Baisley Pond Park had been on my list of things to see for I don’t know how long. Hard to say why, except that it is there, on a map, looking strangely enticing. I chose a perhaps misbegotten route, from the A train Rockaway Boulevard station at Liberty Av up Rockaway Boulevard to Sutphin, which I think is about 2-1/2 miles. It was an interesting stretch of road, much of it busy with Sunday church servoces of all denominations. This is not an affluent community, and by my reckoning it shows in the sartorial appointments of the Day Of Rest. Poorer communities dress up in their Sunday best for church services. I saw it yesterday in Ozone Park, and I’ve seen it in East Elmhurst. What I’ve seen, on the other end of the spectrum, is that churches on Park Avenue are filled with churchgoers wearing shorts and t-shirts, or casual garb. There might be a well-dressed older person here or there but mostly it’s like they dressed down in expectation of other activities after the services.
That stretch of Rockaway Boulevard might not have been the most prudent or efficient path to Baisley Pond but it got me there. I watched creatures unknown to me cause ruckuses and disruption in the calm waters, comparing it to the human brain. Does anyone really know what is going on inside either the pond or the brain? Can any of those creatures in the waters explain themselves? Explain what the hell is going on with all this activity? Can we analyze photos and MRI slices of the brain, stidy every piece of fatty waste and every drop of fluid — can we study all of that and arrive at any idea of what the hell is going on in there?
I had looked at other parks that seemed relatively far. Idlewild and Brookville, among others. But too much scrutiny revealed that there just did not seem to be anything there worth the long journey. To wit, upon arrival I was not sure Baisley Pond was worth the long journey, though I blame my own bad planning just a bit.
The geese were scary. No question. I respect the geese and do not engage them in any way, yet I still fear an attack. Something inside me thinks I deserve to die by a million bites of an angry mob of geese. It is their world and my place in it is certain. They will eat me.
Cricket was being played at Baisley. From a distance I saw the bats, or whatever they’re called in that game, and assumed it was softball. But no, I spotted two cricket matches taking place on opposite ends of the pond. My friend Joe traveled the world photographing cricket players and cricket matches. I don’t know that he ever played himself but he loved the game.
The Pond itself is largely barricaded by trees and bushes. A few small opening allow a view of the leafy, verdant surface. It was only after I walked almost the entire perimeter of the Pond that I found the King’s view, as I called it. A wide area with no obstruction of the view, where a dude was teaching another guy how to fish. I don’t know what you might catch in those shallow waters. Frogs? Beer cans? There was certainly some garbage in the pond, reminding me of some of the chatter that arose after the submersible implosion near the Titanic site. Someone had been to the bottom of the bottom, the Marianis (?) trench said to be the deepest spot of any ocean on earth. What he saw there disrupted him. He saw a plastic bag with a Sponge Bob illustration on it. He felt violated. How could this one spot on earth not be touched by human waste? I was like, how could it not be tainted by human waste? Shit sinks. And when the ocean is deep enough stuff sinks and sinks and sinks until it cannot sink anymore. I would be surprised if there was not a collection of human junk that found its way to the bottoms of the oceans.
I feel tiny today. Like I could accidentally slip over a fence or railing and fall from a high place. Someone would catch me, though. All this is metaphor for a feeling of rootlessness, of no grounding or aliveness.
