I’m in Boston where it’s a beautiful spring day. A friend and I just took a walk through the Public Garden, the oldest botanical garden in the country. It’s more formal than Golden Gate Park — in the same way Boston is more straitlaced than San Francisco — yet still filled with the same small park moments that bring me joy. I see a little boy clamber on the the brass statues of the duck family from “Make Way for Ducklings” and it takes me back to my own childhood, listening to my mother read that book, and the pleasure I felt sharing the story of Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Quack, Pack and Quack with my own children.
Parks take you backward and forward in time. They are wonderlands. No wonder then, that Ava Roy artistic director of We Players, a site immersive theater troupe, decided to stage a production of Adventures with Alice in Golden Gate Park. (You can see it now, though May 29.) “The whole story is an invitation to imagine and to wonder--to magic,” Roy told The Examiner. “I want to create work in public places that opens us up to wonder. Magic is happening around us all the time. If we don’t look, we won’t see it. And if we start paying attention, we’ll see more than we ever imagined possible.”
With that in mind, here are some recent moments of wonder I’ve found in the park:
Oh just loved this, and this sentence blew me away: "Parks take you backward and forward in time." ... andthis word play, "No wonder then.." Your essay helps me stop to take notice and wonder. Thank you.
Love your photos. When I saw the title Wonderland, I wondered if this was going to be about Playland which sat near the end of the park from from 1913 until 1972. Some of the “rocks” out that way are still made of plaster...