An afternoon at Alta Plaza Park in San Francisco
When we got to the park, there were still spots of shade in the grass, shaped by the cirrus clouds stretching languidly, like man’s hand reaching toward God’s in the Michelangelo. We laid out our blankets on the other side of the park, where fewer dogs were unleashed and we could see the skyline and watch the tennis players.
After cracking our cans of carbonated water, we leaned up on our forearms and talked. She asked, “What do you want to do for dinner tonight?” I started to answer, but then she interrupted, “No, wait, never mind. It’s too early to think about dinner.”
Then I tried to read, but the clouds had already given up on reaching the heavens, fallen down into the bosom of Twin Peaks. So the sun was shining through too bright to keep my eyes open looking at the pages. I rolled up my jacket for a pillow, lay back, and closed my eyes.
I could hear whop ... bounce, whop ... bounce, whop … until there was a bounce and then a “dang it” instead of a whop. I don’t know how long I listened to the tennis ball before I fell asleep. I woke up long enough to realize I was too hot, almost sweating. I leaned up, took off my shirt, and rolled over to lie on my stomach.
When I woke up again, she was asleep, covering her face with her arm. The tennis players had changed. A blue-hatted young girl was throwing an orange frisbee to her black-and-white dog. The children were squealing, running around the jungle gym. Three adult women were sitting in the grass near us, talking about their jobs and their vacations and other people and their jobs and their vacations.
After watching and listening and writing about everything apparent, I didn’t know what else to do. So I asked her, “What do you want to do for dinner tonight?”