The other day I was biking, and I have my usual route. Along this route there’s a segment of land. It used to be a playground, but all that’s left is a long slab of concrete, where the basketball court used to be. There was a pitcher’s mound far out, a baseball fence to catch the pitcher’s throws, but that’s all gone as well. Sandy clay still peaks out between flourishing weeds. The playground was constructed to jut into grassland, and now the grassland took it back. A field interspersed with flora right along the roadway. The only evidence left there was a playground is a sign — that sign of children on a see-saw, black and yellow. As warning, I suppose.
So I think about the children that may have used it, the families and them nudging their child’s back as they gather courage to go play. Back in its heyday — when it was actually put together. But after that I don’t give it much more thought.
Today was different.
Almost as if my ancestral knowledge clasped my mind’s eye, the field flattened and flowed outward. For a second I was biking past rolling mountains that spanned for miles. My field of view kept pacing outward, 90 degrees, 120. What was once remnants and a plain field transformed into breezy hill grass, captivation, expansion seizing up the rest of the land. I felt the width of the world; I saw how long it goes out. That small segment of land transformed in my mind, and I was graced with how we used to see outward for miles and miles. The pilgrim that struggles over the hill to see 30 more ahead. Long plains. The mountains of the east, the rocky alpines. Fog. There is just so much beauty in the world that we get to see, all of us.
My mind’s eye snapped back and I was rolling along that playground again. But I was enchanted. How rarely do we come across that! To stumble up the hill and see the WORLD laid before you.
No matter how far one goes back in time, all humanity shares that view — nature just sprawling endlessly, far out into the distance and up crazy feats. That’s eternity. It’ll be there for every life. Although today we follow pre-ordained paths of poured concrete, these all-encompassing views won’t going away. A fragment of it showed up in that old playground. But it was just a second, and then it faded away and I felt my pulse and wondered how strong the winds are along the peaks of the Alps. I wonder when I’ll find that captivation again. Writing doesn’t do it much justice. Seems like you have to be there in order to feel it. But it’s out there.
It’s important to remember those eternal views when we’re used to virtual stimuli. They summoned feelings in me I forgot existed.