youth

Thanks to my cryptic Finite professor, I was up until two in the morning last week scratching my eyes out while trying to multiply matrices and reciprocals and what have you.  Anyway I rolled (literally) out of bed the next morning incredibly exhausted and expecting a pretty below average day to be ahead of me.  However, my day was, in a word, serendipitous.

The happy surprises began as I was walking home from my grueling Finite course.  I love the walk back to my apartment...it's downhill, relaxing, and I take a residential road rather than walk through campus because I love to admire the old character homes.  I was nearly crossing the threshold separating these charming homes from our, um, next to charming apartment complex, when I spotted the most inspiring doodle on the sidewalk.  A child had used white chalk to sketch an oversized hopscotch path.  My heart stopped for a moment, as did my feet.  I hovered over the drawing for a few minutes, taking it all in.  My thoughts raced down memory lane and feelings from my happy childhood flooded my heart.

We live in a society where "recess" means "alright kids, get out your iPad and let's all go play Angry Birds under that tree over there."  Don't get me wrong, the advancement of technology has been a blessing to America.  I believe that some of these gadgets can do things better than any of us ole humans ever could.  However, I'm not a fan of children drooling over an iPhone on a road trip when they could be playing the license plate game.  Children and technology have become so synonymous in America.  Maybe that's because "future," "technology," and "children" are all guilty by association.  I can't describe to you how happy I was to find evidence of children playing outside.  It gave me so much hope.   It was such a happy sight.  Yes, it was just one hopscotch path, but that makes me think there are many more out there.  There have to be.