Lala lost & Found

centrality in central park

It’s been gloomy all day. Dazed conversation on the train from Yonkers, an unimpressive sighting of the Empire State Building, warm bites of bagel stuffed with cream cheese, sharp diversities impeccably staged for display at Chelsea Market. The gray day exists in an echo chamber, mirrored in the stoic buildings’ every face and facet. My sleep deprivation and itinerary-planning stress slither out to feed, and the angles I am trying to seek out stab and prod at my mind.

And yet, just as we cross the street to meet the edge of the park, the sun emerges as if to say, “You finally made it.” Light spills onto the city, rays sinking into muscle. A sign of good fortune, skin warming under the sun’s gaze. It is the first time my red dress finally feels at home.

Just as soon, I realize my group mates are looking to me for guidance. What’s the plan? I dig through my bag for my phone, in hopes that I can figure out what we’re doing before they realize I have no idea what we’re doing.

As a tourist, it’s very hard to just be in a place. To simply exist. There is no time to inhabit, to get yourself situated, to make yourself at home with a picnic blanket, a book, in one of your favorite spots. There is so much to do and so little time-breath-brainspace to waste.

I stare at the screen, hyper aware of my battery while also trying to follow the itinerary my uncle made. Harlem Meer and the Northern Woods, he had written. As we enter the park, we pass a worn park bench alongside a suspiciously rusty-looking water fountain. Beyond that, our eyes catch on a body of water largely obscured from view by swaths of greenery.

But I am back on my phone again, a frenetic energy churning beneath the calm, now pulling up the walking route to the North Woods. Meanwhile, my battery level still has me a bit worried. Will it last until tonight?

As I type this up on my favorite shaded bit of bench back in Berkeley, I can still feel an urgency to do something. To be productive.

“Audrey,” my group mates say. “Stop looking at your phone.”

“I just need to know where we’re going,” I assure them. I assure myself. Then, I will put down my phone. Then, I will relax. Then, I will enjoy this.

47%.

Anxiety is not so easily put to bed. The sticky mixture of expectation and pressure – to provide an experience to the people I’m leading, to find the next activity, to inspect and then polish off the next gem of a moment that makes all of their investment worth this — is not quite washed clean by the running of the stream.

In describing Caravan style to friends and family, I often recite that a travel experience is just as much about who you are going in as the place itself. I believe it, but sometimes the best bits of wisdom get lost in the sauce when you need it most.

I do my best to wrestle my mess aside and face what’s in front of me. The park is more subtle than the city in its proclamations of self. With a grounding breath, and the green floods in. The delicate distinctions between the shades are lost on me as I take in the sheer volume of it, hollowed out and further lit afire by the sunlight. Green grass, green trees, green greenery reflected on water.

The sun and path usher us downward into shade, and we walk along a rushing rivulet of water to a tunnel. As we approach, a gaggle of grown middle-aged adults marvel at a small area where striating bodies of reflected light stretch along a patch of rock, moving in rhythm with the water. Had I been alone, I would’ve easily passed the scene. “But it’s interesting how the same thing doesn’t happen here…”, the man closest to me muses aloud to his companion. I find their evident wonder at this tiny trick of light kind of adorable, and I am also moved to take a photo.

“Alvin!” Shiv says, pointing at a squirrel.

“That’s… not a chipmunk.”

“What’s the difference?” Ethan asks.

The man passing us quirks his lips, mouth kicking into a small smile as he jogs past.

It strikes me that the people of Manhattan are grasping for a connection with nature. Earlier, on the way to the bagel shop, house plants seemed to adorn every stoop and window. By Chelsea Market, there is a public art installation of elephants in the middle of the street. Here, now, staring at a tiny inside patch of bricked up tunnel as if we’re watching the Northern lights. The very glorification of Central Park itself, as an oasis from the grind of the everyday on your molars, your wonder, your dreams, is indicative of an attempt to fill in a felt loss.

Though Central Park was first created as this escape from the city, it has become more so embedded within Manhattan. The various amenities and experiences offered throughout the park seek to serve and please tourist and local alike, between its zoo, Belvedere castle, and countless hiking trails and running paths. In a city that prides itself on embracing unapologetic individuality, Central Park is perhaps its biggest people pleaser.

So perhaps it goes without being said that it’s a bit of a mess in parts – if you’re on the hunt for spiky Sweet Gum balls or tawny acorns, the paths are flooded with them. Harlem Meer is currently wrapped in the construction of a swimming pool, and the mosquitos and rats would certainly keep any self-proclaimed city person at bay. Consumption bonanza, supermall, buffet – keep walking, and by the next turn you’ll find something new.

<FREE HAIRCUT>, reads a loose handed scrawl on a scrap of hardboard, beneath a wired tunnel of vines. I’d consider it had a man not already taken up the offer before me.

A glimpse of white, eyes searching for an opening in the foliage. It’s a wedding on the water, the main attraction taking place in a quaint wooden gazebo. Walk, and note the people staring at the happy couple. Curious, and a bit nosy.

A man asks me in Mandarin if we are in the Shakespeare Garden.

“I think so,” I say. Why has he come thousands of miles to see this garden?

“Retirement,” he tells us, removing a baseball cap to reveal proof of age.

“You look so young,” Ethan responds. The man breaks into a toothy smile.

Another man is running. Shiv is running. Faces devoid of enchantment, the people on the concrete road are here with purpose. Taking a call with a colleague, meeting a workout partner for a weekly jog, the locals are distinguished by their movement, their chatter, as if a break in motion would have consequences.

But our sweat cools.

We are allowed to break motion, and so we turn off the path and give way to rest. The benches come into focus, and I find myself drawn to their dedications. Though the words are sparse, each one seems to cradle the bones of strong sentiment. Take a seat and give your time to a stranger’s hope, a stranger’s joy, a stranger’s love, transfigured into little golden plaque memory.

To baby Libby Wolk, who loved to watch the squirrels,

Alvin, no wait, how don’t you know the difference between squirrel and chipmunk –

To Larry Wolk, they never imagined living in a world without you in it,

rotting thickets and damp wood, golf cart conservancy, decomposition and new life –

To Chip, forever on one knee to their darling Daphne,

the park makes everything spectacle, crowd swipes eyefulls of white wedding frosting–

To Calliope James. 7/26/19. A yet-to-be-written lyric of a name in time, and nothing more.

a line of a poem, and yet I want to make a story of everything –

To Elinor Gellert Barber, side by side with Bernard.

To Bernard Barber, side by side with Elinor.

park coexists with city, city with park, so entwined they are reflection –

The people do sit on Sally Jo’s bench,

and on Sheep’s Meadow. For the first time since coming to Central Park, I wash my mind clean of my anxieties in a gorgeous stretch of cool grass and breathe in the sky in all of its simple white crystal blue glory. I sit down, lie down, stretch and put down our bags. We talk, commune in code. Solicit advice, pick at strands of grass, make pillows of our bags. Meander in conversation, listen, and slowly deliberate on what will come next.

Choo choo, Our Beloved.

Chew. Chew.

Give yourself the time.

Words: Audrey Sioeng

Photos: Luke Jensen

Design: Shivani Dodamani