Vibin'

 I hadn't gone running in this park for a while (aside: how lucky am I to have so many to choose from!?) but I needed something DIFFERENT to get out of the mental rut I'd been feeling stuck in and this park has a particularly nasty incline that was just the sort of masochistic catharsis I needed. I've come to know the regulars of the other parks around me -- I know their routines, their preferences; who will say hello and who likes to stay in their zone uninterrupted -- but I don't know *this* park's regulars. I'd come to see right away these two were some of them.

I pulled into the parking lot at the same time as this couple and I was still sitting in my car getting my running app queued up and tying my hair up as they started to unpack. I can't help it, of course: I waited to watch. (Damn, I'm nosy.) I knew immediately: they are, no doubt about it, regulars at this park AND with this set up. (It is, I'm sure, their bench.) With perfected choreography, they declared their spot, arranged their bags, strung up a radio, and tossed a handful of popcorn out for the birds and squirrels. It was a dance they've done before. They didn't miss a beat. And it was lovely to watch.

It was all the little things about this set up that made it magical to experience. First, the music! They didn't just set their little transistor on the table, but they amplified it, they MAXIMIZED it, with experienced expertise. And their selection... When I stepped out of my car, I got to hear it. It was one of those stations that my dad would tune into when I was a kid and he'd be chauffeuring my friends and I to the mall; one of those stations I'd GROAN about as he sang along wholeheartedly, drowning out my pleas for him to Change. The. Station. PLEASE! But hearing it now, bringing back those memories, and I preferred to linger, not ready to tune away just yet. The second magical piece: They fed the animals. They didn't just come to the park to TAKE an experience; they came to SHARE it. There was a very Buddhist sensibility about this, and I loved them for it.

I went for my run. They were still there as I looped back around, chatting it up with some passersby. They created a moment for themselves, simple but profound.