rebecca_in_blue | Feb. 8th, 2009

So I was off this weekend (hooray!) and yesterday I finally got around to something I've been meaning to do. In my otherwise lovely neighborhood, on my block, right outside my door, there's this stretch of sidewalk that's fallen into a serious state of neglect. It's covered with bricks and bottles, and weeds have sprouted up through cracks in the pavement and grown as high as my knee in some places. It's impossible to walk on it, which has always annoyed me, because Sable and I have to walk in the street. Ever since we moved in, I've been meaning to take pictures of it and send them in to the local paper as the "outrage of the week," in hopes that Somebody would Do Something about it.

But yesterday it occured to me that that's the only way that sidewalk will ever improve: Somebody has to Do Something. And I realized that I probably used that sidewalk more than anybody, and that I had the next day off. And I know it sounds stupid, but it made me think about Obama, and how he says that change will never come if we wait for Somebody to make the change for us. We have to make the change.

So this afternoon, after it stopped raining, I went out with two pruning sheers, gloves, trash bags, a broom, my iPod, sunglasses, and a water bottle. I don't know how long it took me, but I hacked back branches, ripped out weeds, swept away dust, and finally managed to clean the entire stretch of sidewalk. It was hard work, especially since there's virtually no muscle on my puny arms, but it gave me a great sense of fulfillment. A surprising number of the weeds turned out to be wild onions. I even pulled out a few tiny, marble-sized onions that had been growing in a large crack in the pavement, and the smell of them was so strong that it took me straight back to the lycee kitchen and Marlene chopping onions and crying.

The difference in the sidewalk is seriously amazing. Bear in mind that it was so bad that nobody had been able to walk on it for at least a decade, and I know because I've lived in this neighborhood for most of my life. But so you can see the difference for yourself, I took before and after pictures. When I look at these, I can't believe how much I accomplished.

I swear this is the same sidewalk.