CHANGE
Starting my day with a walk in the park before anyone else is there is always special. The morning was overcast, humid, and a bit too warm to be really comfortable, but all that was replaced with peace and silence.
Mike, the dog, gets a little slower every day as the weather gets warmer, and he paced his way along our normal morning route without much interest. His nose is usually to the ground and alert for any new scents, but the humidity must have diminished the leftovers from yesterday, so there were few distractions for him and he trudged along slowly and watched an occasional bird flit by.
The sky was overcast with very low banks of fog that were probably only a few hundred feet thick but they made a comfortable, twilight blanket for the morning and muffled the sounds of cars on the nearby road. Being Saturday, most of the drivers were off this morning and that added to the seven AM peace.
Just before reaching my driveway when returning home, my next door neighbor and good friend, Bill, was walking his two small dogs and I stopped between our driveways to chat. They had listed their house for sale last Friday and it sold in less than one day! They had returned to remove the last of their furniture this weekend and then leave for good. After 27 years of being good neighbors and friends, it is a sad moment for me and the Significant Other to see them leave. Our occasional meetings for dinner always resulted in the best intellectual discussions of my recent adult life and I will truly miss that.
When I got home, the S.O. was out walking the two new dogs, Bella and Coco, and they had left a note on the back door for me and Mike.
Home is going to feel strange knowing that our friends will no longer be across the creek and through the woods. New people will move in and things will change.
Always change, it seems.
I don't have time for changes. I am irrecoverably stuck between yesterday and tomorrow.
Yesterday's memories fade to red as they recede and tomorrow's possibilities change from blue to violet as their approach velocity increases.
I try to hold on to the past and am overwhelmed by a new future.
Pixabay
Time marches on.
Entropy increases.
Things that were, are no longer.
The days dwindle down to a precious few....
Will
During the Middle Ages, mixed breeds of peasants’ dogs were required to wear blocks around their necks to keep them from breeding with noble hunting dogs. Purebred dogs were very expensive and hunting became the province of the rich.
Ah, change. The only constant.
Well, hopefully, you'll get to see the neighbor again, or at least talk over the phone. Regardless, you'll have a lot of memories and good times. I would say you are among the most fortunate of people on earth to have a friendship that has lasted so long. Those are hard to find, and sometimes harder to maintain.
The special ones are hard to give up because they become building blocks for who we are. No memory of friends could be be better than sitting at their dining table after one of Paulette's great meals, and staying for two more hours discussing whatever happened to be topical at the time.
The longer a friendship lasts, the harder it is to have it missing from your routine, even something as simple as chatting while walking our dogs along a deserted road.