“Write about the streets of your city.” Natalie Goldberg Writing Down the Bones

My street is an urban jungle inundated with brown squirrels jumping between the honey-locust branches hanging over the pothole-riddled road. Each historic house attempts to maintain a patch of green grass in their 5 foot by 5 foot plot of dirt attached to a sidewalk littered with tiny oval locust leaves and an abundance of rubber bands. The sun filters down the front of the houses only a few times a day, which keeps the tenants cool in our old grey-stone three flats in the summer and makes them feel like they live a limestone cave in the winter. Millie, a white American bulldog, is the block dog. Owning the north side of the sidewalk, she is never leashed and only nuzzles neighbors to say hello and snubs most strangers. Our little block seems like a dirty little quiet suburb speckled with diversity that erupts with an occasional midnight amateur firework display.