#usualpark

[jenmaicha]

june 19: HELLO :D, long time no see. i stayed up pretty late last night finishing up my compsci exam, and at one point i hopped into a voice call with a friend so i could suffer among good company while he looked through airbnbs for our IMMINENT (not really but in my head it is) vancouver trip. my brain was fried and there was this one piece of code that wasn't working and i couldn't figure out why, so i offhandedly made some hyperbolic expression of my pain, which naturally spiraled into a conversation about Life in that weird casual/serious tone you can only really use with close friends.

i started thinking about that walt whitman quote graffitied onto the underpass at john green's old high school, "these are the days that must happen to you". i really love the wording of that line because taken on its own it feels dark, like he's talking about death or aging or some other kind of unavoidable pain, but he isn't. that poem is sort of absurdly long, but it's about being on the threshold and looking towards adventure. to me it reads like a prologue, and placed in that context the line becomes so much more interesting. i don't know why, but i feel like we will very soon be in the days that must happen to us, those years after childhood but before full adulthood when Shit is Supposed to Happen and you're supposed to Find Yourself. i don't know how i feel about it to be honest, but that poem is really lovely, and walt whitman probably knows more about life than i do.

- j

[jenmaicha]

june 2: photos (couldn't choose because they're so different and lovely in their own ways)

june 1/2/3: thoughts (related to may 31, really just repeating what i wrote that day as well)

on june 1, my dad and i went for our almost daily walk, and i saw a pigeon perched on the point of a house's roof (in fancy architecture terms, the dormer—only know that one from arcadia). "is it real?" i asked him, the pigeon, anyone really (but i always feel the need to specify that i don't believe in a god exactly when i say things like that, and then i go and add the exactly because hey, nothing is for certain (until it is) (but is it really)).

anyway, i asked if the pigeon was real or not because it looked fake. and in my neighbourhood, there are multiple fake owls on lawns, balconies, and dormer roofs. i'd say there are definitely more fake owls, and even a creepy scarecrow in a tree, than most neighbourhoods, at least way more than in my old neighbourhood.

and this pigeon seemed to be frozen in spot like those ugly, really, hideous plastic owls.

so to be honest, i wouldn't have been surprised if it was plastic, too.

after all, just like with the wildlife technician who most likely thought she'd be doing something better than get attacked by canadian geese for her job because they cause erosion and water pollution and are no longer migrating, and just like with the "pollinators' garden" my parents and i walked through which is basically just native flowers being allowed to grow wild, and the "natural habitat" at my second usual park which is literal meadow being allowed to grow wild every summer before it's mowed for the fall...

i guess it's this: when humans try to manipulate nature, like scare birds with plastic predators (which i think works) or crows with shiny plastic forks twist-tied to trees (my friend has to try it again next year to figure out whether it was the forks or the time of year that made them finally stop dive-bombing the tree in front of her window), it is utterly futile. even if it does work. because eventually, you'll miss the birds or crows, even if they don't give us our beloved fruits and veggies like the good ol' bees. at least i'd miss them—i like crows and pigeons and real owls, even though i haven't seen the latter in the wild, unfortunately. i guess that proves my point. i know they're out there, somewhere, and i would plant a garden if it meant i'd get to see one. but that's not how it works.

this was very long but fun to write, sorry it's ALL over the place!

- m

[jenmaicha]

may 25: dandelion forest content! i sat on my deck today to do my compsci homework and it was sort of a Vibe? good luck on your exam tomorrow!! and let me knowhow the ghibli movie is hehe (a movie night is very overdue)

- j

[jenmaicha]

may 19: the weather is warming up a lot and the parks are really busy, it feels like things are starting to get back to normal.

- j

[jenmaicha]

may 17: this is the Usual Park (the tree i am sitting under with the dark red leaves is navin’s famous Arg Tree). the sunset i saw today was subtle but really goshdarned pretty... because of the aforementioned endless rows of suburb houses i didn’t actually manage to catch a glimpse of the sun sinking over the horizon, but the sky was lit this soft, delicate pink colour, and the light cast this lovely glow onto the clouds.

superlatives are a little dumb (once again cgp grey explains this better than i can), but lovely is my favourite word. i’ve really liked it and the just-right amount of sincerity it holds for a really long time. “beautiful” means too much and feels too heavy to use for everyday things. “pretty” means too little and feels too offhand to use for things that are notable enough to write about. lovely is perfect, the perfect word to describe dusty pink sunsets on the first few days of spring.

the song you sent me was lovely, thank you.

- j

P.S. I HAVE MANIFESTED THE NEEDLE IN ARM!!! IM NOT GOING TO PUT MORE GROSSNESS HERE BUT IM VERY GRATEFUL AND HAPPY

p.p.s. i had this written down in my notes app and forGOT TO POST IT YESTERDAY apologies for the lateness

[jenmaicha]

may 16: daytime giant tree shot because i wasn’t able to go outside during sundown today. i think this tree is unironically 2 metres in circumference, it is a little wild.