Circularity

One of the broad and vague philosophic ideas hovering just beyond – by a beard-second or so – my consciousness is the concept of circularity. My life of late seems to be proof that existence is circular, or, perhaps better described, cyclical. I find myself at the same places I was years or decades ago. The places have changed; indeed, so has part of me (but not the “me” that is “me”), leading “me” to refine this idea a little bit better: life is a helix. We keep arriving back at the same points but as different beings; either higher or lower on the helix depending on whatever factor you want to grade the Great Spiral Staircase with. In my case, I think I use the factor of “actualization.”

Case in point: Van Saun Park.

A few weeks ago I took the Little One there for a couple of hours. We had such a good time we went back, today, and had another blast. There’s a miniature train ride that takes you around the periphery of a zoo, through a tunnel, past a garden and a pen for buffalo. There’s a carousel that my daughter absolutely loves, complete with the circus animals that go up and down as the musical merry-go-round turns. We did that twice. Then there’s a pond that’s three-quarters of a mile in circumference. I brought her trike with us, and she did two laps around the pond without stopping, and without me having to push her every ten feet. She also spent an inordinate amount of time chasing geese.

The thing that struck me most as we did this was that I haven’t been to this park in almost ten years.

I used to live a mile from the park in the nineties, and would go there frequently. Maybe twice a week. I was very much into walking and biking back then, so most of the time I’d walk or ride the paved bike paths. Back then the pond was in a state of perpetual mire and the duck poop was out of control. Now it’s a lot cleaner. I was also very much into drinking back then, so I would spend my Sunday mornings there, nursing hangovers, eating egg sandwiches for the salt and cholesterol, reading spiritual books in the regretful and guilt-ridden haze that was my Morning Afters.

Ten years before that, in my twenties, I remember a time when me and my buddy snuck into the park with two girls and a suitcase of beer. Nothing much happened except a lot of urinating and cigarette smoking. A few years later, I remember taking my first serious live-in girlfriend there for a leisurely lazy afternoon. We fed the ducks (you’re not allowed to do that anymore) and on a whim she tried to grab one. She did, and in terror it promptly evacuated its bowels all over her hands.

Memories.

But my point is, I could not help but wonder how much I’ve changed over those twenty or twenty-five years. The park is still there, a little more civilized here and there, and come to think of it, so am I. Maybe that’s the purpose of nostalgia – to show you have far you’ve come after a bit of prodding toward self-analysis.

Everything else considered, it was a wonderful way to end the summer for my Little One.