Lately, going to the park
Lately, going to the park has been more than going there to read my books and heal. Lately, healing in the park has been seeing the teenage elder sister (she must have been thirteen) looking after her two younger siblings and taking them to the playground. It has been fathers going on walks with their daughters and fathers carrying the toys and the basket of food to the picnic space. It has been hearing a group of friends laugh from the other side of the lake I was reading at. It has been seeing elderly people going alone on walks and middle-aged women walking side by side while still sharing their stories and their goals. It has been reading under the same spot for three consecutive days and the woman who always takes a walk on the same road smile when she sees me there reading again. Reading in the park has been seeing happy families. It has been seeing mothers alone with their kids, carrying all the heavy stuff to give them the best time in nature. It has been tired mothers, hurt by hope and yet still holding religion so carefully in that crevice in their chest they hide with their hand when they bend down to show their children nature, telling them about flowers and ducks. It has been seeing middle aged couples taking pictures near trees and flowers. It has been hearing other languages being amazed by the beauty in our park. It has been hearing a little girl in her stroller telling her grandmother she also wants a book after she kept her gaze fixed on me while passing by. That gave me hope that I can still inspire people to be better. That taught me that there are too many parts of me which aren’t healed yet, and that I haven’t paid enough attention to, especially to the world. That taught me that I still have a lot to heal and that I wasn’t going there to heal by reading. I was going there to heal by being, the book using only as a support for my gaze to push itself up to search for figures that could resemble bits of my forgotten self while my head hung down, lying to myself that all I see, is a reflection of the pages.
