Welcome June!

Today we flip the calendar over to June. The first real month of summer, when the days are still growing longer and the park sprinklers are switched on almost every day.  The ice cream man begins to taunt us with greater frequency and Elisa begs to go to the park from the minute she wakes up.  It usually starts the night before with something like, "Hey mom, I have a great idea. Why don't when I wake up we go to the park?"  Imagine sleeping every night with only that thought floating in your head. Ahh, what sweet bliss. And yes, we do go to our local Sunnyside Gardens Park just about every day in the summer. Sometimes twice a day.  It's just that good.  And lately I'm even more acutely aware of how good we have it because the park is private (one of only two in NYC) and the membership has been at capacity for over a year now.  When we joined three years ago, it was wide open and the original requirement to live "in-zone" (meaning in Sunnyside Gardens) was lifted because space was available. But not so this year when there is a wait list to join and the first priority is given to applicants who live in the designated zoned areas.  I get that the park was founded a long time ago and it was set aside for the homes in the Gardens and adjoining properties (Phipps Hall).  But still it kind of saddens me.  If these rules had been in effect when we wanted to join, we wouldn't have made the cut.  We would have missed out on so much.  It makes me think of all the new families with small kids who live in our neighborhood who won't have the same experience of playing at the park--at least not for awhile.  I realize we have been fortunate in so many aspects of our family life in this city, but especially true is that we have found a real community in Sunnyside with our kids and that all revolves around the park.  So maybe I'm just squeezing every bit of value out of our membership because I truly appreciate what we have within those gates.  It's our communal backyard and we plan to spend a lot of time there this summer. Bring on the sprinklers and the wading pool, new equipment in the Lowers. And most of all, bring on the barbecues with friends and the long summer evenings chatting away while the kids run free. This is summer. This is living.