Sue Chenette: Wednesday in the park

Late Wednesday afternoon, when I went out to mail a letter and buy a baguette, it seemed the whole quartier was in the park next to the mairie (town hall) of the third arrondissement.

Actually, my prof at Alliance française might find fault with that sentence: the French classify their espaces verts, all those public places with grass and trees and flowers, in descending order of size: forêt, parc, jardin, square. Our neighbourhood  “park” only qualifies as a square, and is in fact called Square du Temple.

But whatever their size, the parks in Paris are lived in. People come to read, to gossip, to play—especially the primary school students, on Wednesdays, when they have no classes—or simply to sit in the company of others, taking in the warm afternoon, watching the mallards that waddle over the grass.

My Minnesota grandfather had a phrase—“going out among-em.” He meant rubbing shoulders with the world, in the stands at a football game, on a walk along the river, or eating Sunday dinner out. You knew from the way he said it that he saw this as a natural part of life, and a good part. If I had asked him, I think he would have said that being together in public places is essential to democracy; to a sense of being a citizenry with common needs and purposes. He would have loved the Square du Temple.