She always felt Hyde Park was too big. There were parts of it, as she wandered away from the River Thames, that sprawled too far around her without dark, leafy cover, which she preferred. Those parts were like deserts – flat and hot, glary. She never understood why people chose to sit in those parts, chatting, picnicking, reading, in a dry, exposed space.
Yet when Sophie found a tree to perch under, she could read for hours under its shade, watching people pass by. Then, the bigger the tree the better. She’d suddenly feel small in its embrace, and that was comforting. It made her step out of herself and up, far up, where she could see the entirety of the park’s current inhabitants going about their strolls, lunch breaks, sunbathing and exercise sessions, as small as ants.
She’d see herself – a tiny speck – below the canopy of that tree, and be reminded of how many times over she was enveloped in the layers of London, about the beautiful multiplicity of life and emotion taking place around her. She was a minute part of an ever breathing, living, growing, changing organ, vital to, on a bigger scale, the flux and flow of the rest of the country, the world, evermore connected.
sundayskin 