Change: How to Negotiate It

“Blue-bore”, “blue-borie” – when the weather is gloomy or stormy, an opening in the clouds through which clear blue sky can be seen (Scots). Metaphorically, therefore, a glimpse of hope, a hint of the imminence of coming change. – Robert Macfarlane

September is the month for looking back. Forget the forced-celebrations of New Year, September was always the annual period of change. Countryside fields previously swaying with blankets of wheat now barren stubble, views emerging between the leaf cover, while evenings tucked in more effectually than my oversized school shirt that I’d only grow into after Christmas.

In the fall, change is in the air. December gets dark so early that it’s impossible to see what is in the air, meanwhile nature has burrowed so deeply underground that it’s hard to imagine it will ever emerge again. September is the opportunity to live with the glorious dog days of summer; to reflect upon its July strength as it now steps more carefully. It’s the chance to live in those memories you were making for some distant future; the time in which you now find yourself.

But, it’s not just all about getting changed, it is also getting dressed. September is also when you lose the ability to dress. In the morning you walk out of the house into the chilled North face of arctic winds and return into the house from a public sauna. You’re either shivering in shorts and flip-flops, or wandering around London like a cloakroom searching for owners of its final unclaimed jacket, coat, jumper, and a particularly ill-advised scarf.

Unless you’re a Lego figure no one is good with change. I once ate the same sandwich for six years at lunch. So that’s not once then. It was only a change of job that forced my hand. I’ve not been to the Kennington Sandwich bar since, but I’m sure they’d automatically start making the usual panini with nothing more than an understanding nod.

We all have our ‘usual’. We tend towards the same people, the same books and films, avoiding all the significant change that we can. But we can’t avoid it, and fall reminds us of that. It’s change that is forced upon us, like doing up your bathroom, discovering the price of a La Rochelle cast-iron bateau bath, and opting for a shower instead.

I’m currently making the final changes to my new novel, although to be fair that’s not narrowed down to autumn, it’s what I’m doing if you ever ask me, at any time, day or night. My disbelief at prevailing mistakes in the manuscript is matched only by the strange surreal sense that someone else wrote it. Someone occasionally funnier than I feel today, and certainly with a greater focus than I can currently even find buried beneath the sofa.

So, how do we cope with change? We drink, we shag, probably in that order. We exercise, we dive ankle deep into TV box-sets, we go to therapy, or shop for things we don’t need or already have; anything familiar and the same. Yet the only unchanging certainty in life is change. Therapy understands this, it is a moving forward that characterizes good mental being. As Kierkegaard wrote, ‘an existing individual is constantly in process of becoming.’ It makes it sound so easy, this sense of being robust enough to deal with the ‘new and improved’ Super Noodles that instead of providing a boat of steadfast calm in a rambunctious world now actually make you feel sick enough to fall over the side.

So, hold on tight. September was the drive home at midnight amidst memories of the swirl of summer lights and endless balmy nights. Now let’s bring on well-cut jackets and the thermostat arguments.

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