The brown and green speckled carpet sinks, accompanied by a dull crunch with every step. The grass isn't quite green after a cold winter. That, or it's already dying from the heat. As I walk through the looping cul de sacs and winding neighborhood roads, the song "Little Boxes" starts playing in my head. "Little boxes, little boxes . . . They're all made out of ticky-tacky . . . They all look just the same." But I think to myself that despite the cookie-cutter floor plans and the pristine, sprinkler-infused lawns, each house has its own story. Every family has their own problems, every closet holds its own skeleton. Well, hopefully not literally. I wouldn't want to know about any "Disturbia" stories happening around here. Creepy.
In the middle of all these houses, a lonely soccer field sits, the one with the crunchy grass, looking a little neglected. It's a little run down, but not old enough to hold much history. This neighborhood, this town doesn't have any sort of antique feel to it. It's all so young and juvenile. I'm sure it would make an argument for itself, much like a teenager would argue for his or her maturity level... Even the old people seem new.
There's something to be said about the weight and depth held by an old house; the kind that's perceptible the moment you step onto the property. They're always surrounded by old trees, too. The soaring pines with straggly shadows. The trees that whisper rattling stories when shaken in the wind. The trees here are still too young to speak the language of the past.
Maybe in a few years these houses will develop scars and bruises, proof that lives are lived here. Soon enough the trees will take their first steps toward the sky. Their steps will grow stronger and their paces longer as their roots dig deeper into the ground. Soon, they will learn how to speak. They will tell the stories of those cuts and bruises - the mysteries of life and the lessons we will all someday learn.
Still, I walk past these rows of houses, "the pink ones, and the blue ones, and the green ones, and the yellow ones," as the song says, oblivious to the pages and pages of stories within. I'm consumed with my own story, and the few precious passages I've read from others'.
