Far and wide, my belly stretches. Splayed across a town of homes and families. Without having any, the people who visit me become my own. My lumps and bumps are turned into a scape for children to climb upon. I watch them with my mossy eyes, shouting about, running around, and naturally just wasting time. The snow, the rain, the sun, the leaves — these faithful visitors are what keep me growing.
One hundred and twenty-three years I have laid here, in Montclair. My home since the beginning. When the people grew and the grass became few, I was kept as a precious milestone in time. To capture a moment and to create moments for the people who come to me. No one realized they needed me until they didn’t get me. Families moved from across the country to our small suburban town. The forests and plains that were once here will now never be found. They built a town to build it up, and it most likely will never come down. The need for a park was simple and extremely necessary, a place to gather and a place to grow. A place to walk, and a place to play. All in one, all in me.
I am more than a park, more than a place to gather. The benefits I hold are many, and few people know how to utilize me in a way that benefits them the most. Those who do juice the resources out of me and use every asset they can get out of my thick roots. They are the loyal citizens who walk my path until their legs are sore and shaking, they sit in my grass until ants start crawling up their ankles towards their calves. The people who sit on my benches from sunrise to sunset and who plant bulbs in my rich soil until their hands are raw and numb. I know I’m more than the four letters people use to describe me. Sports practices take place on my lawn as kids goof off with their friends. Girl Scout troops search through my leaves and climb up my shaky trees. Montclairians walk their dogs through my tracks, host birthday parties for their kids, and fly kites when the wind is whipping the branches around and blowing the tiny children off their own feet. I am not a word, I am a sentence full of cracks and corners, futures and pasts, memories and moments. A feeling more than a place, and each person who comes and goes feels me in a different way, unique to their own personality.
I’ve always felt alone here nestled at the foot of a mountain. Does being here mean that I, myself, am at my lowest point? Have I reached my bottom? The adolescents don’t care for me the way I wish I could provide for them. I reach for them with my pointy branches, but they run scared, unable to see who I really am. They walk carelessly through my tracks but their glides feel more like stomps on my soul. The litter they throw aimlessly behind them without a care in the world suffocates me every day. Empty plastic bottles hold me by my throat, keeping their grip tight and fierce. Every piece of litter thrown into my graces only hurts them, but they don’t care to stop and realize that if they hurt me, I’ll soon be gone. Then the only ones hurt will be them, when they don’t have my thriving gardens and lush green grass. My shady trees and crunchy leaves are what they will miss most. Walks through the parks with friends and loved ones. They’ll remember the crunch of an autumn leaf as they walk on my asphalt, away from me and toward a future only full of technology. Skyscrapers that reach the clouds will fill this town one day and that’s when the people will long for just a patch of grass, like what I used to be.
Yes, it’s lonely and I have somehow convinced myself that I am in this alone. But, I have realized over my one 123 years that every person who steps foot in my greenery has become a friend — a friend of Anderson Park. I may be only a small part of their lives, but what they don’t realize is that they are my whole life.