Hafer Park

I am well-travelled and yet a park eleven minutes from my apartment remains my favorite place. I don’t really like to travel, so having a place close to home that proves I do not have to travel far to explore the world is special.

The path that winds through the park is the perfect distance for a daily walk. I walk the path alone although once a week I walk it with my friend Kelly.

 There are a few playgrounds that are always busy with children and a pond in the middle that is always full of ducks and geese. There are plenty of trees and during the warmer months, hammocks hang in between many of them.

Once, as I was starting my walk, I saw from across the pond, a goose attack a lady. The combination of honks and shrieks made me laugh. Oh, how I needed that laugh! Many times, this winding trail of concrete has seemed to be my own paved Via Dolorosa.

Towards the back of the park there is a meadow. It is the reason why I was drawn to it. It is enclosed by a broken circle of trees which gives it a slight sense of privacy. It has become a sacred place. Something happens to my cadence every time I leave the path to enter the meadow; my walk turns into a battle march.

 I always know it will because that is why I go to the meadow. I have fought some of my biggest battles there. I have gained ground and stripped layers away there. I have regained my ability to walk and acknowledged on more than one occasion that I had not actually lost my sanity on this inner quest of life— for life.  I am not sure how many circles I have marched, but the surrounding trees are probably still dizzy.

Recently, the park has started to look and feel different. I thought it might have been because I sat on a different bench, but it was just a few feet away from the others I have sat on many times before.

 I realized: I have never been here before —this person.

 I’ve noticed, I enter each day more slowly now, but not because I’m afraid of it.  Quite the opposite and precisely why it is different. I enter as if I’m slowly immersing myself in a hot spring—move too fast and it burns; a gradual adjustment to a warmer environment where war drums are slowly becoming a faint sound in the distant background —as I hang my own hammock in the shade of a couple trees at Hafer Park.