The first book I ever read, a tattered paperback picture
book called “Changes, Changes”, now sits on Mihiretu’s bookshelf. It has no words so that made the
reading easy.
Every picture is made of colored building blocks, different
sizes, shapes and colors. You
know, early seventies, you make a wobbly tower and then knock it down.
The book begins with a man and a woman, both made of blocks,
standing facing the reader. The
next page they begin to build a house with more blocks. Soon they’re living in the house then,
whoops, the next page a fire has started.
They take blocks from the house and build a fire engine and hose, which
they use to extinguish the fire in what remains of the house. But, oh no, too much water, soon
they’ve created a sea. No worries,
they use their blocks to build a boat.
And on and on.
So now I’m imagining my life in blocks. I start as a small block person but add
blocks to become a grown-up. I
build a stage set and take my place in front of it. Then Ben, made of blocks, enters stage right and together we
build a little house. We add a little block baby, then another. We take the blocks from the little
house and make a bigger house in which the four of us live. Then we build an airplane, fly to
Africa, and build a jumping, running, soccer-ball-kicking Mihiretu. And so it goes, one thing building to
the next, always changing.
The last few years would find the block Ben and the block
Liz back-to-back tending block children.
Then maybe eye-to-eye, one block finger raised, one block hand on
hip. Then, finally, after many
pages, the two disassembling part of the big house, Liz carrying blocks away,
making a smaller house.
I’m here in that smaller house now. I moved on New Year’s Day - fitting, I
suppose. We are separated, Ben and
I. We are, each of us, all five of
us, taking the blocks we have and building something new. These changes, sometimes they’re a
fire, sometimes they’re a sea. But
you keep on building. You take
what you’ve got and keep on going, making whatever you can.
