If you frequented the beach as a child, especially one along the southern east coast, you know what a sand spur is. And you remember not only what the little devils felt like inserted into your feet and toes, but you remember also the fear you felt right before you walked across an overgrown yard- knowing you were about to be pricked. They were everywhere! In every yard. Between every sidewalk crack. Some even sneaked their way onto the roads when you thought you were doing the right thing and staying away from the grass. Persistent little buggers, sand spurs.
But where are they now? In the past 10 years or so, they’ve just sort of… vanished. A sand spur genocide. A disappearance of an entire species. Like the remaining precious few red heads and green eyed folks, do you think they saw it coming and tried to reverse it? Do you think a bunch of sand spurs got busy real quick and tried to make more, tiny baby spurs? Did we kill them? All of them? Are we murderers?
Is there some sort of prickly afterlife in which all the sand spurs of our youth are now hanging out? Are they still sand spurs in the next life or did they transform to something more soft and beautiful- something perhaps they always wished they could be? Do you think there was a lot of self loathing involved in the brain of a sand spur?
A lot of – ‘Flower over there gets admired, she gets pictures taken of her, people put her in vases in their homes. Nobody goes around collecting us Spurs. Stupid Flowers.’
Maybe even the prickliest of characters deserve to be looked back upon with admiration. Maybe we can’t always judge a character by its outer shell. What if all this time the sand spur was just trying to get noticed and tell us something? What if they just needed to be looked at and recognized?
Recognize someone today. Even if they bite, even if they hurt you, recognize them. Because you never know someone’s story. You never know what’s like to walk a day in their shoes. (Although, in the case of the sand spur- you kinda do…it hurt a little bit, yes?)
But please, please, don’t piss off any plant life- you never know what they used to be or, God forbid, what they can soon turn in to. (Can you imagine a pissed off sand spur?!)
Because my toes and I are so much happier on the sand now without those prickly bastards.
2 Comments
I’ve been wondering why sand spurs are seldom seen in Florida anymore. They used to be everywhere.
Isn’t it strange?? Dying breed…