Silverwood Park

#1 – Coming home to a polenta crust and chopped vegetables. It was the dinner I started to prepare yesterday but then ended up going out to eat. Today I would have opted for something fast/easy, but since the meal was half way prepped I made it – Black Bean Polenta Pie AND while I waited the 30 minutes for it to bake, I made a strawberry spinach salad.

#2 – Having a strawberry-rhubarb bar with me as a snack/dessert this afternoon. Rhubarb is the easiest thing I know of to have in a garden, but it wasn’t until a year or so ago, that I found a recipe that inspires me to put it to use. The bars have cornstarch in them so then aren’t like the mush I often associate with homemade rhubarb bars.

#3 – I went for a jog with a guy from online dating earlier this week and he asked me if I wanted to go canoeing at a park I've been meaning to check out (Silverwood) this weekend. It is near his house and I had mentioned that I had been meaning to go. Our conversation had been pleasant and it was genuinely something I wanted to do so I agreed.

We walked around the park, looked at the art (the park has an arts focus) and went canoeing. After we went in one sculpture that looked like a beehive he said to me that he had wanted to kiss me in there. We were walking; I took a breath, allowed a little space, and then thanked him for the compliment. Then I took another breath and told him I did not feel the same way. He asked me, “Why not?” and then said he liked post date analysis which made me laugh (that laugh is going to be gratitude #3).

I said it’s not something one can explain, it’s just how we feel. However, the one thing I had thought about after our jog is how essential space is to me. One reason I like meeting people to go for a walk (or maybe now for a jog, this is the first time I’ve tried that) is that it feels more comfortable to allow spaces to emerge in a conversation. It feels much less awkward. So while we were jogging this was happening, though I didn’t notice until he said, “You’re not going to ask me anything are you? Well, I’ll keep asking then.”

After he said that I thought, “Should I be asking more questions? Am I being rude?”

But the fact of the matter is, I was comfortable with a bit of silence. I trusted it to allow the questions that really mattered to me to emerge. And after our jog I thought, this is not something that one can see online, but it is obvious when going for a walk, the comfort, or lack of, in the spaces in between.

I need that comfort.

#4 – So I’m grateful he verbalized his attraction, so I could verbalize how I felt and though it certainly wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, I think/hope I did it with kindness.

#5 – Finally, when I left this morning I brought a swimsuit and towel with because Memorial Day is when I start my once a week swimming goal. I knew there was no swimming at Silverwood, but I figured maybe I’d go somewhere else before coming home. But when I arrived I actually pulled into the “wrong” parking lot, which was for a beach! It must have been owned by a different entity than Silverwood Park. No one was swimming when I got there later, just wading to their knees, the water on the cooler side. By the time I was ready to go in, the clouds had come along with a breeze, so I was already slightly chilly. I decided I could just dive in and get out. However, at that point there was one mother who had fully ventured into the water and was playing with her 10 or so year old boys. They were obviously enjoying each other’s company which made me happy in itself but I also thanked her as I was edging into the water, for inspiring me to swim.