[Last modified: October, 27 2024 09:45 PM]
I was out sick this week but I later observed people during a walk in Hampstead Heath. It was a bright, sunny day but simultaneously cold and crisp. The trees are just turning to various hues of orange, red, and brown from their summary green and the Heath is filled with walkers, escaping from the urban center of London for brief moments on a Sunday. I sit, bundled up, on a bench near the center and watch as people walk by, some alone but many with friends, partners, strollers, and other loved ones. As I listen I hear snippets of their conversations, with phrases like “I told him to!” “She’s upset…” “I honestly hated them” and “She doesn’t understand” jumping out. What struck me about most of the conversations that people were having around me was that they were largely about other people, who were likely not present. I thought about the Sunday ritual of relaxing, escaping to a green space, and processing the week with others. I thought about the action of verbal processing and how human beings are so relational that it is difficult to talk to someone else without another person coming up in conversation in some capacity.
The words I wrote were largely paradoxical: peaceful, crowded, green but with sites of the London skyline, quiet and loud, nature and man. This got me thinking about the city and greenspace and how even though the Heath is incredible and seems big to many people, for me coming from california and growing up in the mountains, close to the ocean, and surrounded by redwood trees, it seems so small, so urban still, and so full of people it can hardly be considered an escape. I don’t understand how we can find peace surrounded by people or feel an escape when we can still see the city and there is no silence or purity of nature. All of this got me thinking about mental and physical health and the connection between our internal and external worlds. With relation to my project, I thought about healing from illness and the city and how it feels almost impossible to feel clean and healthy from the inside out in a polluted urban space. It’s like our bodies are shrinking green spaces surrounded by industry.