Changes

By Author: Peter and Roberta Budvietas
Total Articles: 1
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My Mama Done Told Me
Changes.
copyright 2002 Peter B Budvietas
The summer after my twelfth birthday, we moved from the Gorbals to Castlemilk.
It was still a tenement building, but, instead of four or five families to a floor, there were two. The flats were bigger, brighter and not just because they were newer. We had two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchenette and a bathroom instead of kitchen and bedroom. You've no idea what it meant not to go out to the toilet, and the pleasure of the bathtub, with real running hot water that we didn't need to boil and pour into a tub. Instead of the grey streets, we had gardens, one in front and one in back. Most impressively, we had these wide windows in every room, instead of those long high narrow ones from before.
There were also inconveniences. For example, instead of being only a ten minute walk from Glasgow Cross, it was a twenty minute bus ride. Instead of a dairy, fruiterer and newsagent just outside our close, we had to walk to the shops, which had far less variety. It would be a few years before they opened up the Castlemilk shops; about ten minutes ...
... walk from our place. But worst of all, there were no local cinemas.
Castlemilk felt like it was out in the countryside.
In the Gorbals, most of Mum's adult friends lived within a five minute walk of our house. With her piecework, Mum could walk to the businesses, pick up the work, and be home in less than 30 minutes, even carrying my younger sister or my brother. Dad could even walk to his place of work. And, of course, there was the convenience of knowing the various shopkeepers and being able to get bargains on many different items, because of the friendships with them.
The change was, to my eyes, one of the biggest that could ever happen, even bigger than the change when my older sister went to Canada.
"Why did we move to Castlemilk?" Sandra, my younger sister, asked, "I've lost all my friends!"
I could grasp that it wasn't our choice. The city council had decreed that the Gorbals were to be torn down. Even though Sandra had not realised it, I knew that we were not the first to be relocated - the previous year, friends had moved to strange places like Drumchapel and East Kilbride. I even knew that Mum had argued with the council about where we would move to; she didn't want to go to such places, and had chosen Castlemilk as the least objectionable of the options.
"You'll make new friends, Sandra," Mum told her. "You'll go to a new school, and just watch. You'll have more friends than ever."
I complained as well - before, I could come home for lunch. Now, because I had to take the bus to school, I would have to eat at school.
"Oh, this is a big change," Mum answered. "There are many things which are different. Your Dad has to take buses to work, and that means he'll be much later coming home at night, and leaving much earlier. And I'll have to be out a bit more, when I go to collect my work."
"But, Mum."
"Think of it as a great new adventure. Look at the woods you can explore! Look at all the places you can play games!"
"But we can't just skip off to the movies like we used to!"
"Well, maybe we'll get a television set. You'll soon find new things to do and keep busy with. And I heard that the library will be opening soon, and that's not too far away."
Big changes like our move, according to Mum, only seem hard on the surface. Within a short time, we accept their necessity and inevitability. When we do, we often forget what life was like before the changes.
"Remember the big word we once found? P-A-R-A-D-I-G-M, I think it was spelled?"
"Yes, Mum. We thought it was said as para-dig-um, and wondered if it had something to do with parachutes."
"Right, Peter. Well, a big change is like a paradigm shift. Until it happens, no matter how much you plan for it, it always seems impossible. But once you have made it, the result seems as if nothing has changed at all. We've just had a paradigm shift, from the Gorbals to Castlemilk. I'll bet that you and Sandra will hardly remember the Gorbals in a couple of months."
Mum was almost right. By the time the school year started, we no longer thought much about the move. Castlemilk was now home territory. But, even today, I still remember our old place, even though it no longer exists.
The next year, Mum commented: "You see, big changes take care of themselves. Look at how well you, Sandra and Rowland have settled in. Even Dad is happy about living here, especially since his work place moved - the bus stops only minutes from where he now works. If we hadn't moved, he'd have to take two buses to get there."
"Yeah, Mum. You were right. Castlemilk is so much better than the Gorbals."
"But something is bothering you, still."
"Well, it's the library."
"Oh?"
"When we moved up here, the library seemed to be so much bigger than the one we used in the Gorbals. Now, it seems so small. There are just not enough books."
"That's it?"
"No, Mum. It's just part of it. I just miss the ice cream shop we sometimes went to, the one that used to be just around the corner from us."
"Why's that?"
"Well, they've just opened one up at the shops beside the library." It was literally the first business to open where they were building the "big" shopping centre. "The ice cream just doesn't taste right."
Mum chuckled. "Well, Peter, I said that the big changes take care of themselves. It's the small ones, like the taste of ice cream, that are very hard to put up with".
What changes have you made and have your paradigms shifted? Do you still remember the old paradigm? What are the small changes that still bother you?
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