Many of the sidewalks where I live are cracked like this one, which has the lovely crackle effect of an old painting. These sidewalks, some upheaved over the years by tree roots, others shattered by winter freezes and by the weight of passing feet, are the reason people tend to walk in the streets instead. I wonder if we skirt these delicate stretches of concrete because of a reverence for them? I myself find them to be worthy of hanging beside the most beautiful works of art. Even the Mona Lisa cannot boast of having had children's bare feet and their bicycles, too, running across her as these sidewalks can.
One summer a number of years ago I took a train from Austin to the little town in northern Illinois where I was born. While I was there, I made a pilgrimage to my grandmother's old house and paced up and down her sidewalk and even ventured down the old driveway, the very same driveway that I played upon as a child. It was as cracked into jigsaw puzzle pieces as the above photo.
So I knelt down and captured two small pieces and hid them in my pocket and brought them back to Texas with me. I can hold them in the cup of my hand like worry stones. Or more like memory stones.
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