Walking in the park has been a very important act for
me in the past two years. Besides getting the exercise, which relieves the pain
I feel in my legs, it also soothes my heart and soul. Observing the sights and
sounds makes the 4k walk less of a strenuous act.
Birds chirping, dogs barking, people talking, people
laughing, children crying, children playing, and feet stomping are such wonderful and intriguing sounds.
Each step that I take I ask myself what the people are laughing about and what
they are talking about.
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| Photo by Meire Marion at Parque da Aclimacão ( Brazil ) |
Sometimes it is possible to grasp bits and pieces of
conversation as I walk past someone, like the woman on the phone who was
telling her friend about a one night stand she had. She was actually giving
away all the details that entailed the event. Her conversation could be heard
for about 100 meters, she spoke so loudly, but she didn’t seem to care.
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| Photo by Meire Marion at Parque da Aclimacão ( Brazil ) |
Not only women walk and talk on their cell phones, but
men do too. Just the theme of their talk is different. Once I heard a man on
the phone who was trying to convince the person on the other side that he
should invest a large amount of money on livestock. This was a baffling piece
of information. It made me question why not gold or something else other than
livestock. Every time I walked past him,
he was still talking about cows, pigs, chickens and goats.
There are a bunch of people that walk by with
earphones on. I always wonder what tunes they are listening to, however, there
are those that forget that their voices are not connected to the earphones and
their sometimes out-of-tune voices can be heard. Not to mention those who have
the worst taste for music and play it as loud as they can so they can share
their music with everyone else in the place. It is so annoying and most of the
time it is one of those songs that stick in your mind all day long.
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| Photo by Meire Marion at Parque da Aclimacão ( Brazil ) |
There are some days during the week that the police
and the fire brigade go to the park to work out. They usually jog and put
together obstacle courses. I have seen some of them who are pretty out of
shape. But I always wonder if they shouldn’t be doing that on their own time. I
mean, the fire brigade actually parks the huge fire truck in the middle of the
park; the men get dressed into red shorts and a white t-shirt in the truck and
then get back into their uniforms before they drive away. No showers?
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| Photo by Meire Marion at Parque da Aclimacão ( Brazil ) |
Now I have seen the police officers run to the park in
large packs; of fifteen at a time in their blue shorts and white t-shirts. It
is fun watching them run for they usually sing songs which are pretty amusing.
So, to empty my mind when I walk in the park, I try to
guess what the other people are thinking about. I also make up stories about
their careers, personal lives and every once in a while I run into some one I
know, stop a bit for a chat and then walk on to complete my 4k walk.
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| Photo by Meire Marion at Parque da Aclimacão ( Brazil ) |
(Written: April 26, 2013)
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