I'm afraid my Belle Epoque city lacks for parks. Maybe because it has wonderfully long, and sometimes astonishing promenades, like the famous one along the ocean, or the long parkway that covers over the Paillon River right through the heart of the city, and then as well because it has the lovely Castle Hill with its waterfall in the sky towering at its edge, maybe my city doesn't feel like much is required in the way of parks. But I do have a feeling of a lacking green space in this dense thrall of people and restaurants, bakeries and offices, grand buildings and gelaterias. This city is just so popular, and teeming with humanity, that when it finds space, it defaults to open places and wide paths, and they all quickly fill with people too. Aside from the ocean, glorious, but at a remove, this is a hard place to feel like one is walking through nature, or really even has much to do with it.
It is a mild complaint, and I have bigger ones, because... that's my nature, but after a few months of living here, I feel it. We have small parks here, gated, locked at night, on small single city blocks. The good ones have a fountain at the center, with a nice sculpture. A wide path circles around said sculpture a little as if it is meandering about through trees and greenery, but, let's face it, these places are never big enough for meandering. The path is short, wide, full of well used benches, and streets and people are always close by.
But even though this is all true, there is one park, not all that much bigger than the others I've declaimed, and not functionally so very different, that I am growing to love anyway.
But maybe I didn't have to start this post with a rundown about how there aren't enough parks I love here? I could have just said:
There is a delightful little park here, not far down the street from us. It has some grand old trees and a magnolia that is just finishing its blooming of pale violet and white flowers even as I write. And though this park has several different interesting large sculptures, its central fountain takes the prize. I don't know what prize that is, maybe one for serenity? The sculpture sits in a large, lovely pool with a darling asymmetrical fall in it. Its central figure is a woman holding her knees, head bowed against them in sadness.
Everytime I see this sculputre I think "That's exactly how I feel sometimes."
Occasionally I even think "That's how I feel now."
I think I may eventually come to think of this city as one of impossibly lovely sadness.
I have taken a lot of pictures of this main fountain and now, over the last two days, I have made one of my sketches of it. I don't know if I've done it justice. I may even try again sometime.
