Frozen in Time

I love where we live. We live in the city, but we live in a quiet little neighborhood with horses on two sides of us. Our property is also zoned for horses, but I doubt we’ll ever own any. But we do enjoy seeing them every day. It makes us feel like we’re living somewhere rural rather than in a hustling bustling major city. I love to go outside and just drink in the peacefulness. There are plenty of critters that inhabit our land, but I enjoy being able to watch them scurry and fly around.

We used to live in a busy neighborhood across the street from a school, with neighbors who, well, were not all that quiet. They had loud parties. They played their car stereos ridiculously loud at all hours of the day and night. They threw their cigarette butts and beer cans in our driveway. Once, they even put their lawn chairs in our driveway and sat there smoking and drinking. Rude people. I couldn’t wait to move.

Here, we rarely hear loud music. We have our own little drive that gets very little, if any, traffic, other than when people are visiting us, and yet we have really good neighbors that would watch out for us if we needed them to.

Peace to me is the feeling I get when I walk around our yard, feeling the sun on my face, listening to the birds twittering, the horses neighing and the hum of the cars on the freeway a mile or so away. Peace is home - just looking out my back door.

Taken January 23, 2008.