{"id":15723,"date":"2017-11-06T15:06:20","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T20:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=15723"},"modified":"2025-09-25T15:40:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T19:40:36","slug":"time-and-change-by-psw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=15723","title":{"rendered":"Time and Change (by PSW)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/strong>: Adam reflects.\u00a0 Written for the December 15th Pinecone Challenge, and expanded for inclusion here.\u00a0 Prompt\/lyrics: The morning sun when it’s in your face really shows your age. (Rod Stewart)<\/p>\n

Rating: K\u00a0 \u00a0Word count: 754<\/p>\n

Scenes From Our Next Life series:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like You Were<\/a>
\nYounger<\/a>
\nA Good Life<\/a>
\nTime and Change
\n<\/a>Home
\n<\/a>Warm Milk and Memories<\/a><\/p>\n

Time and Change<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Adam.\u00a0 Whatcha doin\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

Caught out\u2014and by the kid, no less.\u00a0 I stand, looking away from the sluggish autumn stream, and he sidles nearer.\u00a0 Jamie Cartwright.\u00a0 This new brother I\u2019d only met in letters (and only a few of those) until a month ago, when I\u2019d arrived back home after ten years away (the last two of those completely out of reach). \u00a0The lack of communication had been unplanned, but it had happened all the same\u2014an extended trip through some of Australia\u2019s vast rural spaces, a missed letter here, a few wires crossed there \u2026 and the next thing you know, I\u2019m standing at the port in Sydney holding a letter from my brother that tells me life is changed forever.<\/p>\n

Hoss is dead.\u00a0 Hoss \u2026<\/em> is dead<\/em>.\u00a0 I still can\u2019t think the words without pain stabbing right through me.\u00a0 Joe was married and widowed, all in less than a year.\u00a0 Pa\u2019s slowing down.\u00a0 Things have been hard.\u00a0 The Ponderosa is doing okay, they\u2019re making out all right, but it would be good if I would come back.\u00a0 He (Joe) had about given up on me, but a friend convinced him that there was a lot of distance between Nevada and Australia, and maybe he should try me one more time.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t even dredge up any annoyance over the distrust screaming off those pages.\u00a0 My little brother\u2014my whole family<\/em>\u2014had been through a lot, and had heard nothing from me despite repeated attempts.\u00a0 Frustration, anger even, was only to be expected.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t done anything wrong \u2026 but neither had they.\u00a0 After two years, what were they supposed to think?\u00a0 I just got on the first ship home, which in any case had been the plan all along.<\/p>\n

And life is<\/em> changed.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t expected it to stand still while I was gone, but I also wasn\u2019t prepared for the shock of what ten years had wrought.\u00a0 The land is the same, of course\u2014the hills, the lake are solid, immovable\u2014and I\u2019m glad of that, at least, because I\u2019m not sure how I could deal with all the rest otherwise.<\/p>\n

Pa is \u2026 old.\u00a0 Older<\/em>, at least\u2014lined and thinner and moving so much more slowly.<\/p>\n

The house is both too big and too small without Hoss\u2019s booming presence.<\/p>\n

Joe, my baby brother, is completely grey.\u00a0 He\u2019s quieter now, more reflective, though sometimes I still see the old glint in his eye.\u00a0 He\u2019s also remarried\u2014that friend, the one who convinced him to write to me one more time.\u00a0 I owe her for that.\u00a0 Lina\u2019s good to him, and to Pa, Jamie, Hop Sing (who\u2019s also getting pretty slow on his feet).\u00a0 Me.\u00a0 To pretty much everyone who walks into the Ponderosa\u2019s yard.\u00a0 Joe made a good choice in her, on any number of levels.<\/p>\n

Jamie \u2026 he was no surprise to me, of course, but it\u2019s odd having a kid in the house again.\u00a0 He has a tendency toward the same types of scrapes Joe used to find himself in, but without Joe\u2019s brash self-confidence to push him out the other side.\u00a0 The kid grew up in the back of a wagon with his pa like I did, but I get the feeling that\u2019s one of the very few similarities in our upbringings\u2014until my<\/em> pa took him over, that is.\u00a0 I think sometimes he\u2019d like to ask me about it and doesn\u2019t know how.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not the only one still adjusting to my return.<\/p>\n

And if I\u2019m honest with myself, my home and family aren\u2019t the only things changed.\u00a0 That reflection I was staring at when Jamie found me \u2026\u00a0 I don\u2019t often remember that I\u2019ll be fifty in a few years, but time doesn\u2019t stand still for anyone.\u00a0 O Time and change! \u2013 with hair as gray as was my sire\u2019s that winter day \u2026\u00a0 <\/em>I\u2019m not as grey as Pa\u2014not yet\u2014but the poet\u2019s thoughts are still my own.\u00a0 How strange it seems, with so much gone of life and love, to still live on!*<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou okay?\u201d Jamie asks, tentative.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve let my thoughts distract me.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u00a0 It\u2019s just \u2026 the morning sun.\u201d\u00a0 I motion to the water at our feet.\u00a0 \u201cWhen it\u2019s in your face, really shows your age.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jamie frowns, then shrugs philosophically.\u00a0 \u201cI guess so.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not old enough yet.\u00a0 And I need to quit dwelling on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome on.\u201d\u00a0 I grip Jamie\u2019s shoulder, and he grins up at me.\u00a0 \u201cWe need to get back.\u201d<\/p>\n

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~<\/strong><\/p>\n

*From \u2018Snowbound: A Winter Idyll\u2019<\/em>, John Greenleaf Whittier, 1866<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Next Story in the Scenes From Our Next Life series:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Home<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tags:\u00a0 Adam Cartwright,\u00a0Family,\u00a0Jamie Hunter Cartwright<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Adam reflects.<\/p>\n

Rating: K\u00a0 \u00a0Word count: 754<\/p>\n

Scenes From Our Next Life series, links to stories of this series included.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10468,"featured_media":15722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-full-width-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[8,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-stories","category-challenges","wpcat-8-id","wpcat-40-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/CF6B97F4-6BBD-4149-BCA4-8B2B5E3AD24C.jpeg?fit=634%2C627&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}