Observations in a Park

Observations in a Park
The flower beds are vivid cartoon colours. Orange and fuschia, purple with red. Colours only nature has the courage to combine. When a stranger smiles, sometimes it is touched with joy in repsonse to your own, sometimes it makes you question. A strange barking sound is coming from the next bench along like a distress signal. Someone in a wheelchair with a need to make noises, communicating something without words. A man walks past with the words 'I usually start Sunday morning on the bench' printed on his red T-shirt. There are knocking, hollow sounds from a construction site, where they are re-building the cricket ground. There is the distant strumming of the City roads. The shrieks of children, high-pitched on the wind, swirling with the prematurely falling leaves. The geese honk and chat and squawk. Birds shift in the bushes. The pedals on the orange plastic pedal boats squeak. A leaf skitters across the tarmac grey in front of a spinning bike wheel. My hair shifts in the breeze, tickles my ears, gets in my eyes.
Platform heels clip clop past, bleached, blonde hair, a tatooed upper arm, one child on a hip, another in the other hand, another trailing at her heels. The child's teeth are protruding, eyebrows high in surprise. A sapling tree, newly planted in remembrance of a dead girl is opposite me. She was a daughter and a sister and she was 14. She had a Sikh name, and it would seem that everybody called her 'Bubbles'. There is a poem and a drawing of a harp etched into the metal plaque. The poem simply thanks her for being who she was.
Most of the black iron and wooden slatted benches are empty and so they sit strategically placed around the War Memorial enjoying the view all by themselves. It is still early in the Summer holidays. It is the first week. Clouds are threatening British Summertime rain. The litter bins in all their black enammelled gold-plated glory are not yet crammed with Cornetto wrappers, wet wipes and nappies. They sit expectantly, waiting for it all to start. Some more pedal boats, these ones pale blue, float pointlessly, young couples in overambitious life jackets pushing them around in circles in a few inches of stagnant water. The Midlands is so far from the sea.

A metal walking stick of the variety issued from the NHS stumbles rythmically past the conifers and the one remaining empty circular flower bed. The leaves rustle and some pretty curvaceous birds fly off on some unknown business. Crisp packets scrunch and the park cleaning vehicle chugs around it's circuit. The strange barking sound begins again, more and more frenetic, it seeems to mirror the honking of the geese. In the distance a lazy game of football is in progress and the smell of over-sweet adolescent deodorant mixes with the soft greenness like another colour on a pallette. A small boy of about three or four imagines himself a football hero. He scurries enthusiastically with the ball. Little blue and white striped tee-shirt a nice foil to his father's immaculate blue and white attire. This father is a man of quiet pride and obvious dignity. He is ironed out to perfection. Little yellow pointed flowers waggle their heads in smiling approval. They are like waving flags at a parade. They cheer him on as he charges on with inexhaustible energy. He calls 'Dada, Dada, Dada!' rolling his eyes in exasperation and disgust at his father's inability to score. A hornet lands on my electric blue pen and dances with it as I write. A young woman ambles along with her thoughts wrapped carefully beneath a black scarf. She wears an incongruous turquoise sweatshirt with the number 55 on the back. She looks like a basketball player wearing Hijab.
The air is cooling and the light is changing. Toddlers in helmets and elbow protectors are learning to ride three-wheeled bikes coloured lilac and yellow cheerleaders tassels hanging from the handlebars.
A Sikh family are devouring ice lollies. The children have their hair neatly coiled, or un-cut and plaited. Their father is neatly turbanned and charged with carrying the bread for the geese. We live in peace in this place at this moment and I am glad of it. This is England. It is 2010 and we are right here in the very middle of the country, in Birmingham. One of our beating hearts, almost the furthest distance from the sea that you can find on such a small island. A place where, even so, the sea gulls still sing hopefully for a fish supper. I can't explain my love for this place. But it is my home now. This is a place for exiles in search of homecomings. I delight in its complexity. But I am tired now of the over use of the word 'Diversity'. We've moved beyond that here. It is more like tapestry. It is very beautiful at its best. I percieve it as a 21st century version of those ancient tapestries. The Medieval murals which told stories without words about how things were. The parks of England tell stories, some sordid, some promising. Cannon Hill Park tells a very particular story. It is a magnificent tapestry. It is coloured and textured. It is multi-dimensional. It is a window for the imagination. This is a park whose boundaries seem to largely suspend prejudice. Whatever prejudices we hold, they are rarely, in my experience expressed here. Instead of voicing our thoughts and opinions, we allow ourselves the luxury of hoping that just for the length of a cup of tea, we can accept our differences. It would be easy to slip into cliche. Describing this park lends itself to the trap of listing nationalities and describing different skin colours, hair styles, types of dress, indicators of belonging and believing. It begs for descriptions of the Polish waitress, the French speaking family in African dress, the Japanese man with the Jack Russell terrier. He has a broad Brummie accent. Is he Japanese at all? I have to fight a descent into a description of the wide range of age groups. The sheer scale of difference embraced and held here. But this is a fruitless task. It would be easier to describe what isn't here. The nationalities, religions and various elusive categories of people. But even this would be guesswork. The French-speaking family in African dress were, in fact, Canadian. What really matters here is that we are 'at play'.
I have met people recently who are either moving to Australia or New Zealand, or who knew someone who has, or is.
"what is lovely about it" they say, without exception "is that it is just like England used to be, say 40 or 50 years ago"
'How awful', I think.
"I see" I say instead.
"Before...you know...er...before..."
I look confused. They can't usually bear to say the word 'immigration'.
"Before, crime rates, violence, that sort of thing".
Was there ever such a time?
A flock of grey pigeons are swooping sleekly overhead, synchronised. They are all the same. Grey native birds. They are swimming in the sky in circles like a warning of the impending rain and the thickening clouds of the English Summer.
There are plenty of 'Dads' in operation today. I think perhaps the 'Mums' are at work. Its good to see.
"It didn't happen in my day", Mum used to say."Your Father never once pushed any of your prams. It was simply unthinkable, I envy your generation" she said "Dads who push prams..." she used to shake her head with delight that such an unforseen development could take place in the human race.
When I hear about how wonderful Australia and New Zealand are because they are 'unspoilt, just as Britain was 40 or 50 years ago', I wonder about the selective memory that nostalgia comprises. What purpose does it serve? it unravels the latest tapestries which we have woven with such intricate care. People pine for the simplicity of 'wooden tops' and other home-made Victorian toys, like those we had in the 'olden days'. But our nation's children love the colourful new ones. Fabulous trikes and scooters and tasselled bicycles in every colour under our bleak grey skies. It didn't happen in my day!