Twilight and Park Nights

So this was the fourth house I had moved to in the past year. Another new town, another new clean slate, and my cousins lived close by as well. The first weekend in Saratoga, I decided to take my cousin’s bike and explore the neighborhood. I still didn’t know the streets or the roads, but I didn’t care, I just wanted to ride. Eventually, I found myself at this dilapidated park that filled the empty lots behind the highway. It was called Moran Park. When I first read this, I thought to myself, “what kind of moron named this place Moran Park”

Years later, I would find myself again at that park, boarding around the walkways, practicing fancy tricks, sitting on the dusty top of the play structure, climbing the pines near the park benches, barbequing at the park grills, with cousins, family, friends. The park had become a memory of what my cousins and I called ‘the good old times’ the times before my uncle died. The time before our parents divorced. The time before our family unit disbanded.

Time came and went, parents divorced, relatives died, holidays were spent separately, birthdays rarely celebrated. My oldest cousin started driving, and so he spent all his time with his friends off at strip malls, and local movie theaters. My younger cousins both became immersed in video games and became numb to the outside world. Being nine years separated from my younger brother, we had no similar interests, and he ran freely with the wild cats and dogs of the neighborhood.

Again, I found myself at Moran Park. By then the park had been renovated; This was to become my refuge from the storm of family life, middle school, highschool, breakups, and teen angst. During middle of the night walks under starry skies, at some point during early morning mile runs, through the good and the bad, I found myself back again at Moran Park. Close friends came and went. Relationships formed and broke up. But through it all, Moran Park was always there. Around the corner between my house and the Highway.

I returned one late night this past summer. The stress, the grades, the drama, the business of life settled with the sun. The familiarity rushed back as I laid on the play structure. Armed with a coffee, pack of Marlboros and familiar tune from my ipod, I returned to the public park that I had claimed as my own private sanctuary. It was my home away from home where I found stability, familiarity, but most of all Moran Park was my escape.

I reflected on everything, nothing and just laid there till break of dawn. The morning embraced nocturnal creatures: The singing birds flying overhead, the lone cricket, and I. with the rising sun, my late night rendezvous with Moran Park had ended and It was time for me to pack my things and return to Davis.

But I’ll be back again someday soon.