a long walk.

Today, I drove to Golden Gate Park and spent the day bonding with myself. When I started at the Japanese Tea Gardens, the sun was still almost shining. Quickly, however, San Francisco smothered it with a thick blanket of fog. A security blanket, if you will. Slowly, I made my way over to San Francisco's principal art museum, the De Young, only to find that I hated its updated architecture and that they had started charging visitors $10. I opted out and decided that art was for another day. Art is, after all, simply an imitation of nature. So I circled the lake that sits in the center of the park, laughing in my head when little kids tripped over their shoelaces and when dogs accidentally fell into the water. I took some photographs of ducks and made my way to the Chinese Pavilion. I also spent some time in the Botanical Gardens, but didn't feel like walking all the way to the Conservatory of Flowers (and, besides, who knows what they charge for entry there these days) (although I am kind of sad I missed their exhibit on carnivorous plants). I finished it all off at the Temple of Music, which has always reminded me of a Parisian park. Today, there were tango dancers on stage and you could hear the accordion music from all over the park. I plopped down on a bench and just watched without thinking. If I didn't look around too much, I truly thought I might be in France. Magnifique.

Interestingly, the whole reason why I went to Golden Gate Park today was to see the Shakespeare Garden. I wanted to sit there and read Henry IV. But as soon as I got there, I realized that I had too much on my mind. And I remembered sitting in my English class last quarter studying Marvell. And I thought of his poem "The Garden" and all of the different conceptions that one can have of a garden, the foremost being the garden as a location of contemplation. So I took some early seventeenth-century advice and ditched the late-sixteenth century play. I had my own little revolution; I surrendered to my thoughts. Perhaps not as stirring as the death of Elizabeth and the ushering in of King James, but I still felt myself a bit of a cavalier.

Cheers to self-discovery.