Concrete Ideas

This is my second favorite concrete doodle in South Pasadena.  My first?

Rebel Artist

"You know why I love coloring on the sidewalk, Mommy?"

She put down the chalk and looked up.

"Why?" I said.

"Because nobody tells me to color inside the lines. The only lines I have to color inside of are the ones on the sidewalk."

"That's true."

"Wait a minute," she said. "I don't even have to do that! I can color the pieces of grass, too!"

"I think that's an excellent idea."

She sighed before picking up the chalk again.

"You know," she said. "I wish school was more like this sidewalk."

(Me too.)

Messages Underfoot

You guys know how much I love these sidewalk scrawls. (Whenever I see this one I think it either says Rock or I Love Calvin Klein.)

The Names May Be Different...

...but all these sidewalk scrawls make me think of this song. (And the song makes me think of this house.)

Public Display of Affection

There's a great scene in The Philadelphia Story where Katherine Hepburn gleefully tells a room full of wedding guests, "years ago, you were invited to a wedding in this house and then I did you out of it by eloping to Maryland...which was very bad manners... But I hope to make it up to you by going beautifully through with it now as originally and most beautifully planned." That sentiment resonates with me in a way. Because 9 years ago today, Jon and I eloped to the West Indies for a gloriously romantic, wildly indulgent, hopelessly ridiculously wonderful wedding in the island paradise of St. Lucia. We don't regret it for a second -- no huge wedding bills, no uncomfortable scenes with drunk guests, no bad salmon or lukewarm coq au vin or hideous bridesmaids dresses or DJs insisting on playing The Chicken Dance. Instead? Bliss, in a place that was so beautiful it didn't feel quite real.

The first night we were there, I looked out through the open louvered windows of a rustic 19th Century cottage at a huge moon dangling over the Caribbean, leaving a silver filament across the surface of the water. Little tree frogs made big night music. So many fireflies hovered in the palm trees, it looked as if both of the Pitons and all the cascading foliage were strung with Christmas lights. It was a perfect, private place to be in love, to start marriage, to sit under that otherworldly dome of stars and plan a future.

But, it didn't give us the one chance to do what most people do when they get married: stand up in front of all of their friends and family and make vows they want the entire world to hear, and share.

So, in lieu of inviting all of you to some thrown-together road trip to a Vegas Elvis chapel, I'd like to take a moment to say this. In front of everyone. In front of my friends and family members and every other kindly soul who views my daily glimpses of life here. I'd like to take a moment to say a few new vows to my husband, who after nine years has figured out I'm not quite the girl he married in St. Lucia, but still loves me, anyway:

I, Laurie, take you my Jon. Not because we're young and everything seems possible, but because we've grown up together, and you still make me believe that something wonderful is just around the next corner. I promise to keep loving you even when love seems like it's trapped in a web spun of troubles. I promise to remember the weird, glowing, spectacular uniqueness inside of you and find every way I can to keep its light bright. And I promise, just like I did 9 years ago when Mrs. Weeks our City of Soufriere civil officiant formally asked us, "will you promise to always remember to have fun together? To always remember to play?" Yes, I will. I will.

I always, always will.

Happy anniversary, Groom.

Dr. Heidegger's Experimental Sidewalk

Even stamping it in pavement can't change its transitory time with us. I wonder who tried? I wonder who attempted to retain it, right there in old cement?

I know, it's just somebody's name. It's a signature for whoever poured the foundation of the now old house that was, back then, young. But maybe Ponce de León was just a few centuries early and on the wrong coast. It's not a fountain of youth after all. It's a sidewalk.

And I'm going to linger on it every time I walk by.

Puzzle Piece

When you take the same walk every day, you start to notice things. I noticed this.

Is it a hieroglyph? A cartoon donut? A carving of the rune uruz, symbolizing health, strength and new beginnings? The letter E in a circle?

Someone went to the trouble of carving this in wet cement. Did the cement dry before they finished it?

What do you think?

Indelible

I like to think that Tony and Lisa are still in luv. Maybe they had their first kiss while checking out the view from underneath the water tower. Maybe he proposed to her one sunset along the Arroyo. Maybe they cruised around in something fast before finally settling down. Maybe they still go out for breakfast on Saturday mornings or perhaps ice cream on Sunday afternoons. Maybe he still beats her at mini golf. (Maybe she still lets him win.)

What do you guys think?

Love Street

You all know how much I love doodles in cement. (Actually, this one is my all-time favorite.) There is something so wistful and sweet about these signatures from the past.

Curbside Rebel

South Pasadena's craggy old sidewalks have an abundance of doodles and signatures, but this has to be my absolute favorite. As far as radical acts of punk rebellion go, this one is pretty understated, wouldn't you say? (Maybe it was written by someone like Rose, who was unable to express her punk soul any other way...)

Concrete Rose

Neighboring Pasadena is known as the rose city, but this mysterious South Pasadena Rose fascinates me. I step over her name every time I take a walk in my neighborhood and with each crossing I wonder who she was and when she made this defiant mark in the sidewalk cement. I think names written in concrete are wonderful things – and for whatever reason, South Pasadena sidewalks have a lot of them. Unlike cemetery markers – so final, so respectful, so literal – these signatures are a testament to a city’s playful, chest-thumping whimsy. Whoever Rose is or was, one day she leaned down, picked up a stick and left this statement that she was here, a part of this place. Right on, Rose! The next time I see a patch of wet cement, I’ll be hard pressed not to do the same thing.