parkaleidoscope

 

I have always live near my city´s park. It is a park that unfolds along the riverbank, on a long walk made of pink and grey tiles on the high zone, and sand, brushes and giant trees on the low one.

A park is a peculiar place from which to observe a city. Since I was a little child I watch the passerby from my window and think about it as a kaleidoscope, through which the city reveals itself in its most anomalies shapes and most intensive colors.

In the park the city and its inhabitants dress up (dresses printed with flowers and phosphorescent sport-wear), they play at being what they are not, and at the same time  (thanks to these masks) they undress, they move and allow themselves to breath in a way that they are no allow to do it on the sidewalks and urbanized streets. They seem to be disoriented or lost, uncomfortable due to the absence of traffic noise and the rowdy singing of birds.

Since I was a child, I also sometimes became a walker (the always ephemeral inhabitant of a park). There was once when I got lost in the park. In the middle of a tantrum I started running furiously. When I realized that I was alone I started to cry. Now I think that my tears were also caused  by a subtle emotion: I was feeling at the brink of a possible adventure, as those lonely children who star in the tales of witches and ogres. 

This photo was taken during the 2020´s pandemic, when all the country was confined. During most than a month the park remained closed, fenced off by police ribbons (as if a crime has been committed). Then, we were allowed to go out just for hour. During those days, from my window, I observed this couple sitting in the same  bank, observing, in turn  together in silence the park  still deserted and savage, as is after years (maybe a entire life) of absence they have found  again. And I, after all this time (my entire life), in a certain way, I found my-self reflected in them.