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Don't go down the rabbit hole
In September of 2008, we receive two very official looking letters from the city of Omaha. Written by an anonymous clerk somewhere, they tell us in friendly-but-firm wording our sidewalks are no longer good enough. The city offers us three weeks to fix it ourselves; in case we don’t feel like it, they will do it for us and send us the bill. We don’t feel like it. We don’t have a clue how to fix a sidewalk.
During the next six months, nothing happens. Then, one day, I come home to find violently green painted stripes all over my lawn and sidewalk. Apparently, the city hasn’t forgotten us; they’ve just been slow to follow up on their threat. A week later, impressive orange cones appear out of nowhere, making it nearly impossible to pull our cars in or out of the driveway. They must be serious.
“What’s going on?” my daughter asks when she spots the cones. I tell her about the cracks, made by the Maple tree in our front yard, and how the city wants them fixed. How they want the sidewalks to be smooth and brand new.
“Ridiculous”, she says. “As if a few breaks in the concrete make a difference. Can’t they just leave things alone?”
Ah, she’s having a profound moment.
Isabella is a big fan of ‘leaving things alone’. She doesn’t believe in throwing things away or replacing them just because they are chipped, scratched, or broken. Overall, this is a good thing: we don’t have much money, and like to buy things second-hand. Our addiction to thrift store shopping makes for a household full of what other people call crap. Nice crap, we think; original, unique, and creative crap. Isabella agrees: she likes things that have lived a long time.
A new chair is just a chair. An old chair, on the other hand, can tell a story. I think there is something inspiring about rescuing a piece of furniture that would otherwise end up in an anonymous landfill. I also think there is a lesson to be learned for little girls: we don’t have to discard something just because it has a crack here, a rip there. Although I draw the line at suspicious stains in awkward places, we don’t expect things to be perfect, just as we don’t expect her to be perfect. I hope it’s a lesson she internalizes before she is old enough to find out what Botox is. When the time comes, we won’t have to explain to her why she is not getting a nose job for Hanukkah.
Apparently, she’s learning it a little too well; I see her glaring at the workers in front of our house, who are just doing their job. She spends a few days muttering about that sidewalk; she can’t go skating or ride her bike in front of our house, and it adds to her overall irritation. Then the workers finish and the trucks leave. We now have a perfectly smooth sidewalk without cracks or stories.
On the other hand, we do have a very old maple tree out front. With a little luck, those cracks will come back within a year.
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