Park

Park.

Images and photographs by Andrew de Freitas

The park is usually empty in the evenings and on Sunday afternoons. One gentleman of around 75 years takes advantage of the quiet streets by habitually taking a walk after finishing his dinner. As he walks up the two steps through the gate that leads into the park from the street, his bottom lip jiggles sightly like a small plastic pouch filled with water. His upper lip is thin and hangs like a drape from his nose. He knows that his nose is one of the only features of his face that has retained its form  -the way he imagines himself to be - despite the process of aging. When he visited the Louvre in the seventies, his wife had pointed out that it resembled those straight and certain forms on the marble faces of Greek thinkers. 

The park is small, occupying a section of land that would otherwise be large enough for two townhouses. Walking through it should mean that the overall duration of the man’s exercise is reduced: entering through the gate and emerging the on other side of the block, close to his home. He likes the park because the maple trees there are staggered in a way that seems more natural than the lines along either side of the streets. He deliberately made a point of including it in his route, but initially felt somewhat guilty about the diminished distance of the walk. A few years ago he decided to try strolling around the park and then continuing on the full-length course the same way he came in. He was thoroughly unsatisfied by this experiment; his visits to the park seemed frivolous and unjustified. He arrived at the solution of allowing himself to cut through, but making up for the shortcut by turning right instead of left on the other side - a slightly longer stretch back to his house. 

The man’s wife died 5 years ago. When he thinks over the years since her passing, he notices that in certain ways it’s a lot like living through that vividly uncertain period of his life just before he was married. The main difference now, he thinks, aside from a diminished physical mobility – is something like callus that has formed on his affective spirit – likely the result of a lifetime’s complex reflections and coming-to-terms. 

There is a young man of about thirty who grew up in the neighbourhood and lived there for five or six years before moving to Vancouver with his family. Two years ago he moved back to Montréal and took a job that has its offices a few streets over from his childhood home. The park has changed since he was a child, with the addition of a new playground and pathways. He walks through the park a few times a week at around 1pm when taking his lunch break at the café nearby. The first time he revisited the park after more than two decades away, he could only recall a vague image of it from his childhood. The only thing he could remember was a sand-pit, which this no longer existed there. He couldn’t even figure out the spot where it used to be.

He felt a little uneasy when returning there at first. The place felt somehow slightly cold or dark to him, as if he’d experienced something traumatic there and buried the memory or forgotten. Most often at 1pm there would be young mothers seated on the coloured benches whilst their children played together nearby. He often found himself slightly sickened by the sight of colour of the benches, the well-dressed women sitting in them, the soft new skins of happy children, and the various consumer items like prams and toy sets that were inevitably scattered in the vicinity. All of this seemed out of place to him and yet it was exactly as people expected it to be. The twisted aspects of existence seemed so vivid in these surroundings - he wondered if he is the only one who noticed this atmosphere. The park interested him deeply and he always passed through there, despite the metaphysical discomfort of it all. 

This particular evening he was invited to the launch of a new eco-store. He left work on foot and cut through the park in the direction of the party. It was the first time that he’d visited the park in the evening. The place felt warmer and more familiar, but also somehow entirely new at the same time. The light was golden and making its way at a low angle onto the leaf-covered pathways through the gap beneath where the foliage began. The maple trees had grown large since he was a boy, and during the day their canopies would encapsulate the area in shade. The tinge of darkness - the uneasiness he usually felt there - was not the result of any suppressed memories or trauma: there was simply less sunlight than the way he remembered it.

When he reached the main street the light had taken on a silvery hue that suited the late-autumn chill. There was a dog lying outside the door to the store. It had a leash attached to its collar but wasn’t tied up to anything. The man walked inside and after securing himself a blueberry martini began to socialise with the other guests. By the time I was introduced to him he was holding a fresh drink, his second, with nine or ten blueberries at the bottom of the glass. There were less than that in my own, maybe just five or six. We talked a little bit and he told me about how he had moved to Vancouver as a child and grown up on a Christmas tree farm there. He told me that when he was old enough to leave home he decided he wanted to spend a holiday period in a Muslim country that didn’t celebrate christmas. After this experience he didn’t feel at all like returning home, so continued to travel for as long as he could afford to – Asia, Africa, and the Middle-East.

When our conversation ended I was socially stranded. There were people in groups all around me, none of which I felt I had any access to. I was entirely comfortable by myself, but also felt an obligation to others to avoid being alone and happy. Accordingly, I decided to circulate around the shop and look at things, to at least give the impression that I was moving with a purpose. As I walked about the room politely I came across the dog from outside – someone had let him in from the cold. I went over and scratched him behind the ears. He liked this and tilted his head to one side, increasing the pressure under my moving fingers. His hair was soft and dense.

Most people are familiar with the polite little smiles we give one another when undeniable eye contact is made in passing, such as in a hall or a doorway. Usually it looks something like a quick tightening of the lips at the corner of the mouth, accompanied by a raising of the eyebrows. A little later in the evening I was moving around again and unexpectedly came across the dog, to which I had already introduced myself. We made definite eye contact as I passed, and completely without thinking I gave him one of the small polite smiles. I was aware of the error immediately afterwards.

The next morning the weather was fine and a young mother had taken her toddler to the small park. Her son enjoyed the playground, but she disliked being there with all of the other mothers, who made her feel like either a stereotype of the member of a species. She was uncomfortable with the idea that they all made these ‘outings’ at the same time and in the same way. It seemed all too deliberate. For this reason she tended to visit slightly earlier than the rest of the bunch. She justified the trips to herself by always making sure that there was some additional purpose for leaving the house other than simply for the sake of an outing. She acquired the habit of visiting the grocer’s store with her son instead of buying her vegetables at the supermarket - that way they would have something to do after their visits to the park. She told other people that she liked the grocers’ because the vegetables were fresher and less expensive.

The child was unexpected in her life. Upon discovering her pregnancy she had been afraid that the birth would not have the emotional significance for her that is expected of a mother. She imagined it would feel more like a medical event for her. This particular morning she sat on the coloured bench and watched her child interact with some of the other children on the playground. She couldn’t deny the motherly instincts, which had come to her mostly involuntarily. Yet, when she thought hard enough about it - as she was doing at that particular moment - she couldn’t completely come to terms with the idea that she had produced another.

-2009-