the thin line between optimism and delusion…

A lot of the sidewalks in my neighborhood are not concrete, but are dirt or grass.  The sidewalk outside my parent’s house is reddish sand, that is deep at points, deep enough that my little hybrid bike tires get bogged down.  Todd says I shouldn’t ever ride my bike on the sidewalks anyway, because that is the best way in the world to get hit by a car coming out of a driveway.  He is probably right, since I think he has been hit by a few cars. 

I love the red sand sidewalk, with the big roots of the huge trees that line the street.  Down the road a little bit and across the street there is a strip of sidewalk that is no longer sandy, but grassy.  Grassy with the same sort of big roots, and shady from the trees overhead.  And it is long grass.  Long grass that when trampled smells of rain and dirt and springtime in the backyards of my childhood. 

The best part about this little strip of shady, grassy sidewalk, other than the fact that it always seems to be damp and cooler than everywhere else, is that little blue flowers grow there in the spring time.  Pretty little pale blue stars.  These little flowers have hollow stalks, and don’t take very kindly to being picked.  These flowers also grow in other scattered spots around the neighborhood, but nowhere in the abundance of this strip of sidewalk.  When they are in full bloom there are always mothers taking pictures of their children. 

This year there seemed to be two bouts of the flowers, a first growth of the pale pale blue variety, and about two weeks later after a big rain another growth of the same flowers in a deeper blue color.  Like when the new green grass grows up through the old grass. 

Two things about these pretty little flowers. 

1.  I found one growing in my back yard yesterday.  Actually, there were a couple of them, but they weren’t growing in a patch, they were solitary little souls growing all alone.  Of the pale color. 

2.  SOMEONE thought it was a good idea to mow the path through the pretty little star flowers the other day.  WTF?  I mean, really.  They last a month, tops.  There is no need to mow them up.  Everyone can stomp on through them.  It made me sad.   There was a border of crushed blue flowers that didn’t get mowed up, but did get smashed in the grass along the path.  WHO DOES STUFF LIKE THAT?  Probably the same people who cut down all the trees on a lot before they build a house.  Idiots.