What does it mean to live “by concepts”? Is it when everything is clear, or when it is the opposite?
For example, what do we understand by the word “park”? A large flat area here and there planted with frail saplings, with a standard red-and-yellow children’s playground in the center? Or an iron arch with little lanterns? Or the globe in the role of a Chupa Chups? The editor-corrector, the one called T9, first corrected my “Chupa Chups” to “miracle chips,” then to “plague,” and then to the surname of a fairly well-known person. Such are T9’s concepts. But my own concepts have become utterly confused.
“If this is pilaf, then where is the cat? If this is the cat, then where is the pilaf?”
The first park I encountered in life was in Volzhsky. There were many tall trees, among which people in festive clothes strolled; various attractions were operating — three or four of them, perhaps — there was a summer cinema and ice cream was sold. I remember how, in preschool days, our neighbor Uncle Kolya, the father of my friend Tanka, took us to the park.
We would stroll decorously along the alleys; Uncle Kolya would buy Tanka and me soda water and eskimo ice cream, and then we would go ride the little boats. The next stage of the walk was always the consequences of my vestibular system’s struggle with the carousel amusements. I returned home pale green, but happy, and the next time everything repeated down to the details. And that was understandable.
During my last three school years I walked through the park to the studio, to the adult group, which met from 7 to 10 p.m. In winter it was frightening to walk through the park: it was deserted and alarming. The park frightened me with the creaking of footsteps on snowy paths, with the shadows of plaster sculptures, of which there had been many during our walks with Tanka; by the time I was returning home from the studio, only one remained: a woman embracing a boy standing before her and waving with her other hand toward the empty pedestal opposite.
We would run to the park if suddenly there was no lesson at school, and Volodya would photograph us.
After school I left for Lviv and saw other parks, with a lake where swans swam, with squirrels that jumped onto benches for treats. And with enormous shady trees.
So in my understanding a park was always a place of rest and joy, where one could sit with a book in the shade on benches, eat ice cream, and surrender to dreams and memories. Or, if one brought a sketchbox, draw.
With my younger son we used to walk in Gagarin Park. There too were tall trees, flowerbeds, and a wonderful pine corner where it smelled of needles and one could gather cones.
Now the concepts are not the same. A park increasingly resembles a tiled parade ground, and a museum, if it is located in such a park, may contain nothing except equipment. Well, every vegetable has its fruit, every time its concepts.
But somehow it is not very clear: what is such a park for?
