A walk in the Cuse

G and I had a moment to breathe together so we walked up to the water tower top of Thordon Park, the massive one hill that overlooks all of Syracuse, to look for the red church.

We were going to have a vacation in Syracuse, G's idea.
I said, "I think we should have a mini vacation."
"A mini-vacation?" he asked.
"Yeah, just for the weekend."
"But I have to work."
"You can take a weekend off."
"I think we should have your vacations in Syracuse. Going places is expensive."
"True."
"We can find ways to have fun here. You don't have to go away to get away from work, right?"
"That's true."
Oh G, always the logical one.

Full blown autumn now, the landscape is a long expanse of orange, yellow and red. We found the red church out in the distance, though it didn't stand out nearly as much as it did in the summer, surrounded by green. We planned our route to get to it, going north through multiple neighborhood and underneath the high way.

It's been warm these past few days. We remembered the beginning of October, into the thrities at night and people began putting their heat on. There's been no need for that lately. It was perfect walling weather. There was even some blue sky peaking though the massive, constant clouds.

As we walked, it became so clear how quickly neighborhoods change. First it was ours, the small town-feely, semi-artsy neighborhood by the university. It's populated with young families, professors and students. These are people who hand Halloween decorations on their houses and throw frisbees in the street. People with massive overgrown front gardens that hide the sidwalk and boast signs that say "pesicide free garden." Walk a little further, down around E. Genessee street and Fayetteville road and things get shabby fast. Here the houses are broken down, porches coming to pieces, paint chipping, broken front steps. Many of the houses aren't even used. It stays that way until you cross the highway. In front of one particularly shabby house, trash all over the dirt in front of it, porch broken to pieces, a gangle of children played outside with broken toys.
"How do you think that childhood would be?"
"Terrible."

The church was on the base of a park. We got there right at six, when the bells were just ringing. It wasn't nearly as impressive up close. Just a plain red brick building with a steeple. I tried the doors but they were locked.

We decided to walk up the rest of the hill, which turned out to be another park. It reminded me of some parks in Luxembourg, steep stone saircases cutting through a heavily wooded ground leading to open grassy spaces at different levels.

"I wonder if the cops come up here at night?"
"Maybe. You'd think they might be more interested in stuff going down where people live, like burglaries and people smashing windows."
"Yeah, but a lot of vandalism happens in parks. And they have to worry about drug deals and stuff. I wonder if cops wouldn't even come to a placelike this because it's too dangerous."

G tells me about a place in France that was largely known to be off limits at night.
"I walked around some pretty sketchy places near there," he said.
"I feel like I've spent a lot of my life not being afraid of things I probably should have been afriad of," I said.
"I've spent most of my it too afraid of places I probably shouldn't have. It's better not to be."
"Maybe."

We walk to the top of the park. It's a circular drive with another view over Syacuse. We're the only two people there.
All except for what a mother, a grandmother, and two young children taking pictures of one another and the scenery. The kids climp on rocks and walk with the adults. They seem more wary of us than we are of them. All the talk about danger and it couldn't be more normal.

And why is it we are so quick to look for differences and so easily ignore the way's we are the same?