A familiar park can hold several ages of the same person’s life.

Places keep time differently from calendars. The same stretch of grass can hold the child you were, the teenager who sat by the fence, and the adult who now walks a slower loop, and all of them are available at once when you go back. That layering is why a very ordinary park can feel disproportionately moving.

If you live near somewhere you have known a long time, go and walk it slowly rather than passing through. Noticing which version of yourself turns up there can tell you something about what you have been missing lately.