Parks

So I've discovered that I love being in a park or in any sort of remotely park-like area I guess, but parks specifically because such interesting and happy events are always happening in every direction.

One of my favorite memories is just walking down a busy beach when I was in Hawaii alone and watching. Of course, the beauty of Hawaii does not exist in Austin, and the happenings typically much less entertaining, but it's the joy of seeing such joyful groups of people together without worries or inhibitions. I enjoy parks i think for the same reason I love This American Life (www.thisamericanlife.org) stories - little embarrassing, comical, or nonsensical stories and events, seemingly trivial, but universal and moving.

A park is like a Bizarro mall.
Reason 1: I hate malls. I love parks.
Reason 2: Groups get along better in parks than in malls. There's no real agenda most of the time and everything is just simpler, so you hardly ever see parents yelling at their children or people arguing over where to go. Even when kids do something stupid that would normally be chided, parents can look around and see for one, other children likely doing somehting more worthy of their chiding like say well, at least he's not eating a bug like that kid by the lake...or worse, sitting reading a book like that long-haired, girly-looking teenager on the bench. The other reason is simply because of the "it's cool" environment parks have. Anything goes in a park, as long as it's family friendly. There are no rules (except maybe keep off the grass and certain common sense codes, in addition to what is found in our state's and our nation's constitution of course) in a park. Furthermore in malls children must be constantly told what they cannot have, but in a park, all that is nature is for the taking!
Reason 3: While mall-shopping ventures made at anytime but Christmas are usually for the purpose of improving style or chic, there is no almost no attention paid whatsoever to one's appearance in a park, let alone one's style. Of course, if you're the lonely wandering poet or would like to be, you might get some mysterious and deep points. And I'm sure there are 100 other self-absorbed characters ambling about as well, but they are largely drowned out. My primary evidence for the case I made earlier is with the runners. These people seemingly publicly degrade themselves - they're not looking for any sort of points. I mean, if you're going to go running to try to attract the ladies or gentlemen, you'll more than likely be wholly out of luck. Unless you're some fine Aphrodite or Andrew Roberts, you're going to be truly tired after maybe 5, 10, 20, or 60 minutes for the true athletes, and at some point you're going to get that kind of tired where your muscle control begins to slow and your arms just flop about before you. Call it sick pleasure, but I enjoy seeing these people, not knowing if they've just run 10 miles or 10 feet, but just seeing the exhaustion that can almost say nothing but, I came outside for the fresh air and the exercise.
Reason 4: Wildlife, the great outdoors
(And yes, I do understand that this is a pointless and really quite absurd comparison, but so it is and so it shall be. I could almost make the same comparisons between Disneyworld and a park. In truth, I'm just pro the old American outdoors, or what we can still grasp of it, and anti lesser types of fun and adventure in the commercial world. Plus, I'm not a big fan of shopping.)


Anyway, I thought I would just relay some of the silly smile-worthy events I've had at my last two trips down to the "Austin Lake" that is actually as I am informed the (lesser) Colorado River partitioned off by dams into small "lakes" (or "lochs" for my loyal Scottish readers).

Last trip of last semester:
(prepark) Underneath a bridge, I walk by graffiti of a purple octopus with its tentacles fluttering out in every direction with the words "whichever way the wind blows" sprayed over it

I see my first excited game of frolf in action, with a man obviously taking the sport too seriously, and the female with him simply laughing at his efforts.

Children ride about on horses, beaming, in a clearing nearby the frolfers

A couple speaking their native (oriental) language joyfully to one another while watching a flock of birds fly by

Like something out of Sleeping Beauty or some other fantasy of the sort, a Spanish family sits downhill from me on and around a stump (which at first upset me because I had made my mind up to read on that very stump) and begin to throw some sort of food on the ground around them, and at least 10 squirrels run down the hill to them without hesitation - family smiles and laughs happily as they now handfeed the squirrels, teaching their youngest daughter to for the first time - she looks at first terrified and struggles to keep her eyes open even, but the squirrel pecks the morsel away and her face lights up

A young woman struck by the beauty of the beginning sunset at her right, slowly collides with the man she is with and after a laugh, the two set down bikes and watch it together

Boy finds tennis ball, looks cautiously all around him and sees that it is now his - takes ball happily and tosses it high in the air - ball lands in stream - boy looks confused - boy prances happily along again beside his mother

Spanish Americans rock out to some Latina tunes underneath bridge - I contemplate joining, fear being ostracized and continue walking

At least once every 10-20 minutes, kids are wildly excited by the sight of ducks


Today's trip:

Parked at CVS after church and walked towards the lake, immediately run into a homeless man? and an out-of-gas driver struggling to push a car up to the nearby gas station - help out (regrettably we're all in this together somehow plays momentarily in my head)

Family of four in a plastic red canoe seem to be struggling as the two young boys have set their minds on oaring for land and the parents try to keep them out at sea - woman in front of me calls out to them "you all look like you've got it under control" - oldest boy yells "We're headeded for SHE-ORE!"

Man calmly explains to woman the absurdity of bears being able to climb trees

I'm walking on a wide path with no figures nearby in front or behind - a young Spanish girl accidentally? runs over my leg with her tiny pink barbie bike tire. I turn around and look at her - her eyes are wide and her face emotionless, then a mischievous smile before she speeds past me

Boy follows dog into lake

Countless families engaging in the practice of Stroller Running - a couple gasping out breaths of conversation to each other as one pushes their infant along with them in its stroller