WHEN I was a kid we played in an East Oakland park called Arroyo Viejo that wasn't too far from our home. It had a creek running through it, a tunnel where little boys conspired to rule the world, and a vast spread of lawn and trees where families picnicked on weekends.
I was thinking of the Arroyo one Sunday as I drove around to a half dozen parks in the West Valley just to see what was going on. I've always been impressed with the number of out-of-door facilities mixed in with the Valley's urban areas. I found a three-page list that ranged from Aliso Canyon in Northridge to Zelzah in Granada Hills, varying sizes with different kinds of facilities.
Even though we sometimes cramp ourselves into apartments, condos or houses without yards, there's always a place nearby where one can spend a Sunday afternoon lounging in the buttery sunlight or strolling among the trees, like the Parisians in George Seurat's 19th century painting, "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." Space frees the spirit.
The painting depicts a gathering of different social classes in a state of serenity that I also witnessed on my Sunday in the park, where a mix of many races, ethnic groups and social classes existed in perfect harmony, blending into a colorful pastiche of Americana. If I could paint I would include not only the colorful balloons and the bright pi atas at a birthday party, but the faces of joy that seemed to glow in tribute to the satisfaction the families
felt.I would paint a group of old men seated at a table in a corner of Reseda Park who told war stories in somber tones and laughed at situations that each had encountered. I wondered if they had been a part of the D-Day invasion or had fought at my side over the mountains of Korea. Their expressions hid secrets behind time's wrinkles that were like the barbed wire fence of a prison camp.
I stopped for a while at the vast expanse of greenery that is the Warner Center Park where live music is offered on certain balmy summer evenings. I watched children play while mothers viewed me with suspicion in the heightened state of awareness that sexual predators have caused. I wanted to assure them that I wasn't a predator, just a guy who wished he could draw children at play and women with eyes that squinted with suspicion.
As evening came I found myself at Shadow Ranch Park, said to be haunted by the ghost of Albert Workman, the rancher who once owned the land off Vanowen Avenue, and who now strolls the darkness when the overhead lights are turned off and the families have gone home, leaving behind a stillness for the ghost to contemplate on a Sunday at rest.
I contemplated the stillness, too, but it was a stillness of the soul that existed among those who merged in peace and serenity on a Sunday of considerable joy. I wish I could have painted it.
Al Martinez writes a column on Mondays and Fridays.
Source: http://www.dailynews.com/columnists/ci_18118135?source=rss
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