in 1990 that by 2012 I'd be a divorced, barbecue-loving special education teacher living in the Bible Belt and using the word "y'all" on a daily basis (not to mention everything in between), you know I would have said in my Valley Girl accent, "Yeah, like, right."

This postcard, then, is a literal depiction of how changeable all things are. It's called erosion at the beach, but the word has a negative connotation of destruction. In living things, it's not erosion. For the monarchs, it's called metamorphosis, which has a definition I can live with: a change in the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one.

This postcard is a reminder of what I sometimes forget, that ultimate truism: "this too shall pass."

And this is not, by its very nature, a bad thing.

Anonymous

I was waiting for Wendy outside a Starbucks on Government Street in Victoria, British Columbia when I noticed something odd. There was a little indentation in the side of the building, like you’d see for an urn at a memorial site. In the niche sat a crown of concrete. Beneath it, a plaque that read:

FIRST

DOMINION GOVERNMENT

CROWN ERECTED IN

BRITISH COLUMBIA

SURMOUNTING THE

POST OFFICE BUILT ON

THIS SITE IN 1873

Well, of course I took pictures.

Then: a firm tap on my shoulder. I turned and looked around, then down. An old, hunchbacked woman with a red and white scarf tied around her head peered up at me. Her small self was bundled in a black coat buttoned up to her neck. She wore black gloves and her white hair peeked out of the scarf. Her eyes were clear and bright.

In a right British accent she said, “I’ve lived here for 30 years and never noticed that there, what you’re taking pictures of. Let’s have a look.” We stood at the bronze inscription together. I felt compelled to explain, “I have a – um – thing – for post offices.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Oh, yes, I remember when this building still was a post office. A grand old thing it was. See this?” She gestured to the end of the block, past the Starbucks and Eddie Bauer stores. “All of this was the Post Office, the whole thing,” she sighed. “Beautiful inside. You could go in and never wait in a queue, and everyone was friendly and helpful.” I could practically hear the footsteps echoing across the old marble floor tiles.

Can you believe one of these women is 90?

I smiled at her encouragingly. That was all it took. As Wendy joined us (looking just a little puzzled), my new friend shared a bit of her story. Nostalgic for the old P.O., she showed disdain for the influx of chain shops on Government, the so-called march of progress. The new P.O. was relegated to a nondescript storefront where “nobody knows what they’re doing and the lines are just dreadful.” In a spurt of off-topic verbosity, she revealed that she was 90 and had moved to B.C. at 60 to be nearer her children. “I think people your age – you’re about my grandchildren’s age, I think – you’re the ones who appreciate things like this old building. The generation before you ruined things like this.” 

When I asked her name, she smiled coyly. “Oh, I never tell anyone my name. I say, ‘Call me Anonymous. Annie, for short.'” When I said I wanted her picture in front of the crown, she would only relent when Wendy posed with her.

Oh, Annie. If you weren’t so private, we might be pen pals.