It was at the start of summer that things changed. People just stopped coming in to me, driving by with focused expressions on their faces, not looking to the side or slowing at all.

Leo and Charlie took a while to notice the change. Then Nan mentioned it, "Barely anyone's coming in. I wonder what's going on?"

Across the street is a new guy, Sherwin Williams. I didn't know how to address the building now, like, "Mr. Williams" or if it was okay just to call it Sherwin. I asked Sherwin Williams (I decided I'd better just use the full name in my approach) about how busy they have been, or not, but since it is new in the neighborhood, it didn't have a relevant answer.

Polly (Polynesian Adventure Tours) and I are the old buildings in the area. But Polly hasn't talked to me in a while, thinking it is disloyal to her owners who are in the same business as my owners, Roberts Tours. (Charlie and Leo are just camping here, called "renting", for while they do their Tioli Creative Center business.)

Hey, since I'm owned by Roberts and rented by Tioli's, I guess I could be called Robert Tioli. I'll have to tell Sherwin Williams to call me that. Polly would laugh at my formal name for myself since she's pretty much always called me Rob.

Anyway, I feel like both the people and the structures have forgotten something.

The feeling from the people is that their money is going away. From the rising numbers on Tesoro's signs all summer, I would guess that money is going into the box that pumps out through a hose to their cars. Some day I'll understand why they don't just put the paper straight into the holes in the cars.

The feeling from the buildings is that they are going to sit vacant and not be kept up. I fear that too, I have to admit, since my yard guy just told Charlie that he hasn't been paid for four months, so he's not going to work for the landlords any more until he gets paid. I could see Charlie thinking about how to fix that situation and I wanted to yell at her that it's not her kuleana, but she seems determined to mix in. It means that I'm going to get all itchy again, though, with trash and plants growing up right against me, and the cats and bugs taking over. I was just feeling pretty trim and neat, with many of my sidewalks uncovered and restored. I haven't told the other buildings about the yard guy because it would just add fuel to their fears.

But the fact is that we're all going to die. The humans will go before us, unless there is an earthquake or lava flow or tsunami... you know, something that the earth does to shift around and get more comfortable. But over time, deep time, we will all pass into oblivion, and all my conversations with the other structures will cease their echoes. Our steel will rust, our cement crumble, and we will change form. All rooms are ruins.

It seems to me that since nothing lasts forever, we would do well to remember to be in this together (because we are). I find myself wishing that Polly would talk with me, that she would put away the word competition and let us cooperate to help both our owners do well. We could be having conversations about how to best meet our responsibilities of sheltering those who inhabit us, and how to comfort and encourage the buildings that lose their tenants. I've heard Charlie and Leo talking about how they need to continue to put money into their retirement account even though they can't afford to pay themselves. They seem to have the idea that time can be leveraged to their gain. This got me thinking. What if there are other ways to profit from change and not have it all be loss?

Over time I've come to see that if we can be patient, there is a positive trajectory to change. There is a bigger blueprint that I haven't completely seen, but get a sense of it being there under all our structures. I've seen that when people look to find the blueprint, there is a longevity to their efforts that doesn't exist when they act like today is how things will always be, no matter how wildly various each today.

This is what all of us are forgetting: Nothing lasts forever in its form. Whether people drive by or come in to the store will change some momentary things, such as losing Nan to a lay-off, and having a lot less stuff packed inside of me, and even whether Leo and Charlie will be the ones inside of me for much longer. But we all forget that these changes come in time anyway. It's the arrival of change sooner than we expect it that gets to us.

And then we forget to expect change at all.