Revelations in a City Park
| by Sunny Sunday |
I’ve spent my adult life in capital cities, traversing continents to settle in place after place. I’ve seen 12 years of beaten pavements, unforgiving and lying in wait just outside my front door. I must be doomed to forever live on a busy street. Still, I take ownership of my inability to quit the capital city.
In these streets, bulbous loudspeakers, garbled police sirens, and the hum of the omnipresent traffic beast drive me toward the closest city park. In these places, I wrestle toward the reprieve of green stretches, salivating at the chance to return to roots, reconnect to self, and heal throbbing city bruises.
These parks always hold me, at times offering nothing more than a place to simply exist away from the noise. However, on rare occasions, a quiet, green-fuelled revelation presents itself.
Daan Park, Taipei — 2018
I understand, in the space of a few dark days, what it must mean to be close to your lowest. Life’s comedown grips my shoulders and pushes down hard as I stumble through Taipei’s warming city blocks, chasing the sunset hour into Daan Forrest Park. I walk circuits around the park, Rejjie Snow in my ears, and my mind clogged thick and cottony. Nothing is right in this moment, and any clarity of self is ground beneath my dusty footsteps.
Palm trees and senior citizens stretch around me. The elders clap at their thighs and biceps, encouraging blood flow through well-oiled limbs. It’s only March, but already heat grips the park’s earthy surfaces.
I am wary of bubble tea — despite its Taiwanese origin — and usually I shoot the tapioca pearls back through the straw into bushes and hedges. Now, as afternoon folds into evening, I swallow the bubbles slowly, taking them in like a slippery antidote.
Dusk settles, nursing me down to my haunches. I rest over grass and under magenta-orange Asia sky, and a shift occurs. Under the cushioned quiet of the park and in the emptiness at the bottom of my boba cup, something returns — the version of myself that understands peace. The hurt dissipates, and with my thighs against land, I suck in a breath of relief.
Herbert Von King Park, Brooklyn — 2024
Back in the 70s, my mother used to sneak out to see her boyfriend around the corner from Herbert Von King Park in Bed Stuy. It was dangerous then, and her own mother would have killed her if she knew what she was doing.
Now, I sit under the nightshade of a darkly drooping bush, crying into its purple leaves. It’s nighttime spring, and I’m six years deep into a city that refuses to love me back. Even New York’s green spaces crackle with noise and chaos, quiet chased off by all of us, hot and crammed together. However, in this moment, hush finally hangs over me and I lean deeper into the hugging shadow of shrubbery.
Stuck. This is the heavy word secured to my weary limbs. I allow myself the balmy thought of leaving, giving up on this city. The ruminations form something warm and right within my legs. Held by the pigmented evening air, a reimagined purpose is borne, resolve its twin sister.
I emerge from my private enclave and my decision is made: I will go. Carrying something new and dear, I consider the trees overhead, wondering when I had last taken in such auspicious green.
Burgess Park, London — 2025
After 11 years on the birth control pill, I quit. Two months without it, and I am waiting for my body to split. For my cycle to slam me. I’m not sure what will happen next, but so far, nothing has changed.
Burgess Park is elongated, stretching out from east to west. I walk its long paths, spurred on by the weak and rare sun peppering out across January grass.
When I was 10, the last time I lived in the UK, I put on glasses for the first time and marvelled at the leaves I saw on tree branches, far yet clear. Here, I experience that physical sensation again. As if a veil has been lifted, the bramble bushes and grey sycamore trees come into focus with frosted corners sharp as silver. A welling river rises at the back of my throat, sweet like honeyed sugar and tears prickle in the corners of my eyes. It almost stings to taste the happiness that accompanies this clarity.
I allow for release and the fresh air mingles with my tears in a ceremonious homecoming. It’s a bright return — childlike vision, clumsy laughter, and hurried warmth that blooms at my lower back and rises up through my lungs and out of parted lips, cycling back into the city park air.
