It’s easy to disparage change, to mock or belittle its worth as either unlikely or so predictable or repetitive as to be wholly unmerited. Yet as scornful as some may be about the prospect of change, it nonetheless inhabits an imperturbable strain of our personality. I acknowledge the adage, “there ain’t no ship to take you away from yourself, you travel the suburbs of your own mind“. But that penetrating insight does not succeed to impugn the elevation and excitement of impending movement and discovery.

Early this year – following the recovery of the Canadian and USA governments from border crossing restrictions – we signed a contract with an estate agent for the rental of a property on Key Largo for the upcoming winter 2022 – 2023. At the time I recall we were anxious to obtain the commitment because the recent record of travel was that people in unprecedented numbers were reigniting their vagabond spirit on the heels of a shut-down for many months due to COVID. As I write I continue to harbour worry about what further interruption may occur for some other reason such as a new strain of pandemic. If I were to adopt a devil-be-damned attitude, my own limitless abandon does not ensure the ruling governments will do so as well.

In the end I preserve a willingness to embrace what I hope will be a faultless border crossing and a gratifying diversion in the Florida Keys. The prospective design is united with the immediate pending removal from one side of town to the other. Once again the strength of change – whether at one’s front door or across an International border – raises the spectre of mere alteration, simple reconfiguration of one’s habitual veneer.

Though I haven’t any assured rebuttal of the projected or imagined extent of change, and though I fully acknowledge I am the identical baggage in either direction, it nonetheless fulfills some yearning I have for movement and discovery. My ambition is certainly far from being parallel to the physical exertion friends of ours currently pursue in Northern Italy, running or cycling up and down mountains.

The breadth of travel is naturally assured by the vastness of the globe. Yet the case to be made for life’s inescapable mandate is still as certain. Some things just never change.