Playing Hide and Seek with Purpose
11:24 pm
It's a challenge to be an aimless wanderer near the Serpentine on
a beautiful British summer evening. Summer is almost over this year and
apparently everyone in London appreciates this to the fullest, for in their
overwhelming gratitude for the weather gods, they are all now here with me,
admiring the sunset on ‘The Long Water’.
Everyone is here and everyone
seems to be full of purpose, except, I realize, me; this feeling of
‘purposelessness’ now familiar to me from last evening, as I cycled through another
part of Hyde Park - comfortable pace, eyes out for any passing golden haired
children and long eared large dogs - until I found myself being swiftly
overtaken by commuter-cyclists in shining safety jackets as they all cycled
home in a frenzy, practically bursting at the seams with purpose.
The Serpentinians today are
more relaxed. And their purpose falls under two overarching themes - Leisure
and Sport.
In support of Leisure, we have
families of rich Arabs feeding ducks, a young family paddling along in a boat -
the man diligently taking pictures of a rosy-cheeked, rather fat baby, in the
arms of a tiny lady; and a group of Portugese students chattering away in low
tones as they stand in a long queue outside the lakeside cafe.
To cheer the Sports theme on, we
have a middle aged man skate-boarding up and down the entire stretch of the
lake, a teenager roller-blading backwards (!) at scary fast rates and an
animated group of ultimate Frisbee-ers.
I am not sure what I’m doing
here anymore, my legs seem to have automatically carried me to the park without
discussing the matter with my head or heart.
So with an aim of
reorientation, I do what I normally do in times of doubt, and buy myself an ice
cream.
I find an ‘easy-chair’ to sit
on; normally they charge you a few quid for these things but my gorgeous
purposeful public is all over these chairs so I assume it must be a summer
thing and make myself comfortable.
Three plump Arab kids
come and sit down in the ‘easy chairs’ next to mine and for the next half hour,
my world is peaceful bliss as I eat my ice cream slowly, and listen to the boys
speaking Arabic, not understanding a word but feeling childhood - theirs and mine - with every
sound. We are now, all four of us, taking it really, really slow. This is why I
love this city, I tell myself as I finish my ice cream, me on an easy-chair in
a gigantic park, next to some Arab kids. Now I know this, I can think about more
important things, more logically. I take a look around after this astute
thought and then I spot him, The Man Who Collects Money for the Easy - Chairs.
In less than a second, I am
up from sheer reflex, ready to run. Then I notice that the Arab kids are
up with me too.
And as we walk away from the
scene of our combined crime, we look at each other and we laugh and laugh and
laugh. And then, when we have wiped the tears from our eyes, we turn away from each other and go our separate ways, a great evening shared,unshared, without a word exchanged.
In all this hide and seek with purpose as an adult, sometimes it helps to think like a child again.
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