March Break

Back to Silverstone Park

Over the last few weeks, I have been on a major nostalgia trip. To me the thought of growing older, 18 in May, then graduating from high school and going off to university is scary. When the break started, it dawned on me that this would be the last of them. In a year's time, March Breaks will evolve into Reading Weeks, in the still chilly and snowy month of February.

This break, I took it upon myself to make a pilgrimage to Silverstone Park, in my old stomping grounds of Rexdale. It was only fitting to spend a portion of my last March Break in the very place I spent the majority of my March Breaks. Silverstone Park is a rather nondescript public park. There's a few trees, some sets of swings, a slide, and some sort of monkey bar apparatus. However, the rather limited offerings never seemed to matter. As I looked around the empty park on that Tuesday afternoon, I remembered the many inventive ways we used the park. It was a clubhouse, a soccer field, a baseball diamond, a cricket ground. The older Italian gentleman of the neighbourhood used to spend the breezy summer evenings playing bocce. I'm unsure if those games still go on. A couple of years ago Carmelo, a stalworth on the Silverstone bocce circuit and my next door neighbour, passed away of a heart attack.

Sadly, the days of playing in Silverstone are over for me. As a resident of another city, I am now a tourist in my own hometown. I stand in awe of this beautiful space, knowing each square metre holds a special memory. It had been nearly 4 years since my last visit and now the expression "absence makes the heart grow fonder" rings as true as it ever will.