Saturday. The weather is sticking its toes into the shallow end of what meteorologists might call "unseasonably warm". A one-man metal machine rides by in the back of a pickup truck. A brass band snakes through the park, and puppet wielding performers act in choreography to the rising call of sunlit horns. Somewhere in the city Charles Samuels is probably pretending not to care, but such conjectures are unjournalistic in nature, and are best left to the musings of the public, who indulged them freely at the Party in the Park.
It's a scene out of some modernized Renaissance oil, an idyllic landscape of urban vitality, the free exercise of a rarefied resource: The Commons. Most demonstrations succeed in demonstrating frustration, anger, philosophical disposition, disenfranchisement (and at times petulence, hate, ignorance), but the Party in the Park actually demonstrated the virtues of the place it endeavored to save, to keep open, and public, and serving those who need just such a space.
The Lamplighter, Cafe Gutenberg, Crossroads, RVA Suga Mamas, Black Cat Bakery, and Food Not Bombs all donated food. WRIR, Art On Wheels, Richmond Industrial Workers of the World, Richmond Really Really Free Market, and a good chunk of RVA Hoop Lovers came together to table and help support the cause of doing exactly this. Organizers estimate the attendance at 350, and that seems accurate enough.
But it wasn't 350 protesters. Despite some aesthetic similarities (All Saints Theater puppets swaying in the air), the atmosphere was of a different order than most gatherings spurred by social activism. The static and volatility of marches diminished, an overriding sense of lighthearted recreation vibrated over the afternoon, punctuated at times by heartfelt speeches delivered by homeless people and activists. The forward momentum of a political movement evolved into a contented presence, the satisfaction of already having what you want, the back-pocket defiance of intending to keep it.
It didn't just prove something about the park, it proved something about the city. A park is not regarded in our civilization as sacred ground. Whether this is an oversight or a practicality, is up for debate. A park is a tabula rasa to be colored by the energies and efforts of the surrounding community. Empty parks have an air of impenetrable solitude, like cemeteries after a rain. But parks that are lived in attain a certain exuberance. They backlight the great carnival of human existence, show us things of simple beauty, feed the hungry, and remind us to relax. They are the last remaining vestige of a literal even playing field. They belong equally to the feet of vagrants and those of leather-soled privilege. They are a place to simply be. No waitstaff, no usher, no need to rattle the change in your pocket. This was Monroe Park on Saturday.
This isn't about resisting progress, or fear of change, or underlying anti-gentrification agendas. This is about preserving the last constant, physical manifestation of democracy: a designated marketplace of ideas. A scrap of nature in the hard angles of the city. If this park that has served the needy (FNB has been serving there for over 16 years), and those in need of an open space, is turned into an inaccessible strip mall of metropolitan shrubbery, we have lost something significant. We have lost "we". Everywhere else, is territory.
Performances by Gull, No BS Brass Band, and Just Plain Sounds thumped along with the pulse of the day, a soundtrack that didn't remind me why I love Monroe Park, but why I love Richmond.
The attached photos titled "PITP" were taken at the Party in the Park on Saturday, January 15th by Richmond-area photographer Megan Osborn, owner of Poison Affair Photography. She can be reached at affairofthepoisons@gmail.com or (804) 334-2203. You can also find more of their photography by searching for Poison Affair Photography on Facebook or Flickr, or by visiting fuckyeahdailyaffair.tumblr.com.
