WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:07.480 We were meant to have reigned for our reunion, but 2 00:00:07.559 --> 00:00:10.400 by two in the afternoon the sky above Charnam Park 3 00:00:10.560 --> 00:00:14.759 was perfectly unscheduled, light banking clouds over the lawn, no 4 00:00:14.919 --> 00:00:18.800 threat in them, sun feathered and mild. I had sandwiched 5 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:22.640 myself cross legged on the tartan blanket beside the Rose pavilion, 6 00:00:23.079 --> 00:00:26.600 listening to Dario complain about the city's new mulch supplies 7 00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:30.399 and Ruth's mock battle with a bottle of elderflower tonic. 8 00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:35.119 We were all older, craggier, some silver, some stoop But 9 00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:37.960 in the rhythm of these picnics, our old divisions faded. 10 00:00:38.439 --> 00:00:42.679 The maintenance crew, admin, greenhouse folk, the odd Retaarrie like me. 11 00:00:43.240 --> 00:00:46.679 Everyone found a little patch of shade, something to laugh about, 12 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:49.359 a bit of gossip to pass around with the shortbread. 13 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:53.240 The park itself seemed to approve, with birds trilling at 14 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:56.479 a conversational volume and a softness to the lawns that 15 00:00:56.600 --> 00:01:00.840 only comes from long gardening. When the lastiner of grapes 16 00:01:00.840 --> 00:01:03.399 had gone and Ruth was deep into her spreadsheets of 17 00:01:03.439 --> 00:01:06.799 memory with missus Cruise, I wandered off for my usual stroll. 18 00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:11.000 It was habit muscle memory. Call it superstition, call it 19 00:01:11.079 --> 00:01:13.000 a need to see how the roots were holding up. 20 00:01:13.519 --> 00:01:16.439 I told Dario it was for my back. But more honestly, 21 00:01:16.680 --> 00:01:19.280 I liked retracing the cedar loop, the path I had 22 00:01:19.359 --> 00:01:22.359 laid with the paving team back in ninety nine. We 23 00:01:22.719 --> 00:01:26.640 depoured aggregate ourselves, spent whole week ends perfecting the camber. 24 00:01:27.719 --> 00:01:30.560 Over the years, I had watched its settle, watched roots 25 00:01:30.599 --> 00:01:34.120 creep beneath in anxious waves, and with every mild winter 26 00:01:34.359 --> 00:01:38.040 or dry spring, I'd worry my handiwork would finally lose 27 00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:41.519 its shape. I knew every meter with the intimacy of 28 00:01:41.560 --> 00:01:45.239 an old scar. I expected, as always to pass the 29 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:48.640 iron dogwood, then the shade perched bench, by the swing fence, 30 00:01:48.920 --> 00:01:52.400 and finally emerge at the little riverside plaza, a rhythm 31 00:01:52.439 --> 00:01:55.640 set by years of checks and season changes, the comfort 32 00:01:55.640 --> 00:01:59.000 of terrain that doesn't surprise you. Only this time, after 33 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:01.879 the curve by the snowy hedge, the path eased into 34 00:02:01.959 --> 00:02:05.760 a tighter s than I remembered, The bend sharpened, tugging me, 35 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:08.280 not left as it should, but right where a dense 36 00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:12.199 cluster of lilacs stray, A bit wild looking stood thick 37 00:02:12.199 --> 00:02:15.479 over the gravel. There was no sign of the familiar 38 00:02:15.599 --> 00:02:18.919 fork leading straight toward the plaza. For a moment, I 39 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:22.639 stopped frowning, sure I'd simply missed a turn, or was 40 00:02:22.680 --> 00:02:26.360 holding the wrong map in my head. Ahead past the 41 00:02:26.439 --> 00:02:29.919 lilac's faint sunlight flickered down through a canopy so layered 42 00:02:29.919 --> 00:02:33.719 with leaves. The whole area shimmered in fine greenish haze. 43 00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:37.919 The path under foot was older brickwork and pressed oddly 44 00:02:37.960 --> 00:02:41.159 glassy at the edges, inset with a ring of unfamiliar 45 00:02:41.199 --> 00:02:45.240 benches circling a low mound. Each bench caught light along 46 00:02:45.240 --> 00:02:48.719 its slats. The wood pale and patented, as if peeled 47 00:02:48.719 --> 00:02:53.000 from silver birch. Plantings around the clearing were subtly wrong. 48 00:02:53.560 --> 00:02:57.000 Not the scrappy forscythea I had overseen last autumn, but 49 00:02:57.080 --> 00:03:00.560 a ring of low shrubs with metallic sheen leaves like 50 00:03:00.680 --> 00:03:04.840 curled silver coins. I saw no litter, no boot prints, 51 00:03:05.120 --> 00:03:07.199 as if the place had just been swept by some 52 00:03:07.199 --> 00:03:11.840 one fastidious and invisible. The air smelled of dew, almost 53 00:03:11.879 --> 00:03:16.319 seat tinged, unusual for Charnam that humid, brackish memory. I 54 00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:19.120 sat on the nearest bench feeling the seat's arc fit 55 00:03:19.159 --> 00:03:21.719 the spine of my back, and traced the grain, waiting 56 00:03:21.759 --> 00:03:25.719 for a clue. Initials, graffiti, worm holes, something to connect it. 57 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:29.879 Nothing matched. I look for evidence of the maintenance team's handiwork. 58 00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:33.800 No city Parks tag, none of the serials etched by 59 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:37.680 the new staff after twenty sixteen. Only a pattern of 60 00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:41.360 faint chevrons across the back crest, nothing I'd seen used 61 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:45.360 in any past design. After a few quiet minutes, I 62 00:03:45.400 --> 00:03:48.400 walked a slow ring of the grove. On each circuit 63 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:51.639 I came to a stone, half sunken in moss, bearing 64 00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:55.000 a set of numbers that made no sense, certainly not dates, 65 00:03:55.199 --> 00:03:58.639 not familiar park codes. Something about the space made my 66 00:03:58.719 --> 00:04:03.639 scalp prickle. I felt acutely, not afraid, but unexpectedly recognized, 67 00:04:03.840 --> 00:04:06.439 as if the grove itself belonged here, but I had 68 00:04:06.479 --> 00:04:10.240 simply never bothered to find it before. The trail sign 69 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:13.879 was blank, but recently painted stark white against the archway 70 00:04:13.879 --> 00:04:17.680 of overhanging branches. I checked my memory again. If a 71 00:04:17.720 --> 00:04:20.560 new grove had been landscaped here, I'd have objected to 72 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:23.519 these trees being felled, would have known about the flooding 73 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:26.560 risk by the river would have written, or at least read, 74 00:04:26.839 --> 00:04:30.079 the request for the bench order. Yet everything else about 75 00:04:30.079 --> 00:04:35.360 this corner declared itself old, settled, almost ancient. Was it 76 00:04:35.439 --> 00:04:39.920 simply overgrowth parks had their upstart summers, beds left unweeded 77 00:04:40.240 --> 00:04:44.120 corners swallowing themselves enough that even Darhio would mutter, must 78 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:48.120 be from before your time, maybe ninety two. But the pattern, 79 00:04:48.360 --> 00:04:51.959 the sense of deliberate planning, the textured paths pushing into 80 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:55.959 that odd dense canopy. It didn't match any seasonal neglect. 81 00:04:57.040 --> 00:04:59.360 As I stepped back onto the main path and turned 82 00:04:59.399 --> 00:05:03.519 toward the pervis, the grove was immediately hidden, obscured by 83 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:06.879 a lacing of hollies not two meters thick. I couldn't 84 00:05:06.879 --> 00:05:11.160 say precisely what elongated the shadow behind me, The sense 85 00:05:11.199 --> 00:05:13.519 that I'd just glimpsed a part of Charnam I'd lived 86 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:17.879 alongside but never known, or just the restlessness of memory 87 00:05:18.199 --> 00:05:21.759 catching on a gap I couldn't label. I resolved to 88 00:05:21.839 --> 00:05:24.959 ask Ruth about it at lunch. Perhaps new beds had 89 00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:27.759 been plotted in the master plan after all, and I'd 90 00:05:27.759 --> 00:05:31.519 simply lost touch with the city's priorities. Or perhaps I 91 00:05:31.560 --> 00:05:35.519 considered as I walked, I was merely growing sentimental, reading 92 00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:38.079 too much into a trick of shade and fresh leaf. 93 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:42.800 It was a long, gentle curiosity, the sort that grows 94 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:47.000 in parks, a small wonder, easily hidden, quietly dug in 95 00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:50.519 against the familiar. In the years since I'd left city 96 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:53.759 employ Charnam had slipped into my days like a persistent 97 00:05:53.839 --> 00:05:58.160 background music, notes and threads flowing through routine, too soft 98 00:05:58.199 --> 00:06:02.279 to analyze yet impossible to shake away. Retired life hadn't 99 00:06:02.279 --> 00:06:04.560 suited me as i'd hoped. I had a little flat 100 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:06.920 in the East Block, a tidy schedule now that my 101 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:10.720 knees discouraged all but flat walking. My dog passed two 102 00:06:10.759 --> 00:06:14.519 winters ago, so I often found myself wandering alone along 103 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:17.720 the same careworn circuits we'd mapped in our working decades. 104 00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:21.920 Familiar hands waved from the greenhouse, where I brought tea 105 00:06:21.959 --> 00:06:25.319 biscuits most Thursdays, and maintenance always made a show of 106 00:06:25.319 --> 00:06:28.519 inviting me to inspect a new flower bed or resurface 107 00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:32.519 a dispute over hedge height. Dario, all stoic brow and 108 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:36.160 sawdust voice ran most of the manual team. Now he 109 00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:40.439 trusted spades and oil drums, believed the best history was 110 00:06:40.480 --> 00:06:44.759 what you could fix before dusk. Ruth By, contrast, was 111 00:06:44.800 --> 00:06:49.079 all precision, every day logging, compiling, dating the trees and 112 00:06:49.120 --> 00:06:52.480 flower rotations down to the pallor of each daffodil variety. 113 00:06:53.079 --> 00:06:56.439 She deserved two stints a City Records supervisor, and wore 114 00:06:56.480 --> 00:06:59.959 preservation like a badge. My old crew called me the memor, 115 00:07:00.680 --> 00:07:03.000 not with reverence, more as a nudge at my neck 116 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:06.079 for recalling when the kudzu first smothered the north fence, 117 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:08.920 or how the old bandstand had nearly toppled in the 118 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:13.480 Seven Rains. I loved the park's quirks and failures, the 119 00:07:13.480 --> 00:07:17.000 funny curls of stone work hidden under new shrubbery, the 120 00:07:17.079 --> 00:07:21.240 layers of accidents and renovations that made everything feel stubbornly 121 00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:24.399 lived in. None of us believed the park would ever 122 00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:28.399 run according to plan. The world of Charnam Park was 123 00:07:28.399 --> 00:07:32.439 as much social as physical. Grandmothers scattering crumbs for pigeons 124 00:07:32.480 --> 00:07:35.560 near the cypress line, teens playing tag down the long 125 00:07:35.639 --> 00:07:39.600 maple path, marathons on Sundays, the odd quiet pair of 126 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:43.120 chess players in the central alcove. I'd written letters to 127 00:07:43.199 --> 00:07:46.519 counselors to save the dogwood sward when developers wanted a 128 00:07:46.560 --> 00:07:51.399 new lot and spent freezing novembers repairing minor vandalism, restoring 129 00:07:51.439 --> 00:07:56.279 the same gate sign year after year. Retiring was bittersweet. 130 00:07:56.759 --> 00:08:01.800 Walking these spaces meant remembering each negotiation, every planting, the 131 00:08:01.920 --> 00:08:06.120 arc of time pressed into common soil. Missus Cruse stood 132 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:09.519 out among the visitors eighty six that spring, she claimed, 133 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:13.160 though Ruth quietly disputed the six. She was fond of 134 00:08:13.199 --> 00:08:16.959 brightly colored coats, strolled slow circuits with her rescue terrier, 135 00:08:17.199 --> 00:08:19.959 and insisted she remembered the park when the iron gate 136 00:08:20.079 --> 00:08:23.560 was twice its height. She brought stories of summer concerts, 137 00:08:23.800 --> 00:08:28.120 lost Linden arbors, the fountain that played music. Some facts 138 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:32.080 were probably embroidered, but her warmth and insistence always cheered me. 139 00:08:33.120 --> 00:08:36.440 The elders, like Missus CRU's, measured the park in remembered 140 00:08:36.519 --> 00:08:40.480 childhoods and vanished lovers. Shelley, on the other hand, a 141 00:08:40.559 --> 00:08:44.759 marathoner and sharp eye could identify every short cut, tell 142 00:08:44.840 --> 00:08:47.320 you when a bollard had been moved by half a meter, 143 00:08:47.799 --> 00:08:52.480 or when a new bronze plaque appeared. Navigating these overlapping 144 00:08:52.519 --> 00:08:56.279 worlds had filled decades civic order, battling against the wild 145 00:08:56.639 --> 00:09:00.639 childhood memory set, against changing codes and tastes. I had 146 00:09:00.639 --> 00:09:04.519 always prided myself on catching little shifts, the change in 147 00:09:04.600 --> 00:09:07.320 air before a rain, the odd pattern left by a 148 00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:11.039 misaligned mower, the subtle slide of ground when a root 149 00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:14.120 buckled the path. Yet what I'd found in the grove 150 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:18.200 by the lilacs was outside of category. It presented no 151 00:09:18.360 --> 00:09:22.639 explanation rooted in season or foot traffic, no slump, no 152 00:09:22.759 --> 00:09:27.799 maintenance error, no recent landscaping contract. That night, with the 153 00:09:27.840 --> 00:09:31.519 house entirely silent, I fetched the old blueprint files from 154 00:09:31.519 --> 00:09:35.679 my study closet. Copies spirited away, a harmless reminder of 155 00:09:35.799 --> 00:09:39.399 former regimes. Laying them across the kitchen table was a 156 00:09:39.519 --> 00:09:43.200 ritual I loved, tracing roots traced by a thousand feet 157 00:09:43.600 --> 00:09:47.399 dogg ears along each margin, small coffee stains on every 158 00:09:47.480 --> 00:09:51.279 key intersection. I drew up all the documents I could muster, 159 00:09:51.759 --> 00:09:56.679 the nineteen ninety eight masterplan, Ruth's Continuous Update folder, the 160 00:09:56.759 --> 00:10:00.519 expanded twenty twelve digital renders, a pile of and drawn 161 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:04.480 overlays we'd marked with wild abandon after the Big Storm, 162 00:10:04.679 --> 00:10:09.000 all showed the original cedar loop, its spurs, the annotated benches, 163 00:10:09.399 --> 00:10:12.200 all recorded with the pens and printers of their era. 164 00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:16.080 I followed the route again and again with a stubby 165 00:10:16.279 --> 00:10:19.559 h B pencil, pausing over the area where the mysterious 166 00:10:19.600 --> 00:10:23.720 grove had appeared, just where the gravel rejoins the riverside turn. 167 00:10:24.159 --> 00:10:27.320 Yet none of the maps depicted a spur, no extra 168 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:32.399 ring or offshoot, nothing left unlabeled or ambiguous. At a 169 00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:35.840 later crew shifted the path without archiving it. The trees 170 00:10:35.879 --> 00:10:39.440 in that section, Widow's peak birches and patchy holly, had 171 00:10:39.440 --> 00:10:42.919 never taken to new plantings, so we'd avoided unnecessary work. 172 00:10:43.559 --> 00:10:46.200 Or perhaps it was a matter of seasonal density. The 173 00:10:46.240 --> 00:10:49.480 summer greens lately came on thick, perhaps thick enough to 174 00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:53.440 cast old lines into confusion. Yet even the oldest papers, 175 00:10:53.600 --> 00:10:57.360 yellowed and brittle, showed no trace of anything resembling that curve, 176 00:10:57.720 --> 00:11:02.360 that little grove of silvers and odd benches. Frustration tickled 177 00:11:02.360 --> 00:11:05.000 at the edge of my mind, half pleasure, half annoyance. 178 00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:08.519 I'd always be known for good recall, But maybe I thought, 179 00:11:08.600 --> 00:11:13.240 grudgingly Ruth was right. The mind rearranged, shadows played, paths 180 00:11:13.279 --> 00:11:16.399 shrank and expanded, when you wanted the most. Still, some 181 00:11:16.519 --> 00:11:20.320 stubborn part of me rebelled. I could recall with needle precision, 182 00:11:20.440 --> 00:11:23.039 the ring of the old fountain, the snap of root 183 00:11:23.080 --> 00:11:26.519 against brick under last winter's frost, the scent that rose 184 00:11:26.559 --> 00:11:30.600 along the river bend each may, the presence of that grove, 185 00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:33.240 the shape of the path, even the press of the 186 00:11:33.279 --> 00:11:38.399 bench beneath me felt irrefutable, not just imagined, but experienced 187 00:11:38.519 --> 00:11:42.600 body and mind. The next morning I called Ruth and 188 00:11:42.679 --> 00:11:47.159 suggested we walked together, not volunteering the full story, just 189 00:11:47.200 --> 00:11:49.639 want to show you something odd on the loop sprung 190 00:11:49.720 --> 00:11:53.080 up quick might be an error. She arrived with a 191 00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:56.639 tidy leather field bag, wide brimmed hat and the air 192 00:11:56.679 --> 00:12:00.879 of one bracing for an audit. We walked side by side, polite, 193 00:12:01.039 --> 00:12:04.759 our talk, spinning through the usual lost dogs, a section 194 00:12:04.840 --> 00:12:07.799 of rose bushes ripe for culling, her irritation at the 195 00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:11.840 council's hesitation to fund new tree labeling. As we approached 196 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:15.360 the area by the lilacs, I felt at tension the coiling, 197 00:12:15.399 --> 00:12:19.080 hope that the anomaly would appear. We rounded the known 198 00:12:19.200 --> 00:12:23.679 curve past Forscythia's, past the cedar where I'd first planted crocuses. 199 00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:26.960 The path was as it should be, a gentle meander, 200 00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:30.919 no tight spend, no cluster of aggressively wild lilacs, just 201 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:34.679 well trodden gravel, under dappled shade, bisected by the official 202 00:12:34.720 --> 00:12:38.480 cedar loop signs sprouting from unmistakably new soil. There was 203 00:12:38.519 --> 00:12:42.000 no trace of denser trees, no misplaced benches. It was 204 00:12:42.039 --> 00:12:45.679 a pleasant, utterly ordinary slice of the park. No archway, 205 00:12:45.799 --> 00:12:50.039 no wrong angled bricks, no stone ring. The air smelled 206 00:12:50.080 --> 00:12:55.159 prim faintly of boxwood and clean rain. Ruth, seeing my frown, 207 00:12:55.320 --> 00:12:59.320 gave a sideways look which section. There's nothing down here 208 00:12:59.320 --> 00:13:02.039 but the drainage pipe and the new bulbs by the holly. 209 00:13:02.480 --> 00:13:06.440 You meant another spot. I shook my head, unable to 210 00:13:06.519 --> 00:13:10.759 mask frustration. Yesterday at bent Sharp right here there was 211 00:13:10.799 --> 00:13:14.399 a cluster, new benches, odd leaf color. It wasn't like this, 212 00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:19.600 she sniffed, not unkindly. Were you tired? Edgar heat can 213 00:13:19.639 --> 00:13:23.279 scramble the senses, you know how Sometimes late summer trees 214 00:13:23.360 --> 00:13:26.440 crowd your sight lines. She broke off with a small laugh. 215 00:13:27.039 --> 00:13:30.559 I'm not immune. Walked a full circuit last week, swore 216 00:13:30.600 --> 00:13:33.840 the banstn path had moved fifty feet. Turns out I 217 00:13:34.000 --> 00:13:38.320 just lost track day dreaming about the grant paperwork. I nodded, 218 00:13:38.360 --> 00:13:41.240 a catch in my throat. I wanted to object. This 219 00:13:41.440 --> 00:13:44.000 wasn't the vague error of time smoothing or a day 220 00:13:44.080 --> 00:13:48.559 dream's twist. I prided myself on remembering details, tree rings, 221 00:13:48.639 --> 00:13:52.399 path contours, that bench had been reel beneath me, cold 222 00:13:52.440 --> 00:13:55.840 to the hand. Not the memories blur, but insisting would 223 00:13:55.840 --> 00:13:59.240 have sounded like complaint. Impossible to prove any way, But 224 00:13:59.320 --> 00:14:03.799 in the seeing we finished the loop quietly. Ruth offered 225 00:14:03.799 --> 00:14:06.639 me her water bottle, and we parted with a half deezing, 226 00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:10.720 don't wander too far off the map. That afternoon, I 227 00:14:10.799 --> 00:14:14.120 sat in my small kitchen, fingers pressed into my note book, 228 00:14:14.440 --> 00:14:17.720 replaying every step of the previous day. I tried to 229 00:14:17.759 --> 00:14:20.679 reconcile what I had seen, tried to believe perhaps work 230 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:24.080 crews moved faster than rumor, or my eyes had played 231 00:14:24.080 --> 00:14:26.879 tricks in the shifting light. But I couldn't shake the 232 00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:30.720 conviction something strange had pressed into my years of knowing 233 00:14:30.759 --> 00:14:35.039 this park. With a kind of private embarrassment, I decided 234 00:14:35.039 --> 00:14:38.200 to visit again by myself at dusk when the park 235 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:42.200 was quiet, hopeful the anomaly might announce itself once more, 236 00:14:42.240 --> 00:14:45.679 when no one but I was expecting it. It quickly 237 00:14:45.720 --> 00:14:49.639 became more than a solitary puzzle. My fascination, at first mild, 238 00:14:49.879 --> 00:14:53.559 became an itch that sharpened with each unanswered question. I 239 00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:56.440 started by keeping to the original path at different times, 240 00:14:56.639 --> 00:15:00.360 altern it days. On Tuesday, the park cald its in 241 00:15:00.399 --> 00:15:03.759 a light rain. Every leaf sparkled, and my boots left 242 00:15:03.799 --> 00:15:07.679 clear prints. The cedar loop was ordinary, the path straight. 243 00:15:08.799 --> 00:15:12.720 On Thursday, after lunch, sunlight caught a new bend as 244 00:15:12.759 --> 00:15:16.240 I reached the familiar split. There it was the sudden 245 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:19.759 sideways fork, not visible from a distance, the same feeling 246 00:15:19.759 --> 00:15:23.720 of hush waiting past a dense line of trees. The 247 00:15:23.759 --> 00:15:26.799 grove when I reached it was off. The benches were 248 00:15:26.799 --> 00:15:29.279 not in a ring, but formed a snaking s. The 249 00:15:29.320 --> 00:15:32.320 cluster seemed closer to the lake edge, rich with sweet 250 00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:36.159 smelling ferns. A half completed stone circle adorned a clearing, 251 00:15:36.440 --> 00:15:39.279 its center occupied by a bird bath I hadn't noticed before. 252 00:15:39.639 --> 00:15:43.200 Basin speckled green with lichen, its stem carved with names 253 00:15:43.279 --> 00:15:47.840 unfamiliar G. H plus p. L. Nineteen seventy four impossible. 254 00:15:47.919 --> 00:15:51.360 I thought neither date nor carving appeared on any official 255 00:15:51.440 --> 00:15:55.679 record or list of memorials. I tried a crude experiment, 256 00:15:56.120 --> 00:15:59.159 tore a sheet from my pocket notepad, folded it and 257 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:03.159 tucked it under the basin's lip. I left, promising myself 258 00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:06.039 I'd check to morrow for evidence I hadn't dreamt it. 259 00:16:07.080 --> 00:16:11.320 Other days, the anomaly danced elsewhere, once taking a deliberate 260 00:16:11.360 --> 00:16:14.600 detour toward the tennis courts. The pathway doubled back much 261 00:16:14.639 --> 00:16:17.679 sooner than in my memory, cleaving a triangle of grass 262 00:16:17.679 --> 00:16:21.559 that only sometimes existed. The grove then was larger, deeper, 263 00:16:21.799 --> 00:16:24.759 brimming with a tight cluster of chestnut saplings I'd swear 264 00:16:24.799 --> 00:16:28.159 we'd never planted. An arc of weather worn benches skirted 265 00:16:28.159 --> 00:16:31.600 the clearing, seatbacks patterned with a tiling of stylized leaves. 266 00:16:31.759 --> 00:16:36.759 The initials this time sharper ah, see E W Jeanine ninety, 267 00:16:37.879 --> 00:16:42.120 always personal, but never matching any one I knew. I 268 00:16:42.159 --> 00:16:46.120 scattered familiar markers, a handkerchief from my jacket, a faded 269 00:16:46.159 --> 00:16:48.960 cap I'd used out of habit, each time slipping some 270 00:16:49.039 --> 00:16:52.080 object just out of view, but day after day, like 271 00:16:52.080 --> 00:16:55.120 a retriever, disappointed I'd return to find not only the 272 00:16:55.159 --> 00:16:59.639 object vanished, but the very area concealed, overgrown, replaced by 273 00:16:59.679 --> 00:17:03.240 a differ, more ordinary path edge, as if the place 274 00:17:03.320 --> 00:17:06.880 dissolved or shifted each time I left, leaving only the 275 00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:11.000 regular map no sign of what had been. I took proof, 276 00:17:11.160 --> 00:17:14.680 or so I hoped, snapping quick photographs whenever the anomaly 277 00:17:14.720 --> 00:17:18.160 appeared on my home computer, though the images would refuse 278 00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:20.960 to match my memory. The curve of the path I'd 279 00:17:20.960 --> 00:17:24.559 walked was straight. The benches, if present, were plain and battered, 280 00:17:24.839 --> 00:17:28.240 not the elegant, wrong shaped ones I'd sat on over 281 00:17:28.319 --> 00:17:32.440 and over. The details slipped, plants shifted shape, Carvings became 282 00:17:32.559 --> 00:17:37.799 smudged or blurry, or sometimes vanished entirely. Sketches made on 283 00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:40.759 site always looked different back at home. What I had 284 00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:45.000 intended as a tight oval grove emerged spidery and angular, 285 00:17:45.319 --> 00:17:48.240 with shadowy voids where leaves should have caught the sun. 286 00:17:49.319 --> 00:17:52.079 The anomaly seemed to multiply the more I gave chase, 287 00:17:52.440 --> 00:17:56.160 growing richer in detail, yielding a tumbling sequence of features. 288 00:17:56.680 --> 00:17:59.599 Silver ferns, none of these on the list, bird baths, 289 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.880 lifting names, benches new and old, Yet no pattern established itself. 290 00:18:05.359 --> 00:18:08.720 Some days I found the grove displaced by the small playground. 291 00:18:09.079 --> 00:18:12.440 Others it hovered near an old fence bordering the conservatory. 292 00:18:13.519 --> 00:18:16.359 In my mounting frostration, I turned to those who might 293 00:18:16.440 --> 00:18:20.559 notice a new detail, some one who could test my perceptions. Dario, 294 00:18:20.680 --> 00:18:24.359 always grounded, shook his head after accompanying me. Nothing down 295 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:27.039 there but the split path, same as it's always been. 296 00:18:27.480 --> 00:18:29.440 Maybe your thinking of the one by the oak run 297 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:33.359 from when they fixed the irrigation. He shrugged, eyes twinkling 298 00:18:33.400 --> 00:18:38.000 with practiced skepticism. You're the memory ed, but sometimes memory 299 00:18:38.039 --> 00:18:42.319 walks a different loop. Shelley, always brisk and teasing, dismissed 300 00:18:42.319 --> 00:18:45.039 my query. All I know is the new short cut 301 00:18:45.039 --> 00:18:47.400 by the east pond is faster which they put it 302 00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:51.599 in decades ago. Her descriptions matched nothing I experienced. The 303 00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:54.880 short cut, she said, was a meandering gravel arc bordered 304 00:18:54.880 --> 00:18:58.680 by rose hips, empty of extra trees or groves. But 305 00:18:59.119 --> 00:19:02.440 she grinned. Maybe you're onto something. I swear some bits 306 00:19:02.480 --> 00:19:04.680 move when you're not looking, or at least my knees 307 00:19:04.759 --> 00:19:09.279 think so. Talking with missus Cruise over coffee. The next weekend, 308 00:19:09.640 --> 00:19:13.200 the sort of erratic gossipy visit we both enjoyed. I 309 00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:16.799 tried broaching the subject in a roundabout way. Do you 310 00:19:16.880 --> 00:19:20.160 remember a secluded grove there? A place that wasn't on 311 00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:24.640 the map, maybe only appeared sometimes. Her reply was a 312 00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:27.519 purse of the lips. There's always been corners like that, 313 00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:31.079 dear places you run to catch a cool breeze, even 314 00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:34.039 when the city's hotter than coal. She tapped her mug. 315 00:19:34.599 --> 00:19:37.480 Once I saw a boy playing marbles with himself by 316 00:19:37.519 --> 00:19:40.160 a tree. I can't find any more. These sorts of 317 00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:43.400 things come and go. It's why I love Charnam keeps 318 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:48.079 you guessing. I started a private grove log, filling pages 319 00:19:48.119 --> 00:19:52.440 with sketches, times, temperatures, moon phases if I thought them relevant. 320 00:19:52.960 --> 00:19:57.039 I noted plant shapes, bark marks, compiled every appearance or shift, 321 00:19:57.119 --> 00:20:01.240 no matter how trivial photographs I realize brought back only 322 00:20:01.240 --> 00:20:07.079 an approximation. Trees always seemed taller, benches more faded, names illegible, 323 00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:10.559 even when I'd thought them crisp. That morning, it became 324 00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:15.119 clear the anomaly actively resisted straightforward evidence, as if shy 325 00:20:15.160 --> 00:20:18.920 of too much attention, shape shifting rather than staying court, 326 00:20:19.960 --> 00:20:23.640 it became my preoccupation. I slept badly. I'd wake at 327 00:20:23.640 --> 00:20:26.400 first light, planning a new scheme to catch the grove 328 00:20:26.440 --> 00:20:29.559 in a state I could prove. My sketch book grew wild, 329 00:20:29.599 --> 00:20:34.160 with crossings out, alternate diagrams, little exclamations. Yet each new 330 00:20:34.200 --> 00:20:38.799 observation deepened the strangeness. The anomaly never repeated itself. One 331 00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:42.000 day brought dense lilac hedges, the next an arc of 332 00:20:42.039 --> 00:20:45.440 miniature use. Each return made me less certain I'd ever 333 00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:50.039 see the same place twice. After another fruitless weekend, I 334 00:20:50.079 --> 00:20:52.559 sat with my notes and forced myself to articulate the 335 00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:55.920 question taking shape. Was the grove real or a trick 336 00:20:55.920 --> 00:20:59.720 of memory mine alone? If so, how did my experience 337 00:20:59.720 --> 00:21:04.480 feel so distinctly material, so outside ordinary remembering if others 338 00:21:04.480 --> 00:21:08.160 didn't see it. Why did some details, those impossible initials, 339 00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:12.559 the bird bath, the stone circle feel so specific, so rooted, 340 00:21:12.799 --> 00:21:16.759 even when the world erased my proofs. Desperate, I left 341 00:21:16.799 --> 00:21:20.119 another marker, my old nickel plated pen from years of 342 00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:23.640 staff meetings, pressed into the crook of a bench arm. 343 00:21:23.880 --> 00:21:27.640 On my next visit, searching through every possible entrance, the 344 00:21:27.720 --> 00:21:31.440 bench had vanished, replaced by a tighter semicircle of boxwood. 345 00:21:31.799 --> 00:21:35.920 The familiar silver leafed plants nowhere to be found. Was 346 00:21:35.960 --> 00:21:39.720 I inventing things or simply unlucky? I circled the park 347 00:21:39.759 --> 00:21:44.000 twice that morning, willing someone else, a jogger, a groundskeeper, 348 00:21:44.279 --> 00:21:47.079 to stumble in with me and validate what I'd sensed. 349 00:21:47.640 --> 00:21:50.839 But I always seemed to miss these uncanny places, except 350 00:21:50.839 --> 00:21:55.480 when alone, my heart skittering with searching. Finally a clue 351 00:21:55.559 --> 00:21:58.200 broke through in the oddest way. I had lined up 352 00:21:58.200 --> 00:22:02.480 my little log book, entries flipping disconsolately, rows of sketches, 353 00:22:02.680 --> 00:22:06.359 lists of vanished or new plantings, small notations about the 354 00:22:06.400 --> 00:22:10.559 weather and time of day. Certain patterns hidden at first 355 00:22:10.599 --> 00:22:16.240 started to surface. The grove never appeared in ordinary passing. Instead, 356 00:22:16.319 --> 00:22:19.559 it cropped up on specific occasions, the anniversary of my 357 00:22:19.680 --> 00:22:22.960 first city work day, the park's annual open air festival, 358 00:22:23.240 --> 00:22:26.799 the day after Missus Crewe's birthday, in quiet weeks following 359 00:22:26.799 --> 00:22:33.240 retay luncheons. The anomaly clustered tightly around dates loaded with memory, communal, public, 360 00:22:33.480 --> 00:22:36.759 or just personal. There was something in the calendar, a 361 00:22:36.799 --> 00:22:40.559 tug in time, a preference for moments of heightened remembrance. 362 00:22:41.559 --> 00:22:45.480 It wasn't simply random occurrence. The pattern was there, shimmering 363 00:22:45.519 --> 00:22:47.720 at the edges of all my attempts to deny it. 364 00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:51.559 The more emotionally charged my connection to the day, the 365 00:22:51.559 --> 00:22:54.759 more I carried the weight of past celebration or a 366 00:22:54.799 --> 00:22:58.240 residue of nostalgia, the more likely it was that I 367 00:22:58.240 --> 00:23:01.759 would find the path deflect, the grove pushing through like 368 00:23:01.799 --> 00:23:06.640 a memory briefly granted flesh. I tested further, seeking to 369 00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:10.119 catch the grove's appearance in relation to mood, not just schedule. 370 00:23:10.599 --> 00:23:12.960 When I walked in a state of frustration, or when 371 00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:17.839 my mind was occupied with mundane errands, the ordinary roots persisted, impervious, 372 00:23:17.960 --> 00:23:22.079 straight as ever on days spent reminiscing recalling old park 373 00:23:22.200 --> 00:23:25.000 festivals or the year we almost lost the willow pond 374 00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.160 to drainage. The threshold slipped open, the grove drifting nearer, 375 00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:32.839 the brick and bench and odd plantings restitching themselves into 376 00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:36.640 the fabric of my walk. I found confirmation, or at 377 00:23:36.720 --> 00:23:40.680 least a compelling counterpoint. On a breathless afternoon near the rhododendrons, 378 00:23:41.200 --> 00:23:45.519 Missus Cruz, wearing her signature emerald coat, materialized beside me. 379 00:23:45.559 --> 00:23:48.680 As I circled the outer beds. She was hunched, but cheerful. 380 00:23:48.839 --> 00:23:51.720 Her little dog nosed deep in the underbrush. Before I 381 00:23:51.720 --> 00:23:55.480 could formulate a tactful question, she looked up, squinting and said, 382 00:23:55.839 --> 00:23:58.480 is it just me? Or is the old quiet circle 383 00:23:58.519 --> 00:24:02.720 back again, the one with the birds statues. Lord, I 384 00:24:02.759 --> 00:24:06.079 haven't seen that since I was a girl. I blinked, 385 00:24:06.119 --> 00:24:11.039 heart pounding the grove. Do you mean here now? She smiled, 386 00:24:11.279 --> 00:24:15.799 eyes glimmering behind thick spectacles. Not exactly here. I used 387 00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:18.799 to visit one like it with my grandfather, always near 388 00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:21.359 the pond full of willows. In that other city I 389 00:24:21.400 --> 00:24:23.680 lived in when I was eight or nine, had a 390 00:24:23.720 --> 00:24:27.119 fence all covered with honeysuckle bird statues in the grass. 391 00:24:27.599 --> 00:24:30.680 I wandered looking for it every summer. Never was quite 392 00:24:30.759 --> 00:24:34.039 where you expected, but always somewhere when you needed quiet. 393 00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:38.160 You know, I let her words settle, wary of over 394 00:24:38.279 --> 00:24:42.480 interpreting it. Strange you de mention that now I keep 395 00:24:42.519 --> 00:24:45.799 finding bits of a grove, places that aren't on the map, 396 00:24:46.200 --> 00:24:49.799 Never the same, never stays put benches with initials. I 397 00:24:49.839 --> 00:24:55.039 don't know, missus Cruz tapped her cane. Memory plays tricks, dear, 398 00:24:55.119 --> 00:24:58.039 But I wonder maybe some of us conjure up what's needed. 399 00:24:58.519 --> 00:25:01.680 Parks are like people. They carry all we plant in them, 400 00:25:01.799 --> 00:25:05.680 all we lose too. Her details did not match mine. 401 00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:10.200