In the neighborhood, is there a collective heartbeat?

My neighbors, the couple who had lived in the house across the street for 16 years, put their home up for sale, sold it in about a week and a month later moved to Hawaii.

We knew each other well enough to cross the street (both ways) and have dinner and there was a party or two. On my walks I saw one of them every day.

When I learned they were moving, I felt funny….change was coming, and I felt unsettled,my heart beat a little faster, and I wondered “Is there a collective heartbeat on the block?”

All these years, all of us who live on this block in ten houses have had an understanding…we come and go predictably, there’s no unexpected noise, and well, what else is there? Ultimately, doesn’t this predictability turn into a kind of heartbeat, even a collective heartbeat?

And when someone moves, doesn’t that heartbeat change until the new coming and going is established?