Gifts and Playgrounds

There used to be this playground near my house. I've only brought three friends to the place, Ivan and Alex among them.

The best part about the playground was its location. The value of the small sandpit, modest two-person swing as well as scattered stone benches was bolstered greatly by the fact that the whole playground sat on high ground, overlooking (or for army guys dominating) Ang Mo Kio Ave 5.

The playground had a most soothing, anodyne effect on me. I found that if you were on the swing and you looked down the hill, you had this great panoramic view that made the rest of the world seem so distant, so far-away. How many times I sought refuge at the place!

But it's gone now.

Renovations began a while back, and I thought they just meant to spruce up the place. Yet when I ventured there today, the first time in weeks, I found... a different playground. The swing's gone, along with the sandpit. The stone benches all face away from the slope down the hill. Everything I remembered about it, the romantic quality of the environment, the familiarity of the swing, all gone. Replaced by concrete and concrete and concrete.

Before, when I received gifts of especial value, I would stow them away instead of using them. Today, I came home and unwrapped some gifts, ate others, displayed the remainder. I think sometimes we cherish the gifts in our lives wrongly, keeping them for an indeterminate tomorrow when today would be the best time to appreciate them. If you gave someone a gift, wouldn't you want to see them use it, wear it, eat it?

That old playground was really something special. It deserved more than three of my friends.