Another Interlude

To cool things off: Allan Gardens bench after a snow storm, February 9, 2013.

For three hours on Thursday afternoon, I sat at a table in Grange Park with three other people. We were having a meeting, the first face to face for any of us in almost a year and a half. 

I divided my attention between our conversation and the rest of the world around us.

Our table started out in a shaded spot, which became less so over time. Clouds coursing on fast winds alternated the temperature between warm and chilly, and the light between bright and dim.

Two individuals, a man and a woman, both in need of a bath and perhaps some medication, circumambulated the paths. The woman began her circuits dragging a blanket, but abandoned it somewhere. The man, on his final lap, gently and precisely laid a small stone on a ruined water fountain. Pleased with his work, he went on his way.

The table across the path from us serially hosted a man and his Tai Chi instructor, then a man staring deeply into his phone, then four teenage girls talking and laughing, then a couple of grown ups. He ate a large sandwich; she smoked a large joint.

Deeper into the park, in a large open space ringed by trees, mini-mobs of children in colourful matching jerkins played organized games. Adults performed open air workouts with weights, rings hung from branches and tiny trampolines. Farthest away, seen fleetingly through a thick screen of leaves, a volley ball vaulted in and out of view.

As we sat still, the park population changed all around us. The colour-coded children trooped out. Babies in strollers rolled in. One workout ended and another began. But, undeniably, as the day waned, the numbers fell until, as I hoisted my own blanket in a bag on my shoulder and put a hat over my tired brain, the park was almost empty. 

Among the uses of the park that day, our meeting fell somewhere between the day care kids and the big-armed men lifting themselves on rings. Or, perhaps, it fit perfectly with the man who fixed the water fountain with the stone.

Thanks for reading!

Lower those carbon emissions!

Karen