The problem with being the writerly type is that you never really enjoy the moment as it’s happening. You’re too busy watching and listening and wondering.
Take parks, for example.
I found a new park nearby that I’d never noticed. Or rather, I thought it was just softball fields. I didn’t realize it had walking paths that are perfect for a certain canine of my acquaintance who enjoys a good W-A-L-K more than anything else in the world.
So that’s where we go almost every day, even when it’s overrun by children and parents on the weekends, there for family-style duals in the sun.
Seriously, how many kids play softball nowadays? All of them? I thought soccer was the big thing. Maybe that’s played at a different time of year?
I don’t know nothin’ about children’s sports, other than that I can’t get a freakin’ frappuccino on a Saturday morning at the truck stop because the Starbucks is crawling with soccer brats from the nearby playing fields.
Since when do children drink coffee?
I did not drink coffee as a child. My friends did not drink coffee. We snuck cigarettes and ever-so-slowly drained our parents’ gin bottles like normal kids.
While Hershey sniffs every blade of grass at this new park and ping-pongs from one side of the paved trail to the other, I think my exhausting thoughts.
Such as, how do the people whose houses line the edges of the park feel about it?
Most of them are older, upper middle-class. I can’t remember what was here before the park, but I assume it was woods and fields. The homeowners probably thought they’d spend their golden years gazing out at a tranquil natural landscape full of deer and placid sunsets.
Now they get to watch dogs take a dump while people blaze shortcuts through their lawns to get to the parking lot.
Here I would like to say that I would never do that. Barely. Maybe sometimes I cut across one tiny corner if I think nobody’s looking. So far, I have managed to restrain myself from going full trespass and investigating a certain clump of flowers at one well-manicured home. Maybe I can take a picture. Do you think they’d mind?
Ah, the joys of eminent domain.
Personally, if I was one of the homeowners, I’d be pissed. You’re telling me you’re (to paraphrase Joni Mitchell) paving paradise and putting in a softball field (three, to be precise)? Do I have any say in it? No?
Well, fuck.
But as an inveterate park-goer, I’m pretty happy about it. We walk and poop (Hershey poops, I scoop) and I eavesdrop on the families trickling away from the fields as the games end and cries of “Mom! Mom!! MOM!!!” fill the air.
I’ve noticed that there’s a tendency for intense, low-volume conversations to occur between parents on the fringes of the parking lot. The kids are shooed off to the small playground while each parent stands next to a different vehicle because they’re divorced (of course), but presenting a united front come game time.
Dad is wearing a uniform so he must be a coach, while mom has her hair up in a messy bun and wants to know why the child support is late, or why his share of a medical bill hasn’t been paid, or who the hell is this new girlfriend and why are you letting her discipline our son?
The park becomes the place where they meet to air their grievances in all that fresh air and sunshine, where the deer linger wistfully in the few remaining trees, the homeowners mournfully eye their lawns, and everybody’s All-American.
It’s always hard for me to be present in the moment. I struggle with it often and something tells me that this is a uniquely American problem. After all, it’s hard to not be distracted when bills and work are piling up, wages are stagnating, we’re constantly under threat of being shot everywhere we go, and filling up your gas tank requires taking out a second mortgage.
It's not the kids drinking the coffee, Bev- it's the parents. They need it more.