What we see outside our door

So, I know this is two posts in one day, but as the other one was postponed Alaska pictures, I'm saying it doesn't count. One of my mom's friends wanted to know what it was like right outside our apartment building, so I thought when I went on my first solo exploration trip I'd take some pictures and share them.



So, as I just mentioned, this was like my first push out of the nest so to speak. I had nothing on the agenda today and as we have nothing in our apartment at the moment and I still know so little about my surroundings I decided to walk to the park near us. It is about 10 minutes or so away and John and I had wandered over there on our "look see" visit in May, but we hadn't really gone into the actual park...so I trot over there and went exploring.

The park is on two sides of the street and I think it could be on one of the other corners as well. It was amazing....you walk up these worn steps and enter this completely new world. It's like a little haven plopped right in the middle of the craziness that is the city. You can just feel yourself relax because there aren't people whizzing by on all sides and the torturous heat isn't bearing down on you. The path even crosses a small stream with large rocks that you step on. It was great! It's not big at all....there is a huge park that is a subway ride away which is amazing, but this is just perfect for right down the street.

So I walk around one side of the street and then go to the other side which is a little more like a pathway...more people, but very shady too. I think about trying a new way to the main street, but just can't bear to leave the park quite yet. So, I sat on a park bench and decided to start a new book and my first to purchase in Japan....."Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer.

This is a somber dialog just to warn you:

I know that it's an older book, but now that it's been made into a movie it's back in the limelight in the bookstores. For those of you that may be unfamiliar, it's a true story about an upper-middle-class young guy that decides to leave everything he has and explore the world in a unique way. His remains were found 4 months later in the Alaskan Bush. I think the book drew me partly because I had just been to Alaska and encountered the expansiveness of nature. Something about Alaska just pulls to you, the beauty and the untouched feeling of it. The inevitability that nature is stronger than man in it's truest form. And then another part of me was just fascinated how someone could just leave everything that he knew behind and "live off the land" so to speak. Anyway, so far it just makes my heart hurt....I don't know how to explain it. I think that there are a lot of us that have moments where we question our lives...our choice of career, our choice of habitation, simply ourselves and we try to find meaning. Obviously we don't go to these extremes to do it, but we do it nonetheless. I wonder how many of us are ever sure we know the answer. Anyway, it just seems so so sad to me that this kid didn't get a chance to figure it out...or maybe he did I guess I'll just have to read the remainder of the book and figure it out.

Until next time....Jenn