A few Saturdays ago I went to the historical garden El Capricho de la Alameda de Osuna with the most amazing mother on Earth.
We took the subway and arrived at the stunning park early in the morning. The park is so big and full of trees and plants that, even though there were kids, young parents, tourists, older people, and a few painters here and there, it felt like we had the park for ourselves.
The park was built between 1787 and 1839 by a duchess called María Josefa de la Soledad Alonso Pimentel, a patron of artists, bullfighters, and intellectuals. However, after her death, the park felt into disrepair until Madrid’s city hall took over in the 1970s and spent two decades working on it.
We strolled past a small summer palace, a bee house, a greenhouse, a beautiful patch of flowers, a small temple, ruins, a small fort, and French, British, and Italian-styled gardens.
The greens were vibrant in the morning light, and although my smell receptors aren’t too fine-tuned to smell plants, and the park is in a major urban area with high pollution levels, I could smell different plants as we moved from one area to another.
We named many of the plants we saw thanks to our pocket guide, iNaturalist, and we saw aquatic birds including a black swan.
The atmosphere felt so relaxing, the light so beautiful, the architectural and sculptural references to ancient times so abundant, and the conversation with my mother so serene, that it felt like time had stopped. At some point, we reached the end of the park, and it was only then that I came out of the spell. I practiced deep, slow breathing during the walk which helped me keep the mind still and observant.
As I accumulate experiences with this mind and body, I increasingly find bliss, stillness, and beauty in simple things: people, love, plants, animals, sunlight, walks.
