'Cause I'm not the barer of bad news I just felt the salt in all of these wounds

 

*none of these are my photos; next time they will be!

I discovered a new park yesterday. I had never even heard of this park until yesterday. I had always seen the trees in the distance, what looked like a small forest on top of a hill from the freeway. I asked my friend what it was driving home, and we drove through the park briefly. It was nothing short of magical. Even driving up from the Crocker-Amazon side of the park (which I had also realized I had never been in) was...fun. I've lived in this area my entire life, and my family has lived here for over 100 years and I had never been and never even heard of! How could this be?! "My great-grandparents are buried in the Presidio"-level OG San Franciscan!

John MacLaren Park, which, again, I had previously never heard of, had, apparently, a mostly bad reputation. It's the 3rd largest park in the City, after the Presidio and Golden Gate Park. And I'd never heard of it. Someone described it as “Like being in the country,” and it was just like that!

It wasn't just the novelty of the newness of discovering something new-to-me having lived here so for long, it was the sheer beauty of the new thing being discovered! The attractions of this park are actually rather elaborate!: equestrian trails, pools, golf courses, little man-made lakes, impressive playgrounds, a 2000+ person amphitheater, over shadowed for years by its terrible reputation.

I can't wait to go back. Something about it is just calling my name. It does seem relatively difficult to get to, and one of the worst neighbourhoods of the City is on the other side of it, so I will obviously have to go with someone else, but the best things are explored with friends in tow.

I am so blessed to live in such a magical and beautiful place with many, many things to explore. There are so many places I haven't been yet because of my mobility issues and limitations.  

But, back to the sheer beauty of this new-to-me park. The panoramic vistas. The trees. The tawny grasses of San Bruno Mountain Park in the distance, another place I long to return to explore. I live in the woods, you think I would be sick of the woods, but never, ever. Never, ever. I am constantly craving restoration and healing from the natural world these days, and I get the feeling this park is going to restore me in ways I cannot even begin to fathom.

I want to recapture something from the Old Days. I want to get a sandwich from Little Lucca with my friends and go to the park, and sit on the picnic tables (yes, on the tables) in front of one of those beautiful vistas and just enjoy the specialness of the moment. I know you can't really manufacture special moments or recapture what doesn't exist anymore, but maybe it's time to make new special moments in the same vein as the old. I don't talk to those friends anymore, from the Old Days. In the Old Days, we would have never gone to this park anyway, because it didn't start turning around until 2005, and that was the start of it turning around. We would have never gone there. I am glad that Those People from The Old Days did not ruin this park for me. I am glad that it gets to be  new-to-me now, now when I need it. Now when I need something new. I need something fresh. I need something untarnished my memories that are sad. 

I find that a lot of the times when I am innocently retracing old stomping grounds, I just get hit with this pit in my stomach and an ache in my heart thinking of those times. There's a stretch of El Camino Real that makes my mouth just feel like cotton. I have never talked about this to anyone.  I don't ever dare mention it out loud when I am on said stretch. 2012 was literally 10 years ago. It shouldn't hurt this much. That's the problem with taking chances on other people when you have so much to lose, the losses are so great and much deeper than they would be for a normal person. The years just train away, which is terrifying, and things should not hurt like this even this much time later. I think the innocence of it back then makes me sad now--something that I vaguely entertained, not realizing what it would become, and how badly it would end. A very special friendship that lasted 5 years and then has taken 5 years to recover from. That stretch of El Camino Real, the driving north on 101 past Brisbane, or even that patch of California street at California and Kearny, all hit me in the gut in the same way. And even before that person, losing my friends from my youth, which ultimately was better for me anyway, really feels like a loss sometimes because you're missing whole sections of your life. Some of those parks I've been able to return to, but some places I can never go back. And, thankfully for me, a few of the video stores that were staples of my youth no longer exist for me to be sad about, hahahaha.

"You can't run away from trouble, there ain't no place that far," et cetera, but I am ready for new memories, with better friends. Not just the core group of friends from The Old Days. This old new-to-me park really sparked something inside of me, something new, something fresh, something special, and we didn't even get out of the car! I think there's a reason those trees called to me every day as we passed them. I think this will be a healing place for me. Time to get some sandwiches and sit on my picnic tables like the hooligans we are. And save the sandwich wrappers for shenanigans later.