BALBOA PARK — fletch.nyc

*Written in the midst of the COVID-19 global pandemic, photos from 2019*

Creatives worldwide have spent this unique time in history grappling with how to best move forward whilst stuck indoors...how does one write travel content when the most exciting travel is walking the dog?

I’ve seen plenty of answers, spanning a wide spectrum and with many falling into the trap of the stodgy Medium.com bro telling you that he, and only he (could be a she too), has thee answer to what you’re doing wrong with your life and then gets boatloads of claps for it. My festering resentment for click bait and anything that proposes to fix a major life problem in under a year is well known to readers of this blog already so I’ll save the rant in favor of some positivity.

From the perspective of a “travel writer/photographer” (both titles self-assigned and egregious), there are two concrete and pragmatic solutions to our quarantine dilemma:

Revisit your archives with a fine toothed comb and resurface content or stories that you may have never published
Treat your immediate surroundings with the same reverence you would a far-off land

I’m fast running out #1’s and will soon enter into the Zen realm of #2. One article on the backyard, another on the street, who knows. In either case, reflecting on the two options brought me back to Marcus Aurelius’ famed Meditations. Written between 161 AD and 180 AD, I read this philosophical classic after my best friend mailed it to my apartment earlier this year. Its contents, the personal diaries of one of Rome’s most admired emperors, were never intended for public readership (again, such a concentration of wisdom and humility in written content is extinct in today’s world, myself being but one of the billions of contributing offenders). In them, Marcus wrote and rewrote life guidance to himself lest he forget down the road.

Of the many profound sections of the text (and there are many), one section has stood out to me all year (for context, he’s writing from the perspective of speaking back at himself):

“People seek retreats for themselves in the countryside by the seashore, in the hills, and you too have made it your habit to long for that above all else. But this is altogether unphilosophical, when it is possible for you to retreat into yourself whenever you please; for nowhere can one retreat into greater peace or freedom from care than within one’s own soul, especially when a person has such things within him that he merely has to look at them to recover from that moment perfect ease of mind (and by ease of mind I mean nothing other than having one’s mind in good order). So constantly grant yourself this retreat and so renew yourself; but keep within you concise and basic precepts that will be enough, at first encounter, to cleanse you from all distress and to send you back without discontent to the life to which you will return.”

from the journal entries of Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome AD 161-180

Marcus provides a roadmap as to how we can navigate emotions in trying times and with a perspective that unites my self-identified two options of #1 and #2 for content creation and relative sanity.

I can knock of #1 by turning inside and reliving memories in mindful recollection. A good story never fades.

I can add address #2 through careful consideration of his final line: “...keep with you concise and basic precepts that will be enough, at first encounter, to cleanse you from all distress and to send you back without discontent to the life to which you will return.” My guiding principle as it pertains to writing is to treat every subject with the same esteem as any other. To me, The Bronx is as exciting as Paris.

My forthcoming articles will by necessity take this path and I’m pulled with excitement towards the challenge. I do, however, have one last article laying around unwritten, one on a place that just so happens to encapsulate the totality of my non-linear rant above in a way I’d not planned when I started typing five minutes ago (I don’t plan these things out because I have diagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and focusing is difficult for me and sometimes…..hey did I ever tell about why I’m fascinated with the history of Pacific Electric Railway company and the fact that LA used to have the biggest metro system in the world and then tore it out for no reason?!)

That place is Balboa Park in San Diego.

Balboa Park...never heard of it? You likely haven’t if you’re not from Southern California, save for perhaps the San Diego Zoo contained within it (the world’s largest zoo by number of species and one that does more than nearly any other for wildlife conservation and research).

It’s all the more a shame because it’s one of the more spectacular examples of urban parks in the United States. It was America’s second large city park to be dedicated, following New York’s Central Park (1858). The park sprawls for acres and acres, featuring everything from eucalyptus grooves and grassy hills to plazas and grandiose facades. The core of it, a complex of ornate buildings and walkways between them, was constructed for the Panana-California expedition, a massive World’s-Fair-esque assemblage of nations from around the world to introduce San Diego as the presumptive first port of call for vessels traveling north from the newly constructed Panama Canal.

Pamphlet for Panama-California Expo, 1915. San Diego, California.

Balboa Park postcard detailing Panama-California Expo.

Map of master plan for Panama-California Expo.

A flyer detailing Balboa Park with the then small city of San Diego in the background.

Balboa Park, San Diego. Fletcher Berryman 2020. Pentax K1000. Kodak Tri-X 400. — Balboa Park, San Diego. *Fletcher Berryman 2020. Pentax K1000. Kodak Tri-X 400.*

What in the f*** does this have to do with my bimodal proposition of paths forward for creatives? I’ll revisit.

#1 is to turn inward rather than outward to reclaim one’s memories and allow the feelings they elicit to arise once more

#2 To hold that in front of you, whether it be your small town road in North Dakota or The Appian Way, all with an egalitarian dispersal of reverence

Both myself in this post and the architects of Balboa Park in their master plan embraced these ideals in a way that has always put California in a special category in my book.

On my end, the mental return to a unplanned day wandering through the complex’s many thoroughways and passages as the sun fell is a requisite escape from the doldrums of quarantine in my hospitable parents’ house...again, filling in the blanks here:

Myself:

In spite of unimaginable circumstances as the result of the pandemic, nothing but myself is preventing me from reliving the joy and contentment I felt last year in wandering without direction through a San Diego evening as a lilac sky faded to violet on all sides (and I, naturally, put black and white film in by accident)
Rather than desperation for the exotic and untouched, the never-been-done and terminally unique, there’s an abundance of material waiting to be considered right here in Southern California...whether it be Santa Ana, Los Angeles, Whiting Ranch, Balboa Park or the goings-on of the street in front of my parents’ house (more to come on that).

The Architects:

1. The planners of the Balboa Park complex had a myriad of possibilities in considering how best to attract attention to their city. It must be remembered, San Diego had only 40,000 residents at the time...I’ve made similar comparisons in past articles but that’s 25,000 less people than my neighborhood in Brooklyn (Bed-Stuy). Vying for attention while competing with San Francisco and other coastal Californian towns was no small feat.

Betram Goodhue, better known for his Gothic revival including several gargantuan churches in Manhattan, knew better than to focus on the bright and shiny pull of modernity. Goodhue and his team reached as I have into the memories of times past, focusing on the Spanish and Mexican influence on this city that had arisen out of one of Junipero Serra’s Franciscan missions. It may be a surprise to some of you East Coasters and foreign readers to hear that San Diego’s life is one of equal maturity to many of the great cities, having been founded in 1769 and prior to the founding of the United States of America. Goodhue capitalized on this rich history, recreating a mosaic of the many architectural styles that had swept through the surrounding area as a result, focusing on Spanish Colonial and Mission Revival elements throughout the build. They embraced and honored memory, thus paying homage the common thread of Spanish heritage that bound Panama and California prior to welcome in the next generation of connection via the Panama Canal project.

2. Instead of giving up in favor of much larger cities at that time, namely San Francisco, the San Diegans valued their immediate surroundings and said “this is worthy”. They approached its many rolling hills and cascading sea bluffs with reverence. They saw innate beauty right in front of them. That clarity of mind fueled the confidence to undertake a project that common sense would say is bound to fail: a provincial town with limited influence seeks to draw thousands from across the world in an age before flying or driving was even an option.

As a result of their tenacity, the Panama-California Exposition drew not thousands, but millions: over two million in 1915 alone. What was built largely with plaster and intended to be temporary was so beloved by Americans that former President Theodore Roosevelt said of it:

"It is so beautiful that I wish to make an earnest plea ... I hope that not only will you keep these buildings running for another year but you will keep these buildings of rare, phenomenal taste and beauty permanently."

Former President Theodore Roosevelt, 1915

His wish was granted. What was once a gamble has become an institution, one that brings no shame on this former town of just 40,000. What could have been an embarrassment to the once colonial settlement is instead its crowning jewel. San Diego forever prostrates below its temple dedicated not to the Greek gods nor far off empires, but to its own majesty as risen from its winding and humble past.

Elena. Balboa Park, San Diego. Fletcher Berryman 2020. Pentax K1000. Kodak Tri-X 400. — Elena. Balboa Park, San Diego. *Fletcher Berryman 2020. Pentax K1000. Kodak Tri-X 400.*

As said by Lao Tzu, legendary sage and writer of China’s famed Tao De Ching that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with San Diego once said eons prior:

“When you are content to be yourself and don’t compare or compete, everyone will respect you”

Lao Tzu

And San Diego, this sapient saying’s manifestation. The former backwater city “somewhere south of San Francisco”...a measly fishing town of 40,000...now America’s 8th largest city and home to the world’s busiest international border.

Then, and now as ever,

Truly Californian.

- Fletcher

NORTH PARK: BONUS SECTION THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING

We ventured around the following day, camera in hand. Not wanting to waste my remaining shots on the roll of Kodak Tri-X, I followed Elena around the walkable North Park neighborhood as my authoritative and good-tasted guide. Below are photos from said excursion. Not sure there’s a theme here, and North Park is worthy of its own article, however I’ve opted for inserting these non-contextual images absent of a full backstory because the likelihood of me being in North Park again soon given the entire world is shut down is nominal at best. Enjoy.

North Park, San Diego. Fletcher Berryman 2020. Pentax K1000. Kodak Tri-X 400. — North Park, San Diego. *Fletcher Berryman 2020. Pentax K1000. Kodak Tri-X 400.*

NORTH PARK: BONUS SECTION THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING

LOS ANGELES: BY TRAIN

PELHAM BAY PARK TO CITY ISLAND

COLORADO

WHITING RANCH

LAGUNA BEACH