Growing with the Green

Electric city bikes and horse-drawn carriages ride down the main street of Central Park while an older couple overlooks the lively scene with a feeling of admiration. They first visited the Park while their daughter, who now has her own kids, attended university in the city decades ago. They watched the park grow and mature over the years, experiencing its grungier phases within the process of becoming a cleaner green space, yet its enchanting nature remained.

They had first met over fifty years ago, although they had not grown apart within the vast amount of time they had shared, only grown closer and more comfortable. Although it has been so long since they had a real reason to visit New York, the park had drawn them back, time and time again. Visiting somehow reminded them of their family's past and beginnings, before their small world had expanded to grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. 

The park had a way of calling back to them, inviting them to share their secrets, their sorrows, their joys. It had welcomed their daughter's graduation, her marriage, and then her son. They reflected on how the park itself has changed, transforming from a quiet escape into a place that, too, had been influenced by the fast-paced attitude of New York. 

The couple knows of the intricacies in which the park has metamorphosized, its landscapes having grown in tandem with the amount of music speakers and non-New York visitors. But the couple has no problem with this. To them, joy should be accessible to all, and while they loved it for so long that their attachment made it felt like theirs, they knew that countless other visitors, tourists or not, felt connected too. 

Now, the fields flattened in places where children played tag and soccer, and the rocks had been smoothed down by constant climbs and picnics. Even the benches were sanded, revealing a light shine under the dark wood. 

This growth was not unique to this place, however, as they themselves had begun to change. Their hair had grown greyer, their wedding rings had lost some shine, and their faces revealed creases near their eyes and lips.

Central Park had never once judged them for such “flaws,” instead it allowed them to smile even as their wrinkles deepened, and offered benches when their backs became too weak to walk as far as they once could. It seemed to transform in parallel to their own lives, as they themselves had felt moments of darkness, yet had since developed a love for life that glowed from within them, seeming to comfort anyone who stopped to hear their story.