Exercise

I

set out

to find

where

the sidewalk

ends.







Walking with purpose is what I had in mind when I left home. In my mind's eye I had charted the journey to maximize my safety, avoiding the busier, curvy road. About two miles from my subdivision is a newly constructed multi-use development packed with new homes and a shopping center. And although walking alone can be lonesome, I purposefully left behind the earphones and audio files. It would be important to hear and pay attention to my surroundings. I was investigating. Over the course of the next two hours, I covered about six miles of new territory, found the end of that particular sidewalk, and made it back home safely.

Only Shel Silverstein says it better -

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Shel Silverstein