GRASS

She loved grass. And she had forgotten how much until her toes touched the verdant tendrils.

Her nerves picked up the cool and raced it to her brain. They hadn’t forgotten what a treat it was. And they were happy to remind her—with lightning speed. She remembered before the age of reason how much she had loved the grass, how much she trusted it. It had never hurt her, and she could never really hurt it. It always seemed to bounce back. And if it got too trampled, a bit of water would bring back its buoyancy. Water always helped.

She remembered the joy of releasing her feet from the cumbersome leather and plastic and feeling her toes embraced by the grass. The neighborhood children flew across the lawns, unhindered except by the jaded elders screeching warnings from windows and sidewalks.

There were things in the grass at times, but the grass did not put them there. Rusty nails, thumbtacks, broken glass—these things were not part of the grass. Someone put them there at night like the weeds in the fields of Jesus. It was not in the nature of grass to produce such things—not in its nature at all! That’s why she loved it.

And it’s why she hated asphalt. She understood now, in part, the need for asphalt, but it was so very ugly, hot, and dark. One couldn’t water asphalt and make it better. In fact, water was its enemy. Ha! Water always beats rock—always. And the water could run over the asphalt, down its sides, and into the grass. Water always wins. Maybe that’s why God put a boundary on it.

She remembered the time the bee had stung her toe. The bee was not the grass. She understood, even then, why it hurt. She would have bitten back if she had been stomped on, too. It wasn’t the bee’s fault, and it wasn’t the fault of the grass. It wasn’t even her fault. It was a harmonic convergence, an unholy collusion bringing little toes, grass, and bee together.

So there she was—post innocence—tossing her shoes to the side as if they were garbage. Oh, she wished she could just keep them in the heap. Perhaps burning them as a sacrifice to safety would be an appropriate rite of spring.

But then she remembered asphalt . . . and summer and the city. She was sad she needed shoes.