At East 74th and 5th Avenue in Central Park, just north of the water conservatory and east of the boathouse, stands the Alice in Wonderland statue.
A bronze Alice sits high atop a swank mushroom pedestal with the White Rabbit to her left and the Mad Hatter to her right as the Cheshire Cat peers over her shoulder.
The smooth bronze of the statue shines brighter than the afternoon sun on the water, thanks to a regular polish from the kids who crawl, climb, and use the edge of the mushroom to push themselves fiercely to stand. Alice’s left hand is forever frozen in time as it extends for the pocket watch held by the White Rabbit.
We were a familiar flock of private school students, a rambling energy current weaving our way through the park in emblazoned blazers, brass buttons, pleated skirts and knee high socks; baggy cardigans, backpacks, shiny headphones and furious thumbs. We were careful not to break away on our own—the teacher’s assistant was lurking nearby and runaway students triggered a jawing.
We wondered which of the bronzed characters were Alice’s real friends. “Probably not besties,” we reasoned, “more like frenemies really.”
It was the kind of early fall day where the air felt salty and the clouds superfete. Most of us tied our cardigans around our waist, or swung them around in our arms. We were growing and our uniforms were always too big. We were also reaching the age when traveling in a chaperoned group felt expired — gauche, our mothers would sniff — but our mothers were domiciliary distracted and as our French teacher said, broadly bouleversé.
We smiled, cowered, or flipped off the posse from the brother school as they passed — rowdier than a pack of howler monkeys — and we ducked for cover when they threw balls of tinfoil at our heads.
We veered away from the tourists standing gape-mouthed with binoculars; the professionals in work-drag waggling snappy briefcases; nannies pushing ergonomic strollers with wheels suit- able for off-roading and the mothers themselves donned in head-to-toe spandex carrying a star- bucks with a tote and maybe some celery sticking out, a looking glass into our future lives — with any luck, our fathers would snort.
I knew we were looking for something else that day.
Look at us there, standing puzzled under a statue of Christopher Columbus, John Quincy Adams, Robert Burns and Beethoven. See us squinting with triumphant obeisance at the likes of Daniel Webster, Alexander Hamilton, the pilgrim, hunter, the rowers and the soldier.
We met the statue of a curvy angel, frozen in a forward step to reveal a smooth, serpentine leg. Her palms were outstretched and empty as four fat, fleshy cherubs sat at her feet shaking tiny fists at the heavens.
The afternoon sun crossed the park and we marched on. As we exited the park and wended our way towards the auditorium, we led a round of song reciting mindless and nonsensical lyrics in our sweet, flat voices.
As we queued to enter the museum a bird ripped inches from our faces, smacking right into the glass leaving a smudge. The dove, now bleeding from her chest, retreated to the facade of the 2
building where she sat watching us in silence. While we continued to wait she smoothed the ruffled feathers from her breast and with a hushed, gentle flap caught onto a breeze and took far and high across the cool, promising sky.