Forever Changing
by Colin Blevins

Our daily actions change when we wake up in the morning because every day things change; they are each as different as we are. Each of us, while similar, yield new and exciting shapes and ideas - all unique if compared to the one before. As I rise from my slumber every morning I think of what is to come, what is already different, and I wonder about how this new day will change my life.

I've been told plenty of things that people said they know for sure. Some of it I don't believe and some I do, but there a few things that I myself know for sure. It's hard to say whether or not these things are of my own creation, or if they have been given to me through other experiences. It could've been anything, and it can be anything, that teaches you something - profound or not. These things are always changing, on their own and in my perception. How things change was one of my first questions in life, and it still perplexes me to this day.

Which brings me to one of those things that I think I know for sure: things change. They always have and they always will. From the beginning of time all things were able to exist because of change. A catalyst starts change, simply put. (It is something) each and every one of us are forced to be. We change the world around us everyday in our actions and in our thoughts, affecting more than people and animals, our presence affects all life the trees, the air, the water, everything. I came to realize this, I think, in my junior year of high school. I should say I acknowledged its principles by then. There really wasn't one specific moment that defines itself as the realization point; when change became the facilitator of, to, and for life in my mind.

As my high school career started, I was continuing my publicly maintained schooling in Friday Harbor . I slowly fell between the cracks as the first year progressed. I was one of the kids who sat in the middle of the class, got average grades, and didn't say much; as opposed to the kids in the front of the class who were always talking, and those in the back the teacher was always talking to. As the year went on I gradually became less and less present in class, as far as attendance was concerned, although I maintained a somewhat decent G.P.A. in all my classes. I don't know why I ended up on that path at the time, but it was obviously my preferred choice. It was never terribly fun to go to school. I never liked the faculty's or anybody else's ideas, about my relationship with school. So with little attendance and a less than perfect start to high school, I began to see the world, a little differently.

That year passed with less than what I would call, grace. Struggling to pass classes and get some sort of respect from the teachers left me wide open for suggestion about my educational pursuits. Logically, since on San Juan Island there are only two schools-- Friday Harbor High School , the public school, and Spring Street School , the private school-- my parents suggested that I attend Spring Street. My future split into two paths ahead of me. Little did I know that by trying that new experience, by just dipping my brush into another color, I'd be pushed to find more of myself along the way. By, again, acknowledging the persistence of change in the world around me, and taking hold of those changes, I was propelled in a new direction.

I tell myself all the time that I wouldn't be the same person if it weren't for that simple switch in the daily routine. Sometimes I think that I wouldn't have finished high school if I not switched schools. Who knows where I'd have ended up? My life was altered by that educational difference. There were seventy kids-- give or take-- in my first year at Spring Street School , which teaches sixth through twelfth graders. There was more than enough time to have your voice heard by everyone, due to the size of the classes. My teachers were compassionate, reasonable people most of the time and were willing to listen as much as they were willing to talk; the individual attention I was given was a tremendous help; which relates closely to the class format. The classes there are very similar to those at Fairhaven College , The Evergreen State College and other similar schools. We learned through everyday discussions between the teachers and students. The teachers don't call them seminars, but that is the style each class chooses to use more often than not. The school prides itself in "experiential education," as it is called. Now, experiential education means a lot of things, like those things mentioned above and, for Spring Street, it means mainly travel.

In my junior year I traveled with 12 students from Spring Street, one from Se- home high school, one from Friday Harbor high school, and 8 college students from around the northwest and parts of Arizona . We went to Thailand , Malaysia , and India over the course of seven eternal weeks, and all of us were transformed by the experiences we had there.

" Thailand is beautiful," I tell most people I talk to about the trip. It's true, it's worth seeing, too. But there are only some people I can tell about India who understand what I mean. I tell the dreamers, the open-minded individuals, " India is a religious experience." All of what you see when you are there seems to be somehow rooted in religion. Simply living seemed to be a religious endeavor for some. I know it was for me, and I know that I can't say the same for anyone else, especially Indians. Living in India for any number them could be as un-religious as me living in the United States of America . I can't even begin to put the experience into words, but it changed me, from head to toe and from mind to soul. It gave me a global perspective on things. Changed my American view on life, on the world, about myself, about other people. it changed most everything I knew to be true within myself.

All of these changes that occur come from within - all of our actions do, they are all products of us as a whole. Mind, body, and spirit moving as one to stimulate and be stimulated by the world around it. Our daily actions change when we wake up in the morning because everyday things change; they are each as different as we are; each of us, while similar, yield new and exciting shapes and ideas and are all unique if compared to the one before. As I rise from my slumber every morning I think of what is to come, what is already different, and I wonder about how this new day will change my life.

On San Juan Island I continually experience the lack of change over time. When I leave for a time and return all I see was how little things change there. Little things changed all the time, one person at a time, but the themes of everyone's actions seem all the same. We as the youth, the locals, the workers, caterers, and caretakers have been pushed into societal submission without even knowing it. Our families and friends are the working class on the island. They maintain the balance between the island being a place of natural beauty and it becoming a theme park. The island and its islanders, myself included, have taught me that one of the keys to life is to be able to just "go with the flow" and be content with the outcome of any situation whether or not things have changed to a subjectively better degree. Unfortunately it seems that this uncaring, fun-loving, island life became too easy going. We were given a role there, and it's one of those things that you need to see from both perspectives, internal and external, before you realize that it persists through all of our personal changes.

All of us, continually changing, are only a small part of the changes occurring all the time. The little things we notice in everything are the changes, variations from the "usual." As we examine a flowerbed we look for the most exceptional flower, one which in some way looks different from the rest. As we look at that exceptional flower we look for the qualities that make it unique. Change is fundamental in our lives and all of us wish to understand it as much as possible. Whether or not we see this as a truth to life is dependent on the person. Each one of us defines how things change.

As I said before, all of these changes come from within, which makes me think that we can create our own future. Manifest destiny, fate, what ever you feel like calling it, it all ends up the same, and comes as a product of our physical selves. We are creatures on this earth and each person must place great importance on remembering just that. As we live on this earth we are bound to it. We depend on it for everything. It is us. We are it. Again no definition exists between life on earth and the earth, just like our bodies are one creature: mind, body, and spirit.

There are only few things that differentiate us from the earth; one is time. From the day we were born we have been traveling in some direction, to some random point in time and space where we die, in one sense of the word or another. But time keeps on going, maybe we do too, I can't know, really. But as we are a blip on time's line, the earth persists in becoming increasingly different from us than we are from it. Compared to the earth; the changes that we make throughout our lifetime are virtually meaningless.

I owe my life to the earth before anything else. It made me and so I respect it as much as I can. I feel guilty if I do something bad to the earth directly, otherwise my guilt is as distant as the problems seem to be. I have to justify it to myself if garbage flies out of my car and I "can't" go and get it. The abuse of the earth has become, almost, beyond belief to me recently. As I've grown older I've begun to notice how things change more often than not. Growing up on San Juan Island gave me perspective on the problems constantly facing its environment, i.e. tourism, over population causing excessive pollution, and neglect of the youth. Money has run rampant over San Juan . in the winter there are around 7,000 people, and in the summer it nearly quadruples. All three: money, nature, and luxury, create attraction to a place. "Oh, lets go look at the beautiful wilderness of San Juan Island !" people say before they come here. When they get here they say, "Lets buy a house!" It just plain doesn't work if everyone does that. All the land that could be saved gets sold. Sold to tourists who don't want to stay in hotels or to ones who believe they need a new summer home in a new location.

If people don't stop this senseless demoralization of the earth and its resources, America will continue in its attempt to make the world a materialistic one. One where money and plastics reign supreme, all the lawns are mowed, and every family consists of a happily married, straight couple, with two kids, a car, a dog and a cat, living in their house in the suburbs. Our culture craves it. And as American culture blindly presses its ideas everywhere, in and out. We need only remember man's connection with the earth and that we can only change ourselves in order to change the world. Only each of us, acting as individuals, make the difference. Each one of us makes change happen as we live our lives, and if I've learned anything in this life, I know we need to work together to change this world profoundly. Even if that starts by changing ourselves.

Colin Blevins: I was born on San Juan Island as in 1984 and grew up there until I was eighteen. My education consisted of public schools until the 10 th grade when I transferred to a small alternative school called Spring Street School . Eventually I was accepted to Fairhaven college in Bellingham , WA where I am currently furthering my studies.