I passed a favorite yard that always seems to have something in bloom. I stopped and collected my thoughts.
Noticing the trees bending and swaying; birds fluttering and chirping; flowers blooming is one reason I walk, so why, I asked myself, am I so miserable and disgruntled with my concrete surroundings?
The lanky daisies brushed my leg like a gentle fairy's touch, and my mood improved immediately. I smiled and decided to walk a new path to the other side of the hill where I could view the horizon. The weight of wishes that bore me down lifted the faster I walked toward the horizon.
When I came to the place where the sidewalk ended, I laughed. I stopped to give Lucy a drink of water. My eyes scanned the surroundings and I wondered how Shel Silverstein could possibly have written such delightful poems while surrounded by a concrete city (poem). The more I mused on the subject, the more I realized that it's not the concrete that binds me, but my own selfish wishes. The nearly hidden window on a home built on a busy
corner intrigued me. As if the home wished to be elsewhere in time and place, I felt myself drawn to whisperings of the ivy covered lot. I listened.
Lucy had no patience for the secrets of the home. With some effort she led me away down a hill, on a sidewalk where I could cast my eyes out across the horizon.
Slowing my breath, and with the help of my imagination I could see past the homes, visualize the horse farms in the distance, and feel the freedom of space. At last I understood: ignoring the rooftops, the streets, the pavement allowed me to relax.
Thanks to Lucy and Shel Silverstein, I found the place "Where the Sidewalk Ends," and my
imagination begins.