On Wednesday nights in the summer, the park near my house hosts live concerts in the grassy amphitheater. It’s mostly local bands, and families come out with blankets and lawn chairs to enjoy a night of music. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve stood in my kitchen in the evenings washing dishes after dinner, and listening as the occasional sound from the concerts drifted through the trees.
Pastorius Park has long been one of my favorite places in the neighborhood – it was filled with dogs and good climbing trees and countless places to hide and play. I’ve got a lot of memories of the park: playing with my brother in the creek and finding smooth stones to collect in our pockets, and spending full summers charting the life-cycles of frogs after finding long strings of egg, and watching as they became tadpoles and grew spindly legs and lost their flat tails.
Something about Wednesday night last week made me want to walk around, and maybe recapture some of that childish sense of wonder that I used to feel tramping around the park. I headed over to the concert with my Dad to catch a little bit of what was going on. Alo Brasil, a Philly based 14 person group, was playing. It was lively and a lot of fun to see.
The amphitheater is set up with a temporary wooden stage at the center, with strings of lights hanging above the performers. The park also has a few permanent lampposts – old sodium gas lights that give off a warm orange glow. So the air was filled with music and fireflies and fairy lights, and people danced and talked with their neighbors and picnicked, and I just thought to myself “Well, isn’t this nice.”
I’m reminded of how lucky I am to have something like this in my life and so close to home. All of this – the support of local art, the sense of community, and the feeling of warmth.
Lots of love,
Kristen
Coming up next: a post about blueberry picking with my Mom. (Can’t be playing favorites, after all, and I can’t post about going somewhere with Pa without talking about Ma next!) On another note, I’ve been scanning photos from my childhood, so you may notice more of them getting featured here. I’m nostalgic, and I like the idea of having a few old pictures to tide me over when I can’t flip through photo albums next year.Enjoy the extra pictures of pint-sized me!
cheerfully walking 