Currently Carly

 A Walk in the Park

    In 1995, a woman and her daughter were murdered in my small town in Pennsylvania.  I'll spare you the details, but three years later, the town dedicated an eponymous park to the family and widower (whom my mom sees often at the local bar, drinking away the memories, she says).  And despite it's horrifying inception, this park is one of my favorite places in town.  It's up in the hills, surrounded by lush, rolling deciduous forrest that lines the horizon in every direction, fluffy and full at this time of year.

    I've come here tonight to walk.  It's a perfect summer evening.  The sun never quite burned off the clouds; in fact, it had the opposite effect.  Every mass that dared cross the sun's blazing rays today seems to have doubled, and now they paint the sky in milky shades of lavender, their heavy, moisture-filled bottoms threatening me and the surrounding lush greenery--we've had so much rain this week, the grass is nearly neon.  But above all that potential rain, I can see the rays of an already setting sun as it casts across the sky pinks and peaches and oranges, all the sunset shades I fell in love with running wildly through my neighborhood as a little girl.

    8pm in the summer is the most sacred hour that exists, in my opinion.  The evening closes in on itself, but without fervor.  There's a softness in both the air and the sky, pale pastels, a crispness that brings me back into my body and an awareness to the dull pulse in my fingertips; a reminder I am a living, breathing person.  On an evening like this, the birds no longer hide out from the heat, but instead sit amongst the branches, eager to tell one another about their days.

    I circle below them, following the 1.1 mile loop of pavement that weaves around the fields.  The rhythmic shifting of my hips as I step the approximately 2,187 steps it takes to complete the outside loop has soothed me through hardships at many phases of my life.  During the pandemic, I came to this park almost daily; rain, snow, or shine.  My life was a bit of a mess back then--that's maybe a story for another time--and to pass the days, I'd come here and walk.  Two miles, three, four, sometimes seven, eight miles.  I would pass hours and hours here.  Some days there'd be others, all following the same direction so we didn't get too close, walking like ducks around and around and around.  And other days, like during that particularly brutal winter, I'd be the only soul here, bundled under layers of wool, fighting against the strong winds up in these hills.

    I'm not sure what's brought me here tonight.  Over the course of my life, I've come here to walk, or swing, or simply lie in the grassy fields and think.  Often, there is something particular troubling me, a jumbled mess in my brain that I can slowly untangle and re-wrap nicely, like I am a yarn ball winder.  But tonight, I am at a loss.  My biggest worry at this moment is that these clouds will break above me while I am furthest from my car, but even that, after I adjusted to the moisture, would be a welcome surprise.

    But I forget, sometimes, about the passage of time.  I frequently have to remind myself that I am no longer nineteen, that I'm not even twenty-one, nor twenty-three, nor twenty-seven anymore, all these big ages that scared younger versions of myself.  I forget that this first act of my life is coming to a close already, that I'm singing The Big Song--you know the one, ends of a cliffhanger before the curtain and inevitably plays into the melody of the grand finale--and the clock is always ticking, whether I'm conscious of it or not.  And I guess all of this is my longwinded way of saying, I'm grateful for this reminder, for this gorgeous, worry-less evening, years into the future I've always feared so greatly, where I get to inhale this warm summer air instead of gasp for it; to step in tune with the rhythm of my heartbeat, instead of fight to slow it; and to simply exist as I am.