Posted in A Moment in My Life

“Saturday in the Park”

A Moment in My Life – Monday, February 22, 2021

Since the pandemic, there hasn’t been much going on at the park across the street until this Saturday. There were people in the park! How do you like that? Before Covid became the way of life, there was much ado at the park. Kids of all ages exercised their bodies, lungs, and minds while getting their daily dosage of Vitamin D. Parents attempting to relax on the grass exercised their lungs with the occasional hollering at their kids as a reminder that they were there for a reason. The lungs on those little people. The lungs on those big people. You know it’s bleak when you miss those lungs, the rackety laughter and shrieking voices that drift uninvited through your windows, stealing your sense of peace. Every day after school and on the weekends, they returned to remind you to appreciate the serenity when they weren’t around.

Week after week, I peered out my window, and the blanket of fresh green grass spread before me—no little person or critter bending the strand of grass or shaking the sporadic daisy. No voices traveled through my window. In the beginning, the still peace smiled across my face from ear-to-ear. Month after month, nothing but the quiet, still grass filled my vision. My smile spread cheek-to-cheek and soon lip corner-to-corner. Life is for living. The park’s beauty welcomes a disturbance with feet trampling across the grass, denting the strands, and the daisies thrive being held delicately in between curious fingers adoring the bright yellow and white of this creation. There is a time for quiet and a time to fill our ears with voices overlapping each other in words and laughter with the occasional shriek of excitement. 

There were no soccer games or bouncing balls slammed against the basketball courts’ backboards, but there were about a dozen people outside the clubhouse swaying left and right, dancing behind the instructor. I stood on my tippy-toes, marveling through the window at the synchronized movement, and I could imagine the song that was too far to reach my ears. A smaller bunch of older people made slow and precise gestures that flow from posture to posture in their Tai Chi routine nearby. I glanced farther right, and a couple of little ones entertained themselves on the vivid yellow, orange, and green playground. A distance away on the grass, a young couple conversed over a beverage in their little world. Compared to pre-pandemic, this wasn’t much, but it was people. Excitement surged through me, seeing the existence of lifeform at the park. I’m sure the human in me will complain about the annoying noise disturbing my serenity when the pandemic is history. Yet, for now, I relish seeing people living their life as normal as possible by enjoying a Saturday in the park.  

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