Prospect Park

I bike down the lengthy hill, standing atop pedals which are useless due to my natural velocity. I look to my left and see the large lake that I’ve biked past countless times, glistening under the sunlight. I look to my right and I see families everywhere. It’s a friday night and everyone in the area comes to prospect park to get a grill going. I see children running around without a care in the world. I was once those children, and sometimes I wish I still could be. I hear all sorts of music from speakers everywhere. I see people dancing, going for a run, training or working out, walking their dog, throwing a football, and just living their life. This park that has been a staple of my childhood, is also a staple of many lives throughout Brooklyn, all for very different reasons. I love it.

I love how lucky I am to consider Prospect Park home. I’m lucky enough to say I’ve biked through that park hundreds of times, or that I’ve thrown a million baseballs here, or that I can go here in the middle of the night without worrying about my safety. I’ve had some of my highest highs as well as some of my lowest lows at this park. I’ve rekindled old bonds here, got in fights here, spent birthdays here, played championship games here, injured myself here, gone on dates here, worked my first job here, smoked my first joint here, learned how to ride a bike here. Prospect Park symbolizes home to me as much as any place ever could.

My worst memory of this park took place when I was 13. I grew up as a chubby kid, which slightly shaped my personality. However, by the time I was in middle school, baseball became much more serious, with college dreams in sight for me and my friends. We had a new coach who wanted to push us to the next level, so for our next practice, he had us run the small loop in Prospect Park. Naturally, I came in last place, but I wasn’t far behind the others. That being said, Coach Adrian was not impressed. Our next drill was to run “W’s,” which was from home plate to the grass behind first base and back, then to the grass behind second base and back, and finally to third and back. Not only that, we had a certain time frame that we had to be under, or else we had to go again. Each time, I was just a few seconds short, and was forced to run again. I would stare straight down at my cleats that kept getting dirtier as he announced to the entire team the time I had finished with. Luckily, a few of my teammates were in the same boat. As I kept running and running, looking down at the thick dirt field 7 was notorious for, I contemplated my baseball career. Is this really how I want to spend my days after school for the foreseeable future? A decision that felt automatic was no longer that way. After this day, I had a lot of deep thinking I needed to do, and eventually came to the conclusion that baseball was not yet something I was willing to give up, leading me to attend Midwood High School as opposed to certain alternatives.

This one day of baseball practice stands alone as my worst experience here, and even then it wasn’t that bad. Honestly, the fact that I can hand pick one singular event as my least favorite here goes to show how strongly I feel about this place. I was really struggling to pick an experience that I’d consider my best to go along with that story, and I came to a realization that I couldn’t. The good times I’ve had at Prospect Park stand so far above the bad that it’s nearly impossible to choose a singular time there. That is what I love. The fact that all of the good times blend with each other because a good time is the expectation. The fact that a bad time stands out as a memory because it was a unique moment of sorrow at this place.