Change

      My neighborhood has changed some over the years. It used to be a quiet neighborhood inhabited by older graying folks with nondescript faces. Ordinary looking people who rode bicycles up hill in the dark. I remember an older woman in particular who would ride at night with a fluorescent green flag sticking up from the back of her bike. She lived in the house below me, down the hill.
      One day I noticed that her husband was gone. Just gone. I don't know what happened to him. I remember emergency vehicles showing up to their house one night. I don't know for sure if it was their house, or the house next door, but he did disappear forever.
      The lady sold the house in his absence. An ambitious couple bought it, fixed it up, and then sold it again. Now the house is sitting empty. It's been that way for a couple of months. I don't mind. It's peaceful in an eerie way. The lights come on, but nobody's home.
      I had it in mind to write this blog about noise. The neighborhood is noisy now. With ambition comes noise. I've also noticed that the ambitious have a distaste for trees. I'm not sure what that's all about. Maybe they see trees as a form of competition. I mean, let's face it, trees are much smarter than the rest of us.