There was this song I hated, not because it was a bad song, but because it got stuck in my head in that awful “can’t get that out of my head” way. This was back in the day (whatever that day was). David Bowie sang it and it went like this “ch ch ch changes…” and in the way we do when we think we know the words to something, but we don’t, I’d sing along “time can change me, but I can’t change time.”

Well, years later I found out (in a most embarrassing way) that David was singing “Time can change me, but I can’t trace time.” Big difference.

Change. We can’t get away from it. Good. Bad. Lovely. Awful. Everything changes. Impermanence is a universal law. Sometimes this fact is a balm and yet other times it is a comfort. “Oh,” I’ve told my kids over something awful. “This too shall pass.” Yet, when times are good, we don’t want to know that the time will pass. It does.

Time can change me. Yep, Bowie, it can. I’m thinking more about this than usual because my new novel just received a gorgeous cover and when I was with friends last night I said, “Yes, this is my eighth book”. I was instantly stunned by time’s passage and how there were only broken moments I could trace backward to the moment I told myself “I am finally going to write a book.”

I made a vow to write that one book and then time did pass. And time did change me. Good passed; Bad passed; Lovely came and went; Sadness overwhelmed and departed.

But for this moment, I am glad of this sublime cover and the people who helped form and create this novel, the team that cares about the story. So I’m grabbing it – the gladness – because that is all I can do: jump into that joy because there will be ch ch ch changes…