Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

After work yesterday, I went up to Central Park to see and smell the flowers along the Lilac Walk. It's early for lilacs yet, but a few were fully in bloom and a few more starting: delightful but not overwhelming. I smelled all of them, started to walk away, then turned back for another visit to one bush. Mmm, lilac. I suppose other species are sometimes aware when they're reacting to tropisms.

Other things in bloom nearby included the last of the forsythia and some wonderful flowering cherries. (If I don't happen to visit the park in those two weeks, I can easily forget how many fine cherry trees are growing there.) I wandered past the south edge of the lake to Strawberry Fields, where I saw some birders settled in with serious binoculars, on tripods. I asked someone standing there what they were looking at. She told me it was an owl, but she didn't know what kind. I waited a minute or two, and when someone else walked away, I asked one of the people if I could look through his binoculars. He said yes.

He had them focused on the owl. An Eastern screech owl, he said. Sleeping in full view on a tree branch, facing toward us (well, full view to birders at the right angle and with good eyes or good optical tools: probably quite adequately concealed from anything the owl needs to worry about). I took a nice long look: the tripod helped, because while I can't stand entirely still on a slope, any movement of the image was only from my own movement, and I didn't come close to losing the owl. He commented that he likes this place and time of year because "you can see three new birds a day."

When I got out our book to add the owl to the life list, I realized that it's been ages since cattitude or I had gone out actively looking for birds. The previous entry is the peacock I saw along I-84 last summer. (Some of this, of course, is that after a while you know most of the local birds: but I suspect I could add a few species by taking the A train to the right stop.)

Note: the Lilac Walk is just north of the Sheep Meadow: about 69th Street at the center of the park. The best of the flowering cherries are just west of the Reservoir, but I didn't walk that far north this time, just enjoyed a few scattered near the Lilac Walk. Strawberry Fields is at the west edge of the park, near the 72nd Street entrance; the south end of the B/C station is handier for the Lilac Walk, the north end for Strawberry Fields, and that's how I traveled yesterday. I thought of walking down to Columbus Circle but one foot didn't like that idea.

I woke up early, and it's a very nice morning, so I stopped in Central Park on my way to work.

I went in at 110th and Central Park West, where I soon ran into a volunteer for the project. He told me that the path I was on led to a road--and yes, I could walk on one side of it, but there was traffic. So I turned back and went downstairs. And then up, and around.

At that hour on a weekday, a lot of people and dogs are in the north end of the park. There were also other people clearly there for the art--the cameras were a giveaway.

There's a gap in the gates, a few blocks south of 110th in a hilly area: the paths continue, but the orange doesn't. I kept going and it resumed.

I'm not sure if it was my mood or the different piece of the park, but while I enjoyed looking at the gates and the patterns they made, I was mostly enjoying being out and walking up and down hills. All of Central Park is shaped and artificial, but the south end is flatter than the north.

Tomorrow, time allowing, I may take the guide's suggestion and walk across the north end to see the gates at the Harlem Meer: he offered me that as "something special" and said they're over the water.

I'd invited cattitude to come downtown with me, but (as I expected) he declined. Walking with him is good, but so is walking by myself, and he wouldn't have liked the dogs.

This is not exactly an art review. It's more partial and personal than I would want to be if I was writing a review.

What we have, basically, is seven miles of torii, strung along the paths of Central Park, with orange fabric hanging from them. Lines and curves of orange, drifting gently, and sometimes not so gently, in the wind against a bright blue February sky.

Orange isn't my favorite color, never will be, but it was the right choice for this. It contrasts wonderfully with the sky, and adds joy to the grays and browns of a temperate zone winter. Orange works in The Gates for reasons akin to why I came to love cardinals for their flash of red in January's grays and dark greens.

<cattitude and I spent a couple of hours this morning wandering around Central Park. We started at 86th Street and Central Park West, and drifted non-randomly south, east, and west again, coming out at Columbus Circle. Most of the people were walking slowly, talking and looking around and taking many many photos. There were volunteers--identifiable both by aprons with "The Gates" printed on them, and by poles with tennis balls mounted on one end--answering questions and handing out fabric swatches. I'd already felt the fabric: it hangs low enough, between breezes, for me to reach up and touch, and, like most public art, this is touchable by anyone who so desires.

I don't usually wander around Central Park in the wintertime: I have Inwood Hill Park for that. So I hadn't realized how many of the lawns were closed for the season, to avoid damaging dormant grass. The effect was of huge orange rings around various shades of green (and bits of brown). The paths parallel, meet, intersect, and sometimes dive under bridges. We saw one underpass which is reached by a staircase, with gates along the stairs. From above, it was a glorious sequence of shining orange. From below, the several panels of fabric blended into one, and the sun was in the wrong place to shine through from that side. The artwork skips the Ramble--a sound choice--so the loop only goes partway around the lake.

The fabric is thick enough that, with my dark sunglasses on, I could look through it at the sun, and it was bright but not painfully or dangerously so. (At least, I hope it wasn't dangerous: it didn't feel as bright as many a thing I have looked on in presumed safety, and the glasses claim to block 100% of ultraviolet.)

We left the park a little before noon, by which time it was getting pretty crowded at the southwest corner. I'm going away next weekend, but that still leaves me time to see more of it, and by the light of different times of day.

Enough snow to cover the ground, and then blue sky after, would be stunning, but I have no idea if we'll get that lucky in the next two weeks.

Addenda:

•This is the first art exhibit I've been to, large or small, indoor or out, at which the viewers were offered fabric swatches.
•The pond and adjoining lawn just north of Belvedere Castle have a nice new sign designating them as a "Dragonfly Preserve." This is an excellent thing.
•cattitude saw the first robin of Spring, also just north of Belvedere Castle.