Change is good!

When I was a little girl my mom would take my sister and me on the train to Philadelphia. We'd go to the Please Touch Museum or, when we got older, the Art Museum. We'd eat a picnic lunch in Logan Circle, maybe stick our toes in the fountain if the weather was warm. If the fountain was empty we'd climb around on the sculptures. When I moved down to center city in January, the park was closed for renovation, the trees were gone, and things looked dismal. I swore and cursed the city for not consulting me before buldozing my sacred spot!
Yesterday I was walking down 19th St. and in front of me, framed by rectangular buildings, the fountains of Logan Circle shot into the air! The park is open again, it is clean and beautifully manicured and it sits directly on the walk from my house to my sister's. As I walked through today, new little girls were exploring the fountain's edge. They are children now and I am grown up. Many things have changed since my sister and I rode the train in Lilly Pullitzer dresses with a basket of peanut butter and honey sandwiches. The trees that shaded our picnics are not there for our children to sit under. But not everything needs to be repeated. The clear, unobstructed sunlight of the new park will be my reminder to let light shine unobstructed into my own life, which is not the life of my parents or even my childhood self.