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BACK TO THE GARDEN:Getting from Shadow to Joy
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Park Pride Brings Neighbors and Nature Together by Patrice Dickey As a child in Chicago I met nature up close and personal. Who’d think that a big city upbringing could instill a love for nature? Actually, our family was privileged to live in the first suburb beyond the city limits—a place enlivened by parks, aptly named Park Ridge, Illinois. Across the street stretched the seemingly huge public park with tennis courts, a mini-golf course, ball fields and the occasional freshly planted tree. Although we weren’t tennis players, for us kids every winter a miracle occurred. Park crews boarded the sides of the tennis courts, flooded them for an ice rink and created a winter wonderland where the little kids built fairy forts in gigantic snow piles pushed up into the corners. Or we scoot-scooted across the ice on our little double-bladed skates (when I was four) and later on the single blade skates—while skillful teenagers on hockey blades sliced effortlessly around the rink—always careful of us bundled-up snow chubbies content in our fairyland. And the hot chocolate they served in that warm-up shack! What could be more heavenly? Adjoining our little lilac and peony-scented yard lay’The Girls School’—a Victorian-style campus with winding asphalt pathways perfect for bike excursions and endless outdoor adventure. Gigantic hardwoods offered secret spots where my sister and I hid our elf dolls in the crooks of limbs for each other to find, in a kind of cross-species game of hide ‘n’ seek. Gigantic willows sheltered our elaborate doll tea parties, and a willing crabapple with low-slung limbs was the perfect place to relax in a tree crotch and read the latest adventures of Madeline or Mrs. Coverlet’s Magicians. After discovering the magic of flowers exploding into bloom, the joys of running helter-skelter across open fields at twilight in pursuit of fireflies, and the reveries induced by dabbling a stick in a flowing rivulet for hours on end, I’ve been drawn to places where I could be at home with nature ever since. Park Pride’s efforts to bring parks and greenspace within the reach of everyone in metro Atlanta strikes a major chord, and I support the group with all my heart. Our connection with nature deepens our respect for our place in it—as well as for ourselves and others. We don’t have to be in the wilderness to discover nature. My childhood in suburban Chicago proves that. |
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