Life is Good with a Playground Adjacent
Think of your routine in the city you live in. How many scenes or moments does it make available to you, that you'd like to sit down and appreciate for a while? That's how the moment is like next to Evelyn's Playground at the Union Square Park in New York City... A sight to behold.
Your daily experience of place and routine, how many "sights to behold" does it afford? The attitude is looking for resonance with the moment, that's why you want to sit down for a moment to bask in it. It's a moment to pause and look at each other, a moment to reflect on what it has become to be a human in the twenty-first century... Who would’ve told!? Who would’ve told that people would be ordering food and "working from home" all day?
The scene here is lovely. There's messengers strolling by and strolled-mothers too. It's a little breathing spot for the walkways of Union Square Park. There’s benches and thin tables with chairs gathered around a central tree, a little monument right in front. A band plays in the background and there's a couple tourists passing by, attesting with their cameras to the moment's desirability. And there is, of course, the adjacent playground.
The adjacent playground is very important, it makes the space feel safe and alive. Together with the ornate city backdrop, it makes it the kind of place you’d like to write about. It's a situation you'd like a little more of in your life, the one with the playground adjacent. How can we make more of the city feel like this?
There's strangers being kind to each other, even while minding their business. There's a pigeon doing pigeon things. No misery pandering around. The passage of the construction worker feels dignified. Situations like these are scarce enough in everyday life that some people feel compelled to take pictures of it. A sight to behold... in feeling. Some people are carrying shopping bags. There's some dogs socializing. There's a small bird in bird business. There's a lovely senior couple walking by in good health and shape. Such a rich palette of textures! Tree leaves. Moist gravel under my shoes. Green enamel on metal tables, metal rust on the benches, a monument pedestal made of granite, and the thick bark of the central tree.
You can also tell people are reasonably looking after each other. "Are you good on chairs?" People are not estranged enough to even consider not helping. If anyone is divorced, you can't tell, everyone is dignified in their passage next to lush green shrubbery, even the sporty mom, pushing the stroll rushedly, makes a pause and stops to let the pigeon cross. There's no people waiting for a seat to become available. Nothing better than experiencing a moment where people are dignified in their being, in their doings, in their existence. The situation is open to everyone... please don't burden it!
In all it's beauties, New York City has plenty of people fallen-from-grace, people in situations of low integration with the city dynamic, living in vagrancy or homelessness. Many people live like that, with little social scaffolding and no one to offer a caring touch. How might we help them live with dignity? How might we put dignity within reach? How do we invite them to weave themselves into the city's social dynamic while respecting voluntary withdrawal from it?
✎ Connection to
Key / The Prevention of Misery and Tragedy