Green
By Erin Deborah Waks
The frequent (and, often, only) criticism I have of Paris is its absence of green spaces. Sure, it has beautiful gardens and places labelled ‘parks’, as well as a couple of small patches of grass, for instance in front of the Eiffel Tower. But you have to venture relatively far from the city centre to lie flat in the midst of greenery with no buildings or roads as far as the eye can see.
London, however, is a different story entirely. It is why, I think, fewer Londoners feel the desperate need many Parisians do to escape the hustle of the city and vacate their tiny apartments for a weekend a la campagne. Overwhelmed by the tubes and trains and time pressures of big-city life? No bother - a couple of hours in the messy, overgrown haze that is Hampstead Heath will fix it.
What is it about nature, then, that is so appealing? I find myself asking this question to no one in particular from a bench in Hyde Park on a bitingly cold September morning. Is it the relative quiet compared to much of London? The nature, the animals, the sound of the breeze coupled with the chirping of birds? Is it just the colour green, miles away from the grey and brown and cream monochrome palette of buildings, roads and offices?
I think all of the above. But for me, they share not just their shades of green but also their degree of peace. Tranquility. I’ve spent many a summer afternoon buried in a book while sprawled on the grass; I’ve enjoyed plenty of evenings sharing a beer with friends at sunset. I’ve watched spring sunrises with my best friend in the early hours of a North London morning on the top of a grassy hill. I’ve found myself running along paths on autumn days, stuck in that strange temperature of sweaty overheating and frozen fingertips. And I have watched as frost sets in, snow, across perfectly untouched acres of grass.
I’m in a period of healing, finding my inner peace again. Jogging through the streets this morning, I felt the urge to take out my headphones and breathe in the cold, sharp air, feeling that lost but familiar pain of burning lungs meeting freezing ice. I ran in silence through the green hearing, for the first time in months, quiet. Not silence, exactly, but a stillness in the green, in the air, that finally brought the whirrings of my mind to a momentary pause.
The shade of Green Park, the flowers of Regent’s Park, the stature of Hyde Park, the beauty of St James’s Park, the view of Primrose Hill, all share that power.
