In Summer
The highlight of our pleasant summer weekend was a brief stroll in Central Park on Saturday evening. There was plenty of light in the sky, but the lamps were lighted. Providing additional illumination, swarms of lightning bugs glistened in the shrubbery, which, for its part, looked extremely kempt. The walks were tidy; the lawns were uninterrruptedly green. There were impressive perennial plantings here and there. We did not penetrate far, but loosely paralleled Fifth Avenue, from 79th Street to 72nd. We were coming from the Metropolitan Museum, where Kathleen caught the Venice and the Islamic World show on the eve of its closing, and where we had another look at the amazing (and amazingly fresh) clothes of Paul Poiret. We were on our way to dinner somewhere. Kathleen thought that there might be something casual at the Kerbs Boathouse, beside Conservatory Water (better known as the Sailboat Pond), but the place was locked up tight. We thought of heading to the other boathouse, on the Lake, where the restaurant is said to be overpriced but the setting unbeatable. It was easier to imagine the pleasures of a table near an open porte-fenêtre at Orsay, on Lexington Avenue at 75th, however, and that is just where we found ourselves a few minutes after leaving the park.
Never has Central Park looked more beautiful to me than it did the other night. Decades of attention from the Central Park Conservancy have refreshed the dreams of Olmstead and Vaux. No longer sullied by neglect and low expectations, the park was all the readier to be burnished by twilight. Close as we were to Fifth Avenue, all we could hear was the song of the birds. If the birds were jays, and not nightingales, we could at least imagine gentler calls.
I ought to spend more time in Central Park. For years, I've confined my limited Parking to Carl Schurz Park, because it's closer to home, and visited largely by the locals. (Don't forget the East River!) But Central Park has become too beautiful to miss.
I found myself wondering why no enterprising painter has taken on Central Park's charm in the way that Harold Altman has made a career in Paris's Parc Monceau.
The weekend had another highlight on Sunday, but that was family.
