Somedays in the Park

Every morning for the past month and a half, I have taken the train to work. Yesterday, I took it to Central Park. Working seven days a week is not difficult, it isn't exhausting, if anything it is strangely hypnotic. A person, without any free time, is more of an automaton than a human being. You are a worker, a commuter, an eater, a sleeper; a machine with many capabilities simply churning out the daily quota.

A person in central park on her first day off in a month and a half, however, is all flesh and blood. The park, in case any of you didn't know, is beautiful. It is meticulously designed and obsessively maintained in order that New Yorkers might forgive the oppressive concrete forest that is the rest of the city. And it works.

The park is the city's playground. People feel free to climb, jump, run, don a batman costume and breakdance--in short, they do what they want. There are trees and winding paths and big rocks. There are ponds posing (almost convincingly) as lakes. Dogs. Jugglers. Roller-discos. It's awesome.

The libertine attitude fostered by the park's sheer openess was reinforced this past Sunday by the presence of, what my sources tell me is the best Fall New York has seen in 75 years. The leaves having turned brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red. The beautiful people of the upper east side sporting their best Burberry attire in honor of the dazzling sunshine and crisp Autumn air.

This is all very cliché, I know. Fall in Central Park is beautiful--it's pretty much like saying Micheal Jordan is athletic. And my jaded, post-everything self should resist buying into cliché because that's just what I do. But today, I am resisting the temptation to inject bitter skepticism into everything. Today I am saying, I love central park.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about the parks in Bushwick.