Jimmy Simpson Park in Toronto
As we entered into Jimmy Simpson Park, the dog and I we passed two men sitting at a picnic table. One of them had his face flat on the surface of the table. He was utterly motionless, but his friend continued talking away as if nothing was unusual, as if it was just Darren’s “thing,” the way he got his best thinking done or something.
As we played fetch in the field, a youngish mother with her hands full passed near us. She had one of those baby strollers that was the equivalent of an SUV, a dog leashed to this $40,000 stroller and was communicating important thoughts to somebody through an earplug/mouthpiece apparatus she’d set up to help her maximize her full potential. She was getting it done, this one, and I imagined that even at this early point in the day, she’d accomplished 90 minutes of Hot Yoga, sent an angry email to a delinquent repairman and painted the baby’s room twice. She gave no evidence of being friendly, and even on a perfectly sunny October day the world seemed to be in her way.
Near the soccer goal posts a ragged looking man near 60 was poking through the grass for treasures, finding a pink utility ball that some child had forgotten. He took his shoes off, tossed them beneath a tree and started to dribble the ball with his feet. Gaining confidence, he took a few shots at the empty net, before getting tired and lying down beside his shoes to sleep.
A middle-aged man stood in the centre of the park flying a small, remote helicopter around and around in circles. Everybody stopped to watch, mesmerized, as if bearing witness to Angel flight. I imagined this model-pilot in his garage, screwing pieces together, oiling things and then carefully cradling his helicopter outside and releasing it into flight, and I wondered where that act might transport him.
On the way home, the original picnic table that had housed the mystery of the man lying flat on his face, now housed two dubious looking guys who already seemed to have a bit of a glow on. One of them, exuberant, shouted out at me upon spotting Heidi, “ Hey, that’s Max, right?” I told him that her name was Heidi, but that she could be easily be mistaken for a Max, and he apologized for being wrong, as if that was a reflex he had grown used to over the course of his 40 odd years.
