Parks Gratitude
Now that I'm teaching at the Mt. Scott Community Center 3 days a week I get regular opportunities to walk through the tall firs the fill the space of the park. It is a park with a lot of history for me, my grandmother lived not far from it when I was a child and the park was the setting for several family gatherings including my birthdays. Having an August birthday meant several of mine were celebrated in public parks.
Portland has over 10,000 acres of parks. The largest, Forest Park is over 5,100 acres, is where I first took my wife on our first outing together to hike in gently falling snow and mud. It is the largest urban forest preserve, significantly larger than Central Park in New York City or Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I've hiked all over it growing up here and I doubt I'll ever see all of it in my lifetime.
Whenever people visit I usually take them to visit a park, we have so many to choose from. There has always been at least one park within a fairly easy walk in every part of the city I've lived in. I've been so fortunate to grow up living with this abundance of green spaces. Being able to find myself in amidst tall trees and green, growing things remains an important healing tool in my life.
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