76/365 My steps

I had to run out to the car a few nights ago to retrieve something I'd left out there. Probably a bag from Target. I was barefoot and carefully made my way down my steps--my grandmother called them Mississippi concrete, but I'm not sure where that term comes from. They are rough underfoot, set with gravel and cement. The top step of the stoop is caving out from the underside, due to root migration and erosion over 100 years. I know we'll have to patch it come next spring, with some ill-matching cement patch Jake finds at the hardware store. And the patch will catch my eye and irritate me for years until I start to forget the jagged edge and see the patch as just another part of the steps.

A few weeds try to grow in the crack between the second and third steps, but this is a place where I sit to watch kids run up and down the sidewalk, and then pulling weeds is an idle hobby, not a chore. They never last long.

These are my steps. This is the bridge between my private life and my public face. This is where I greet the delivery man and the guy asking for money for the bus. I stand here in my bare feet, almost always in my bare feet, and feel the clammy concrete feel my presence.