Ahhh, The Park. In NYC it means Central Park unless you’re in Brooklyn. Then it might mean Prospect. But maybe not. I’ve lived in NYC on and off since 1981 and haven’t had a love affair with Central Park. I know very little of the terrain and have spent not much time in it. But I’m romanced nonetheless by the opportunity now afforded me.
I walk though it on the way to work every day. I cut through a corner . Crossing Central Park South, the senses start to get a hint of what is to come because of the redolent and oddly endearing reek of horse manure. As soon as I enter the park, I leave the city behind for a bit. The further in I get, the more the street sounds are muted. Lack of hard reflective surfaces and full trees, 'spose. It smells good in there.
I love the high-tension jockeying of the speed-bikers and the veryveryvery serious runners infrequently interspersed with just normal folk trying to reduce the jiggle. Yesterday my stroll went from the scent of grass to the scent of grass and I had to peer over a wall to find two men. Sitting on a large rock. At 6:50am. Surrounded by pot smoke.
I need to explore more paths, expand the arc of my walk as the weeks go by. From afar, Central Park has always been a glorious timepiece, marking the shifting of the seasons with its clinically perfect rectangle of growth plopped into a city that had not come to touch its borders in a meaningful way when it was first constructed.
They show movies in the Park. Next week it’s The Shining. Might have to pack a picnic and bring my Dearly Beloved™ in from the outer boroughs and sit in the night air and scream and laugh.
My favorite park memory is of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. Endless walks along the horse paths at Valley Green. Feeding the ducks pieces of popcorn we brought with us. Happy times with my parents and older brother.