Walks This Week

I’ve finished the weekly cleaning of this small apartment. French bread bakes. I plan to take it to Poughkeepsie for Sunday dinner with the Akinyombo family.

Evenings, Laurence and I walk. The walk we’ve done most often is to Plane View Park. It’s a nice two mile walk through Jackson Heights neighborhoods. This week, homes and yards were still decorated with Christmas lights. The planes roared for take off from the runway at LGA. When it’s cloudy, we can count on them swooping down just over our heads before screeching to a stop lest they land in the bay. (It has happened.) We walk to the park but ride the bus back.

Bus rides are almost as enjoyable as the walk, mainly because its relaxation with a view. Often we ride the bus to Forest Park and walk there. We did it again this week. This time, we didn’t walk in the woods but rather, went to the side where the picnic tables are. Laurence shone a light on the wooded path around a pond, but we didn’t need it once we made our way out to where park lamps light the way. Thanks to bare tree branches, the lights in the distance defined Rockaway and the Jamaica Bay. We’d always wondered if we could see out to the ocean. Now we know that it’s possible.

A walk this week took us from this neighborhood to the former one where life in NYC began for us. So many memories come with walking to a small triangle park in Woodside. We recall crossing it that very first evening in August 1988 along with Reuben and Lydia Shirk to eat seafood at the corner restaurant (now an Irish bar). The emotions of the unknown of that time would have wondered to know that 35 years later, we would truly feel at home on a park bench beneath the 7 train. (How young we and Reubens must have been.)

The God of then is the God of today. This comforts me. Laurence will soon be home for lunch. He will probably ask, “Do you have plans for the evening?” Likely, we’ll walk somewhere. And now I need to walk to the Asian market for some fish for lunch.

Have a good weekend and keep walking. Berniece