There are no intersecting patterns

Towering high above the pavement of the street just outside my door there is a surprising number of trees.  The shade of all the trees makes walking along my street the perfect temperature during the summer.  I must either walk or bike at least six blocks of my street every day, and yet it never ceases to amaze me how much things can change in a short period of time.  Each time I see another intersection approaching, I try to remember whether this one has a sidewalk that ends at a curb, or one that slopes down into a crosswalk.  Every time.  Every time I find myself second guessing as to which sidewalk is which, but slowly I'm starting to remember with more surety.  It's just one of those things that I forget to think about until I'm anticipating each intersection, and that I forget immediately after leaving the street.  It never feels important until the sun sets.  It's something so simple, something so brief, and yet something I do so often that I'm ashamed to say that I still can't remember exactly which sidewalk belongs with which intersection.

It seems as if things would be better if there were some semblance of order to the whole thing.  To the structure and order of sidewalks intersecting the perpendicular roads.  Maybe they should all be the same, either all descending into a crosswalk, or all being cut off by a curb.  A pattern would be fine too, making it so much easier to remember.  Every other sidewalk ending in a curb, and vice versa.  But of course it doesn't really matter.  The sidewalks are just fine the way they are, and only the few of us who bike along the sidewalk in the dark would find reason to give it any thought.

This is not meant as any kind of complaint or manifesto.  In fact, when I'm walking and it happens to be raining, I much prefer the sidewalks which end in a curb.  With a curb there's only a narrow gutter stream which I must vault across instead of an entire puddle which has pooled up where sidewalk meets road.  The majority of the sidewalk I like, with its cracks and crumbling sections.  When it's light outside I bike on the road anyway, and all I have to pay attention to are the stop signs and cars.  And yet even while biking on the street with all the trees just outside my place I still find myself examining and slowly memorizing each sidewalk's manner of intersection with the street.  Maybe I'm just anticipating something.  The darkness is always going to return, and until I buy some clip-on lights, I must again relegate myself to the sidewalk.  Thankfully, the days are growing longer.