I took my seat on the patio of my regular cafe. The chairs were a wicker-weaved metal frame bleached by continued exposure to the summer sun. The armrests rubbed down by the frequency of patrons. The table was a milky glass with a plastic flower set up in the middle. The flower never used to be white. It was bleached from its original yellow from years of sunlight. Nobody minded the white flower enough to get a new one. It was fine the way it was.

I looked over the edge of the patio into the park. It was a small square of green life in an uncovered grave of grey and black concrete. The trees grew in defiance of the cityscape. Decades of progress and infrastructure had just about done away with spaces like these, but this one hung on by the label of a municipal park. People walked among that defiant nature. It was a beautiful late spring day. The blooming of the early season had come to a climax as dandelions scattered in an uncoordinated sprawl of opportunity.

I saw all kinds of things. Children playing with toys. Their minds imagining a universe of creativity unparalleled in the whole of fantasy fiction. One was looking at a bug on the tree, marveling at the diversity that's possible through life. Their mothers sat on the black benches laughing at something that was surely incredibly funny. There was a man with a boom box (I haven't seen one of those in a long time). He was dancing. Or trying to. He could use lessons, but he's got the spirit! Two college students walked through with brightly colored hair. They were chatting about something and walking through here was merely a shortcut to them. But maybe someday, if they stopped for but a moment, the park would impress itself upon them.

I saw bright colored dresses, bright eyed children and bright natural fixtures in this park. It was like medication for me. I looked at my phone briefly enough for the politics to seep in and describe most important things happening in the country. And who it was hurting. But I disagreed, at least temporarily while I was here. This was the most important thing in the country. Right here.

The children didn't languish the fact that they didn't have manufactured entertainment through a screen in front of them. They made their own world, their own news. And this was the tiny square left to remind them that it was possible. That imagination could be just as real as the entertainment on your phone. You didn't have to listen. That no matter how much the city buried the environment in the grey and black grave of progress, they could always come here to be human. Tiny little pocket of nature that this was, people would find a way. They would always find a way to be human. Even for just one day of the week.

The sun poured its blessing over the city, grey and green parts alike. A man came to my table with my lemonade. I gave him a friendly smile and a thanks and he gave one right back. And that was when I dared to think. Maybe everything will be alright, after all.