Walking to Work

When you walk a familiar path, where do you look? Do you look for the spot to land your next footstep? Do you look at something far ahead? Or do you stare at nothing special as you think deep thoughts?
When I walk to the bus stop en route to work, there are lots of interesting things to look for. I see the work a neighbor has done to build a retaining wall. I see the new addition that another neighbor is building. I see that a neighbor has brought some fence material home. Now I need to watch to see how quickly he moves forward with the project.
Some times I notice the cracks in the sidewalk and remember back to when we chanted the line "don't step on a crack, cause it will break your mama's back." Boy, would we walk gingerly to avoid stepping on a crack for this cause. But if the cracks got too close together, someone would change the chant to "don't step on a crack, cause it will break your teacher's back." When that was the chant, we were eager to step on a crack if our teacher was perceived to be mean.
Some times you must stop all progress to marvel at the way a tree leaf emerges. Recently, I noticed that a laceleaf maple tree leaf grows to full length before it starts to unfurl. Then each day you notice that the leaf grows broader and broader somewhat like a fan stretching out. You know, the fans like the elegant people used at the theater before air conditioning.
But some times you notice things that gnaw at you. There is this duplex where the people come outside only to smoke and talk on the phone. The yard has a birch tree that was broken at Christmas when someone must have tried to climb up the scrawny thing to put Christmas lights on it. Well, the partially strung lights are still in the tree and after six months no one has removed the lights or the broken tree. The yard has not been moved, no weeds have been pulled, the sidewalk is almost overgrown like the jungle and bear cans where they landed.
I was told by a friend that I need to let things go. I take too many things too seriously.
But then there are the times that you no more have started toward the bus that you are already there. Those days I have been thinking ahead to when I will be riding bicycle with my grandkids at the beach. Or sharing popcorn over the campfire. Or tutoring the next generation how to carefully heat up graham crackers and chocolate on a flat rock by the same fire that you are toasting the marshmallow.
And then there are the times I compose, in my head, good stories to tell my grandkids at bedtime. I always try to think up stories that can have characters with the same names as the grandkids that need their rest for another day of bicycles, dogs, popcorn and s'mores.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'