A Cool Change

There is a fairly common meteorological phenomenon in Melbourne called "a cool change." Sometimes it is very dramatic, as it was last Sunday when it went from 102 degrees to 70 degrees in about an hour. Yesterday's cool change was less radical although still abrupt; the temperature dropped by 15 degrees in about 40 minutes.

As I spend my last hour in the quiet office here at Melbourne Uni that has served me so well, I am thinking a lot about the cool change that awaits us in a few days. The change from summer to winter, the change in companions, tempo, and the feel of our lives. Our flight across equator and date-line will drop us back into our prior life almost as abrubtly as the Melbourne winds change the weather here. I fear and crave change in almost equal measure, but there is something about this one that feels less exhilarating, like change without change--a reversion, a move into the past rather than into the future. But I know I am wrong about that and that we will reinhabit our lives in D.C. in a slightly new way for having been here. And even if we don't, the magic of the future is such that it arrives and changes us without our noticing, whether we go anywhere or not.

I close this chapter by hurrying off to Melbourne's most famous bakery to pick up a Croc 'n Bush, a tower of profiteroles drizzled with chocolate sauce to take to Jake's class and his good-bye party. There is no reason change can't be both cool and sweet.