Jenna Weber
Sep 25, 2024
In December, I burnt the side of my face with a curling iron. I have naturally curly hair. And, now, a scar on my left temple.
I think Shel Silverstein would make a poem out of me fit for Where The Sidewalk Ends. I imagine something similar to “Ridiculous Rose,” whose mother told her not to eat with her fingers so, instead, “she ate with her toes.” I don’t know what the poem would be called--my J name makes those alliteration icebreakers impossible. But I do know that the piece would open with an offbeat, ridiculous description of my hair, like ‘strands of dancing worms’ or ‘swinging noodles.' And if Silverstein opted for the latter, I bet good money ‘poodles’ would find its way into the next line.
The description would evolve into a story in which I look in my mirror and take a hot tool to the face--minus the profanities and a very glamorous (unsuccessful) trip to my dermatologist. Silverstein would not waste words on my carelessness or my vanity. Rather, he would tie my story up with a bow: learn from this irony! Be grateful for what you have!
Maybe I just don’t read enough children’s books, but I admire Where The Sidewalk Ends for its simplicity. When I was younger, I loved the collection for its illustrations. Now I remember its scary stories most…well, the ones I considered scary. I shuffled through my old copy in August as I packed books that would return to Nashville with me. I had forgotten the collection existed.
But when I saw the illustration of the crocodile at the dentist, I felt like I had swallowed a rock that I had swallowed before; my stomach found a familiar heaviness upon recognizing the dentist’s pliers, his figure crouched within the creature’s jaw, and teeth scattered like toenail clippings. Looking at the picture felt like being in the dark--I’m pretty sure I’m not afraid of it anymore, but I can’t guarantee I won’t jump if I hear a noise.
The other poems I remembered felt familiar, too. The illustration for “For Sale” – the brother’s belly peeking out from under his shirt, the sister slouching at the other end of the page– made me want to give my only sibling a hug. The words of “Peanut-Butter Sandwich” made the inside of my mouth feel sticky. I recalled the funny cadence of “Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too.” I still laughed at the tiny running man in “My Beard,” who wears his eyebrows in bushy tufts and his facial hair like a dress.
On the other hand, my new adult eyes read most pieces differently than I remembered them. I think I saw the point of many poems. You know, The Point.
“Sky Seasoning” once told of a boy with a change of heart about lentil soup. Yet now I could see that the poem was about hope all along. “Ourchestra” encourages finding satisfaction in our available tools and natural abilities. “No Difference” says that we are all the same when we turn off the lights. Other poems are more conspicuous. “Listen to the Mustn’ts” says “Anything can happen, child,/ ANYTHING can be.” “The Land of Happy” calls a perfect world boring. And, finally, a few are as literal as literal gets: “Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out” is about taking out the trash, and “Warning” cautions against nose-picking.
But I found even this new clarity unsatisfying. These were truths I knew--likely as a kid and certainly as an adult. Thanks but no thanks, Silverstein. Now, what I really needed to know was what happens after the sidewalk ends. Why did nobody tell me? And how could the book neglect to address its title, of all points to miss? I threw the book in my suitcase, determined to revisit these questions when back in Nashville.
By the time I returned to school, I had been working for a few weeks with a team on developing a film. The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) asked us to convey their commitment to restoring degraded land. After discussions of ideas and rounds of script submissions, the film would center around children and their unique position to envision a greener world. The focus shifted to imagination. The best ideas became the most abstract, absurd, and unrealistic.
I found this angle frustrating. My team asked: what would our climate solutions look like if we saw them through the eyes of children--if we didn’t limit our dreams to the ‘possible?’ But I could only respond with solutions I found reasonable--being less wasteful, turning off lights, and closing faucets. My team asked me to put myself in the head of a child--to think in crayons, insects, monsters…not in recycling bins. What they were really asking was, when imagining our future, why not come as idealists?
I picked up Where The Sidewalk Ends again the other day in search of answers--to both this question and my lingering one about what would come after the sidewalk ends…or, lately, what would come after the sidewalk-of-education I’ve been walking for 17 years ends. In doing so I realized that I had missed a poem.
“Where The Sidewalk Ends.” The piece describes the magical world “where the sidewalk ends and before the street begins.” The poem envisions a space that children can see: a dreamy landscape of soft light, “asphalt flowers,” and a resting “moon-bird.” I was shocked--what do you mean the sidewalk does not end with a firetruck-red stop sign? I thought, surely, what came after the sidewalk would be a purgatory before the highway…or at least a patch of dead grass.
Only then did I realize that I had read this book wrong my entire life: it’s not about the sidewalk that ends nor the street that begins after it. Rather, it is about a sacred space seen through child eyes that do not fear judgment, embrace imagination, and are guided by poems with punchlines and funny illustrations.
I returned to my film team with my best child-like solution: what if the mountains were made of shiny, resilient jade? What if they carved themselves into dragons so fierce nobody would dare cut down a tree again?
And, as for the awkward place between the end of our sidewalks and the beginning of our streets…I found it isn’t awkward after all. When I see through children’s eyes, the unknown isn’t scary like the crocodile at the dentist or sad like the little sister for sale. If I can define a moment of transition by what it is, not what it’s between, maybe I’ll find it really is a land of “soft and white” grass, “peppermint wind,” slow and measured walking.