Prospect: A Year in the Park

Semi-freddo

 

Last Sunday, the mid-January sun, already stronger, melted much of the snowcap on the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. A dark and rainy week followed, culminating in a dreaded inauguration; the timeless peace of the Japanese Garden is a good tonic.

So is the beauty of evergreens capped with white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Botanical trivia: the word glaucous (from the Latin glaucus, meaning "bluish-grey or green") describes the pale grey or bluish-green appearance of the surfaces of some plants, especially conifers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was terrible at conifer identification when I was a Garden Guide (docent) at the BBG years ago; it all has to do with needle shape, structure, etc. Sometimes I still just call them all "pine trees," which is unforgivable. Here, you identify this one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's to a new era, on thin ice.

No one was fooled

A freakishly warm January day...65 degrees F at 5:30 p.m. Would the park be overflowing with joyful joggers and climate-change celebrants, I wondered? Perhaps earlier, perhaps elsewhere...but on the Parade Grounds, the still-early darkness gave the lie to illusions of springtime. The avenue between the playing fields was utterly deserted between Caton and Parkside Avenues. I checked over my shoulder, recalling wisdom from a rougher era: You are safe when completely alone; it's the isolated bit of "company" that raises the alert. So I slowed my pace.

 

Near the glowing blob of the tennis bubble, light lingered in the west through broken clouds. The honk and cackle of innumerable geese arose from somewhere in the dark...as agitated as if they were on the floor of a slaughterhouse. I wonder what laundry challenges await players on that artificial turf thanks to goosey gatherings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hate the tennis bubble--not only because I don't play tennis, but because it rises every year as a harbinger of cold, inclement weather. Tonight it was superfluous, but you don't just pop these open and shut on a whim. I heard no thwacks or curses or shouts of victory within.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Near the Park Circle entrance to Prospect Park proper, a lone jogger and one dog-walker passed, and a young man with a guitar case sat scrolling through his phone. The air was fragrant with fresh pine mulch from the recent Christmas Tree Slaughter (at which point I realized that I had slaughter on the brain, a legacy of the 1980s when walking in deserted park perimeters).

Inky branches and fence, etched against the bubble's weird glow. I walked home past the police station within the Parade Grounds, which felt no safer for the fleet of NYPD cruisers that flanked me. A rat scuttled across my path into the shadows. 

 

 

 

 

On a spring or summer night, it seems that half of Brooklyn is out in the Parade Grounds, hanging out by this snack bar, putting the spin on a soccer ball, skating, running. But tonight, no one was fooled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Save

Save

After the thaw

I didn't get to the park on the day it went above 75 degrees F a week before St. Patrick's Day. I was stuck inside working. But the next day, still warm, showed evidence of jump-starts everywhere over by Lakeside. Snowdrops made little bouquets near the bust of Mozart in the Concert grove.

 

I almost mistook this fragrant witch hazel for forsythia. Witch hazel is happy to bloom in January, but apparently even happier in March.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The turtles are out. If we get a terrible cold snap, how will they get back into the mud?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teeny plants forced their way out from the new granite hardscaping.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And on the rink, skaters in t-shirts sloshed through a rippling slick of meltwater.

Desire lines

 

That's what they call those shortcut paths beaten into parkland by human feet seeking the quickest route from A to B. There used to be only one way to enter the Long Meadow directly from the crest of the path from Grand Army Plaza: a desire line worn into the slope. But the park must've smartened up, because this log-girded walkway now welcomes visitors onto the vast expanse of grass. I took this shot a few weeks ago on a balmy December day, just after we bought our Christmas wreath at the Greenmarket; who could have guessed that the balminess would last through Christmas and beyond?

 

As their parents talked in boring adult fashion, these little guys found great sport in harvesting and rearranging bark chips on the log railing. In this year that saw an ugly high-rise condo pierce "my" side of the Prospect Park treeline, the Long Meadow maintains its air of secluded mystery, opening up like a miracle as you enter from the traffic and stress of Flatbush Avenue. The Long Meadow is long enough to be shrouded in mist at one end on a foggy morning, long enough to walk and feel as if you've really discovered something, long enough to clear your brain. Here's to a coming year of joy and discovery, of peace and health to all my friends and folks in Brooklyn and beyond. May your feet beat a shortcut to your dreams.

 

 

Thanksgiving on Ice

The day after Thanksgiving, if you're lucky enough not to be toiling for "Black Friday," can be a sort of benediction: the cooking and entertaining done, and the weekend not even begun. A beautiful blank slate, like today's Lakeside rink after the Zamboni slicked it over in the 64-degree sunshine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Folks flooded onto the fresh ice, some in T-shirts, while crowds sunned themselves outside the cafe.

 

Parenting on ice: That moment when you remember that skating can be legitimately terrifying...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...requiring the grasping of little hands...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and the guiding of little feet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sun was so strong along the lake's nearby shore that turtles were basking. Four days til December...but for today, it was still Thanksgiving.

 

'The Umpteenth Snowstorm,' a storybook for mommies

(Based on a walk in the snow five days ago, which is the snowstorm before the one happening right now, and with apologies to Ezra Jack Keats--and blame assigned to "Go the F**k to Sleep.")

 

It was the Umpteenth Snowstorm, and Mommy and I went to the Dylan Stewart Playground in Prospect Park.

Mommy, can we go to the playground, I asked?

No, not yet, Mommy said. It's covered with snow.

You could sit on the benches, Mommy, while I run and play!

No, said Mommy, my bottom would get wet and frozen. Look, they're covered with snow.

 

I could swing on the swings, I said!

No, said Mommy, then your bottom would get wet and frozen. Now come on, let's get home, your nose is running onto your snowsuit.

 

I could slide on the slides, I said!

No, said Mommy, they're covered with snow, too. Let's go, I'm freezing.

 

We could run on the soccer fields, I said!

NO, said Mommy, they look like the freakin' North Pole!

Daddy says you only use that word when you want to say another word that's a bad word, I said.

Put down that damn snow, said Mommy, or you'll hear some more bad words.

Look, Mommy, I said, somebody left a bottle in the middle of the street! They're not supposed to litter, they should have recycled it!

And then Mommy grabbed the bottle and opened it and tried to get out the very last drop. "That's a good goddam brand of tequila," she said.

Ew, Mommy, I said, that's gross! You said we should never share sippy cups!

And that was our adventure in the Umpteenth Snowstorm.

Coasting

That's what they used to call it in the old days...and that's how life felt today, as Brooklynites, spared the Biblical Blizzard Wrath they had been promised, headed out into a sparkling afternoon and a foot of fresh powder, freed from school and workplace by the Impending Doom Alerts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hill by the "Grecian Shelter" was a rainbow of people, sleds, saucers, parkas, scarves.

 

 

 

 

Near the frozen lake, a scattering of snowmen had arisen quickly, in a variety of styles. We dubbed this one "The Hipster"...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and this one, a selfie magnet for exuberant young ladies, is definitely The Classic.

 

The world may not have noticed, but this blog has been dormant since last September. Time to jump up!

Printed matter

What's 17 degrees to an intrepid urban walker? Especially when the walk involves a 10-minute skibble from my parked car to the lake's edge?

 

I headed out with a goal: to take pictures of ducks. (Because a cynical college student across the ocean reduces this entire enterprise to "taking pictures of ducks," and I wanted to prove that the game was still afoot.) But the edge of the lake was devoid of ducks; perhaps they were clustered in the open water in the distance, with the gulls that reeled and landed there. Between us was an expanse of freshly snow-blanketed ice. 

It was impossibly quiet, except for a jay and cardinal flashing blue and red in dense bare brush. Both complained while pecking like woodpeckers at branches. Look, guys, 10 blocks away there is a feeder stuffed with expensive seeds, and nobody's eating it but boring house sparrows; what are you waiting for, a written invitation?

 

 

 

All the birds seemed ravenous, including this wee white-throated sparrow, who was foraging near the lake's edge. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Near the shore, two sets of tracks criss-crossed (squirrel and raccoon?), then one set went on alone around the phragmites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How cold was it? There were fewer joggers than stroller moms, testimony to just how cabin-fevered you can get in deep winter with a toddler.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A jet overhead appeared ghostly and translucent. I longed to get a wheeling white gull in the same shot, but my fingers were starting to freeze right through my gloves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So...no ducks today, dear Daughter, but the game, as it were, is still afoot!

 

Scant signs of spring

Blame the interminable cold, but I haven't been walking in Prospect Park for ages. (Hey, even my crocuses are lagging this year.) With more proof just in that parks ease brain fatigue, I bestirred myself. There weren't a lot of takers for the strong sun and stiff chilly breeze, but these boys of would-be summer gave it their best.

Nearby, these guys practiced some sort of thing with long, shiny metal sticks. Mostly, they dropped them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing is greening up yet; the park seemed bleached and bare in spots. The recent loss of hundreds of trees has made a palpable difference in the feel of things: more sky, less sense of remove from the surrounding city.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Babies remained bundled. By now, green leaves, sandals, and the smell of barbecue grills all seem like a distant fantasy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, I did find a very cool decommissioned wasp nest, just lying at my feet. Its marvelously engineered pods were all vacant. I was grateful to be carrying an empty tote sack—one looks a bit absurd carrying a wasp nest down Prospect Park West—and bagged it for my cabinet of curiosities. The Daughter found it fascinating but disgusting, and said that if a wasp roused itself from within and invaded the house, "we will kill you." (For even more disturbing Kunstkammer specimens, go here...if you dare.)

 

A mere dusting

The arctic temperatures, not the token snowfall, were the story at the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket, where the lettuce was frozen and the snakes were grumpy at being made to wear lacy mantillas.

 

 

 

 

 

 Over on the Long Meadow, the parents and kids of Park Slope and environs bundled up and set forth in search of snowy fun. Everyone sort of kidded themselves that there was much more snow than there actually was. In fact, even in the frigid air, it was still muddy enough to smell the earth.

 

 

 

Spouse and I reminisced about bringing Daughter and her snow-saucer contraption over to the park in far deeper snow; meanwhile, across the street in the public library, said Daughter gamely endured an interview for a prestigious university.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone talks about "surviving" various phases of early childhood, but by the time people are hounding your child for the umpteenth recitation of her scores, talents, grades, clubs, and "passion," the years when happiness could be bought with a snow saucer and a restorative lunch of Spaghetti-Os seem exquisitely simple. Today, we warmed up with a Thai lunch, assuring her over dumplings that it would all work out fine.