No, Fence Me In

I am so blessed to be able to ride my bike to work just about every day. The fact that I get to do this by riding through Central Park makes me pretty much the luckiest commuter in the world!

My route to work takes me past The Sheep Meadow and I noticed that the high fences were up and so was the gate. You see a lot of areas in the park get shut down over the fall and winter including The Great Lawn. The park conservancy does this in order to give the turf a chance to replenish itself after it's heavy use in the spring and summer. Both the Great Lawn and Sheep's Meadow have some of the thickest, lushes grass I have ever felt and it is really amazing that the grass is so healthy considering the fact that millions of people utilize that space over the spring and summer. I find it encouraging that these large communal spaces in the park get shut down for almost six months and no one complains about it. It's as if everyone just understands that the grass needs a break so it can be at it's best later on. It's true that not many people want to layout in the middle of February and if the weather was balmy then it might be more difficult to close the fields. In a city that thrives on instant gratification this impressive display of delayed gratification is instructive to me.

Sometimes in order to be my best for the things I need to do tomorrow, I have to create space for myself to be nurtured and to recover today. It would be nice if there was someone who would come up and put a fence around me and say, "Ok folks, he's out of commission for a while." Truth is, unlike the lawn, I am the one who would be looking to knock down the fence from the inside so that I wouldn't fall off pace with the world around me.