1. For most of the summer, I felt like the park and I had drifted apart.
2. It wasn’t due to any animosity or even ambivalence; it was just that circumstances prevented us from seeing each other as much as we had done in the past. I had a bad hamstring; the park was busy with its own life.
3. Often I would think about the park and imagine the conversations we had enjoyed in the past and — in theory — would in the future; conversations about books and television shows we admire, the demoralizing state of what passes for “criticism” in 2017, and/but very little about politics, because it seemed pointless to describe (or bemoan) what was pretty much self-evident.
4. Like me, the park would complain about its job — the functional aspects or requirements of its existence — but these complaints would be tinged with relief; at least we had jobs, we would say to each other, that were meaningful and rewarding (as far as jobs go), even if these jobs were sometimes hampered by the bureaucracy of the modern era. We were not employed by arms manufacturers, oil companies, cigarette makers, or an internet startup.
5. Things could be so much worse, but they were not. In fact, they were pretty good.
6. And we had time to work on our gardens, which is ultimately what matters. This was our art, we would agree, and maybe our “faith.”
7. Thankfully, my leg got better and I have again been running through the park.
8. We see each other every morning.
9. We don’t touch but we are always very close.
