Lessons from the Great Lawn
I returned home two weeks ago from a long stretch of holding space to rest, imagine and play in community. It was summer-like out as Jared and I walked our usual path through Seneca Village and over to the blooming Shakespeare’s Garden. On our way, I noticed New Yorkers doing what we do best when it is a nice day: finding a patch of green space — even if it is small and you’re back to back with strangers — and soaking up the sun. Except I noticed New Yorkers were more crowded than usual as they sunned themselves.
As I came down from Belvedere Castle, the crowded tiny patches of grass began to make sense: the Great Lawn was still closed. “But spring has started — I’m surprised it hasn’t opened,” my husband remarked.
I giggled to myself - as it was the perfect line and metaphor to how I had been feeling over the last several weeks. “But spring has started— I’m surprised I’m still in the liminal space. Arguably hibernating slash hiding from all of the shifts slash losing patience with the space in between endings and beginnings. Arguably wondering if I will see any of the seeds I had planted begin to bloom as I watch the world around me burst into spring colors.”
I have no idea how many people walk across the Great Lawn every day, let alone every year. Here’s what I do know: in 1983, Diana Ross played for 800,000+ people on the Great Lawn. I also remember the very cold and rainy day pictured below at the end of summer last year — yes, I was wearing my puffer — when Jared and I gathered with thousands concert goers for Lauryn Hill and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Global Citizens Festival 2023
Needless to say - this Great Lawn has *worked* for generations.
As my husband and I walked the perimeter of the lawn’s fencing, I observed the vibrant green lawn sprouting and remembered the mud of the concert. I remembered the dry and hot days that would follow well into fall. I remembered the snowmen created on the lawn at the beginning of this year. So much terrain had been covered in the months the Great Lawn was opened and creating space for New Yorkers. Of reminding people that majestic green space can still exist in one of the world’s largest cities.
That afternoon, as dogs and kids who we passed longed for more space as we walked, I realized a few things about honoring resting soil and the liminal space in between winter and spring, endings and beginnings.
Honor Resting Soil. In Letting the Land Lead, an interview with Nance Klehm by Renee Rhodes and Alli Maloney, Klehm reflects: “I went to Washington, D.C. for school. My academic background is archaeology, which is when I really started looking at soil. I noticed neglect: people saw themselves running across the surface and didn’t see the dimensionality of it. The world goes up and the world goes down and they’re just running over the surface.”
Through the seasons, we walk, party, play ball, chase our dogs and seemingly take for granted the land that is holding us up. Mother Earth, our bodies, and our health — we often walk through life taking for granted what is holding us up.
The Great Lawn that day reminded me we must create and honor cycles of rest and restoration — particularly as we sit in the space in between endings and beginnings. Full stop. Nature teaches us time and time again, that yes, one can keep working.
But there will be an ending punctuated by depletion. She also teaches us that as we begin again, soil has an opportunity to replenish its nutrients and increase its longevity only with rest. Even new soil needs to rest in preparation for new seedlings to be planted. This enables the seedlings to better take root and establish more sturdy roots.
“Most people’s’ vision of their world is just whatever their body takes up. It is just real estate. As an archaeologist, I noticed that soil changes depending what’s in it.” - Nance Klehm
Face Old Narratives. Write Your Own Evolutionary Pace. Our visions of the world can be filled with the stories we are told about ourselves — and the the stories we tell ourselves. I noticed last Sunday that I was telling myself two old and tired narratives as I watched the trees blooms on the closed Great Lawn well into spring: to compare my growth to others and that external forces like Instagram set the tone for growth and achievement.
Facing the potential power of transformation in the liminal space requires us to confront how we’ve made meaning of the world — and challenge those narratives that worked for us in some settings but no longer serve us. I’ve come to believe that evolution is impacted by what we feed it. Or, as an old boss used to day: garbage data in, garbage data out. Negative, comparative, or individualistic narratives in, then negative, comparative, and individualistic narratives out.
Facing old narratives, noticing what stories we tell ourselves about our possibility, growth,and power is essential to our evolution in the liminal space. Just because things are beginning bloom around the lawn and up from its roots - it doesn’t mean the rest is over. It doesn’t mean we have to rush to the end of rest. Cycles of rest and restoration take time. Hold space for evolution at whatever pace it occurs.
48 hours after our walk, the Great Lawn would open for the season with tall grass blades that seemed to shimmer as the spring sun gazed down.
The Great Lawn, Spring 2024
“Be patient with yourself,” I thought as play resumed on the lawn. “You’ve never stopped growing.”
It was time to step out of an ending and into a beginning.
In still of the space in between,
Gabrielle
