“Change was never one of your strong suits,” my former mother-in-law wrote to me by way of acknowledging my recent half-mile Ballard relocation. Her words have always inspired a reverse psychology response in me. Within minutes of her email I went to the basement and sorted another box from the past, exercising my newfound ability to embrace change by recycling my 30 year-old college notebooks.

It seems that ever since last fall my life has been nothing but change, from the loss of the Seattle PI from the doorstep to a different doorstep.

There’s an Indonesian expression that became of book title, “When the World Was Steady.” I have been trying to find a sense of steadiness beneath my bare feet on these new to me (splintery) floors.

I’ve worked to find my footing while realizing I traded perhaps the only Ballard house with a dry basement for a more traditional model with built-in stream.

I still dream of my old block, dreaming myself back into my old house, popping out to chat while still in my bathrobe. Then the garden here started to pop and change seemed wonderful.

There is only ever one year when a landscape can be completely new, from the bush at the end of the walk to the sudden reddening of a hedge in the distance. Next year I’ll know to look for the coral tulips that are performing a can-can up the stairs. I’ll be expecting the fragrant bush by the trash cans that dizzied me this year with its scent, long before there was the hint of a bud on any tree.

Every day in spring the trees are different; they can be a curl of green in the morning and unfurled by afternoon. The Olympics, the Cascades, Magnolia, Phinney Ridge…every vista varies from day to day. Along Golden Gardens the embankment displays 100 shades of green. Even the storms add drama, the contrast of apple blossoms against a storm cloud different than against mere overcast.

As vegetation truly blossomed I stopped walking past my old block as frequently. I began exploring new streets as though my postal route had been changed. The scented azaleas, who knew they existed? Squirrels and crows eating sweet maple flowers in the neighbor’s yard; how did I not know about maple flowers until this year? The ground seemed steadier; the possibility of blending old and new more possible. Then the ground literally opened beneath our feet.

At first we referred to the clear absence of dirt beneath the sidewalk as a sink hole but I learned from the City of Seattle that the correct term is void. I was inspired to trace the saying back to ancient philosophers, “Nature abhors a void.” So not true. Nature loves a void, like those being left by tunnel-borers on Beacon Hill as pockets of sandy soil shift to create real holes.

I’ve heard the City of Seattle‘s common response is that sidewalks are the responsibility of the homeowner. But if the city’s blocked drain caused the void beneath the homeowner’s sidewalk then who has responsibility? For now a bright orange sawhorse stamped City of Seattle Department of Utilities and two bright cones sit on the concrete above the void. It took many phone calls to have the drain cleaned and many more before the Department of Transportation’s Pothole Rangers peered down into the mini-abyss.

“The boss will have to look at this,” said Wayne and they were gone; their orange sawhorse the only sign that they might one day return.

The last 20 years in a 1904 Ballard house have taught me to expect the unexpected; from the encroachment of tree roots into the old ceramic sewer lines to the live electrical wires on my car when the house across the street burned. I respond well to emergencies, less well to subtler forms of change like tree removal or change of garbage collection day.

It was no a joke that if I did move that I would be incapable of leaving a five block radius. I’ve struggled most with the minute details of relocation - with the later (or non-existent) mail delivery, life with an alley rather than homes tethered together the way they sometimes rope small children on field trips.

I’m tired of calling the city and tempted to jump up and down on the concrete to see if it will just go ahead and collapse. The precipitous weather has proved that we cannot control nature. We can’t protect the lilacs if they bloom during a deluge. I can sand bag the water at the basement door but I can’t stop the underground stream when the slope is saturated. All that I can do is savor the fact that there will never be another first spring in my new home.

Unlike the one time nature of childbirth the daffodils and tulips will be re-born next year but I will have already seen their faces. Perhaps next year there will be less rain, perhaps the soil will be firmer. Whether or not the concrete people from the City come through perhaps I will have finally filled the void between the past and the present, proving that change can be my strong suit after all.