Jess Hutchison / Los Angeles Times
13 chill L.A. parks for when you want to do absolutely nothing
Loafing is the most popular lesson of my 20-year teaching career. I got the idea from Walt Whitman, who writes in “Song of Myself”:
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
This made me think students might enjoy loafing — especially when I realized that they didn’t know what loafing means.
So one day we learned by doing. I took my English class at Grand Arts High School in downtown out to a vast lawn on campus perfect for loafing, which I told the teens meant doing anything they enjoyed so long as it was low-key. They loved having the freedom to sit or lie on the grass, looking up at the sky or down at bugs and tiny flowers, having heartfelt conversations, freeing their minds. For the rest of the school year, students asked if we could go loafing again.
My answer was yes. We loafed by flying kites, blowing bubbles, tossing seed balls. The academic justification was twofold: (1) learning the habit of mind of being open to the sheer pleasure of being alive; and (2) writing about it, zestfully.
Now that I’m retired from teaching, I think about loafing even more, especially about doing nothing as an antidote for loneliness. When I first started working on this guide, I would go to parks to loaf alone, and that would be great except that it got to be a lot of me sitting in a park by myself.
So then I started inviting friends to do nothing with me. These invitations took loafing to a new level. Inviting people to do nothing is a winning invitation. They don’t have to share your taste in anything, and they also don’t have to give up their day because how long does it take to do nothing?
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Eleven minutes. That’s for the classic: getting outdoors and noticing your surroundings while not talking or taking pictures or looking stuff up on your phone. Do nothing for 11 minutes with an old or new pal, then take turns sharing what you noticed.
You could just do 10 minutes or even one minute, but I like 11 minutes because it’s a little bit beyond. The important thing is not how long you do nothing. The important thing is the connection that comes from sharing the experience. This will lead to deep and enriching conversations, the kind you had in your favorite high school English class.
Speaking of books: In his eminently practical meditation guide “How to Sit,” Thich Nhat Hanh had this to say about location: “Anywhere is fine.”
While being mindful of that, I want to share with you the best parks I’ve come across in L.A. County for loafing, a.k.a. chilling or doing nothing. These parks are especially fine because they feel safe and give you good choices of where to sit. I personally like sprawling out on top of a picnic table so that a ray of sun can land in the middle of my forehead and spark a third eye. But that’s just me. There are a million different ways to do nothing, and all of them are good.
Showing Places
(Mark Gozonsky)
Wattles Garden Park
Hollywood Hills West Park
This park has a long-ago and far-away quality due to being a decommissioned mansion. I love the smooth stone benches set into whitewashed stucco retaining walls. Abundant nooks and byways give this park the quality of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” with passageways leading to sudden scene changes and oddities, including a bird bath with a concrete squirrel forever treasuring a nut, a bright blue Buddha at the foot of a ponderosa pine, and a giant metal curlicue rising out of a patch of wild tobacco. All of this variety is good for solo loafing. Meditate here, read over there, bird-watch yonder. Caution: Beware of rattlesnakes, warns the unmissable sign at the entrance. What they don’t tell you is beware of dog poop. I stepped in the same pile twice, on my way in and out. I took it philosophically, like the flip side of never stepping into the same river twice.
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Kings Road Park
West Hollywood Park
This compact neighborhood park is perfect for loafing with lively conversation or total silence. I tried both with poet Kim Dower, the first person other than my students whom I ever invited to go do nothing. I had met her at a writing conference the previous month and was struck by her magenta jacket and matching attitude. She was all in on loafing. She said, “Doing nothing with someone shows mutual trust and understanding.” Even though Kings Road is a small park, we could put an appropriate distance between us and the playground. We talked for a while about what it means to invite your soul and then noticed what we noticed for 11 minutes without talking. During our silence, I felt mutual trust while also observing the different shades of green in the overhanging leaves. Kim remembered that she once wrote a poem titled “Doing Nothing.”
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Rio de Los Angeles State Park
Glassell Park Park
The prettiest place to sit at this riverside sports-and-strolling park is a bench embedded with a blue and green tiled mosaic depicting the butterflies and railroad cars of local history. My old friend and alt-weekly editor Tommy Tompkins and I sat on more utilitarian surfaces — the bleachers of one softball field, the dugout bench of another. Tommy, currently convalescing from a brush with mortality, introduced me to the how-to-meditate writings of Thich Nhat Hahn back in the 1990s. I hadn’t seen him in a while, but sure enough, he was down to do nothing with me.
He suggested we do a walking meditation, which is like silently noticing things when you’re sitting, except you’re walking. I noticed a kid in the outfield trying and failing to toss up a ball and hit it. Tommy focused on wishing he personally could get one more at-bat. He didn’t seem too downhearted about it, and I can envision a future where we meet again to play whiffle ball. Not waiting for that future, we actually did get together again for birdwatching from the park’s exuberantly orange Taylor Yard Bridge. Tommy says it looks like an abandoned exit ramp from the Long Island Expressway; I love how it makes Mets colors when paired with blue sky. We watched geese honking and long-legged waterfowl strutting, and we laughed together unto snorting.
He suggested we do a walking meditation, which is like silently noticing things when you’re sitting, except you’re walking. I noticed a kid in the outfield trying and failing to toss up a ball and hit it. Tommy focused on wishing he personally could get one more at-bat. He didn’t seem too downhearted about it, and I can envision a future where we meet again to play whiffle ball. Not waiting for that future, we actually did get together again for birdwatching from the park’s exuberantly orange Taylor Yard Bridge. Tommy says it looks like an abandoned exit ramp from the Long Island Expressway; I love how it makes Mets colors when paired with blue sky. We watched geese honking and long-legged waterfowl strutting, and we laughed together unto snorting.
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Holmby Park
Westwood Park
Consider tailgating at the Hammer Museum’s free mindful awareness meditation at 12:30 p.m. on Thursdays, then taking your refreshed perspective on a walk to Holmby Park. When I sat in, Diana Winston, co-author of “Fully Present,” shared a loafing game-changer. First, imagine your mind as a snow globe in which too-busy thoughts are like snow obscuring your peace of mind. To settle the snow flurries, just say in your mind the word “thinking.” I practically glided on over to Holmby Park, where massive sycamores with trunks bent low to the ground are like friendly giants offering to lift you up to the sky.
As if to encourage doing nothing, signs posted all over this tony park tell you what not to do: no roller skating, no skateboarding, even no loitering after 10:30 p.m. In the daytime, you’re free to loaf in the manicured surroundings. After 11 minutes of observing the tight cut of the not one but two bowling lawns, I felt attuned enough to invite not only my own soul but also the souls summoned by poignant memorials inscribed on the benches. One read, “In memory of my beloved husband … I carry you with me in my heart.”
As if to encourage doing nothing, signs posted all over this tony park tell you what not to do: no roller skating, no skateboarding, even no loitering after 10:30 p.m. In the daytime, you’re free to loaf in the manicured surroundings. After 11 minutes of observing the tight cut of the not one but two bowling lawns, I felt attuned enough to invite not only my own soul but also the souls summoned by poignant memorials inscribed on the benches. One read, “In memory of my beloved husband … I carry you with me in my heart.”
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Dockweiler State Beach Park
Playa del Rey Park
Notice how your feet feel in the sand — another great suggestion from Diana Winston, who heads the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA and recommended the beach as an ideal location for doing nothing. My own bunion-y feet felt the sand accepting them as they are. What a relief! You can feel foot forgiveness at any sandy beach, of course; I headed to Dockweiler because the miniature rocky coastline at the northern edge looks like Tiny Maine. I sat on the rocks, watching the ebb and flow of the tide, which reminded me of the gravitational tug of the moon, which in turn reminded me that outer space is not empty but rather full of gravitational waves. I learned this comforting idea from Carlo Rovelli’s “The Order of Time,” a book full of many marvelous insights worthy of contemplation while doing nothing.
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Colorado Lagoon
Long Beach Park
At this stillwater inlet, you can loaf on a log, dangle your feet from a wooden bridge or climb up into a lifeguard’s chair. I liked what a little boy jumping across a foot-wide channel in the sand answered when his grown-up asked what he was doing: “I’m doing jumping!” My new friend Lou Sarg spread out a blanket, I spread out my jean jacket, and we lay out in the sun near a big, waxy-leafed tree that looked like a magnolia to me and a tree of heaven to her. The important thing is that when I tried out my invitation to do nothing with her — someone I had recently met and thought, hey, maybe we can be friends — Lou replied immediately, “I love doing nothing.” She was whittling a bow tie from wood while I was trying to figure out what kind of bird it was that flew laboriously over the lagoon. It somehow felt validating to see a bird make flying look like work while we were taking it easy.
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Wilson Canyon Park
Park
I loved being in the presence of nightingales and mockingbirds while sharing the sandy Saddleback Trail with gold-and-green lizards pulsing in the sun. I found two rocks to sprawl on and pulsed in the sun myself for 11 minutes per rock. Then I remembered the website mentioned a creek, so I took another mini-hike, this time turning left from the parking lot facing the terracotta and olive mountainsides. A solitary green picnic table greeted me in the shade of oak trees, and I would have sprawled on it too except I heard the beckoning burble of running water. Soon I was squatting at a confluence of creeks, “Watching the River Flow” twanging away in my mind until it simmered down. Then it was just me and the flow until a vaquero on horseback crossed the creek leading a riderless horse, followed a few minutes later by a grown-up carrying a spear of grass alongside a young girl carrying a machete. Eventually I crossed the creek on some sturdy-enough logs and found a solitary bench where, surrounded by shrubs and birdsong, I read more of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”
“Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.”
“Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.”
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Heritage Park
Santa Fe Springs Park
The cast-iron bench encircling the sprawling carob tree at the entrance to this park is a great spot to sit and listen to the creaking of the nearby windmill. Heritage Park lives up to its name by summoning the presence of those who came before us, including Tongva villagers, tourists who arrived by train in the 1880s for the hot springs, roughnecks who came to work in Santa Fe Springs after the massive oil strike of 1921, and the oil tycoons who built a mansion on this site. A fireplace is all that’s left of the mansion, leaving visitors to wonder about the impermanence of grandeur while exploring curiosities such as an aviary stocked with cockatoos as well as a glassed-in boneyard. There is an incongruity to doing nothing when surrounded by industrial parks and an Amazon delivery hub. I imagined employees having their every movement monitored while I was being mindful of my breathing. It made me think about what Jenny Odell, author of “Doing Nothing,” suggests might come next: “restoring communities, human and beyond.”
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Douglas Park
Santa Monica Park
Chinese elms offer elegant leaf-gazing as they waft back and forth in the breeze on the east side of this one-block park. Papyrus wafts on the west side. In between, I recommend the blue, yellow, red and white pennants wafting at the top of the chain-link fence around the bowling lawn. Little ponds are stocked with turtles, ducks and adorable ducklings: all great for connecting with nature even if it’s been a while, as in, not since you were a child.
I visited here with my multitalented friend Murray Smith, who not long ago fashioned a gown out of masking tape. When Murray arrived at a dinner party recently, she immediately announced, “The thing to remember when you’re taking a deep breath is, take two quick breaths in through your nose, and hold them.” Nabbing that second in-breath turns out to be great for establishing a good loafing mindset. Murray and I got together again to play my new favorite birdwatching game, “Raven or Crow,” in which you guess if that black bird hopping or cawing nearby is a raven or a crow.
I visited here with my multitalented friend Murray Smith, who not long ago fashioned a gown out of masking tape. When Murray arrived at a dinner party recently, she immediately announced, “The thing to remember when you’re taking a deep breath is, take two quick breaths in through your nose, and hold them.” Nabbing that second in-breath turns out to be great for establishing a good loafing mindset. Murray and I got together again to play my new favorite birdwatching game, “Raven or Crow,” in which you guess if that black bird hopping or cawing nearby is a raven or a crow.
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Encino Park
Encino Park
Sitting on the front lawn facing the groaning parade of traffic on Ventura Boulevard makes you extra-appreciate having already arrived. A cast-iron sculpture of a globe reinforces the feeling that you are in the right place, doing the right nothing. Deodar cedar, coast live oak and sycamore thrive, making this a great spot for tree-bathing. When I asked my friend and teaching mentor Lynn Akers what she noticed after we chatted on a picnic blanket and then silently squirrel-watched, she said, “Everything … feels … so … nice!”
Then, as will happen after doing nothing, we talked about things that really matter: our cats. It was great to be with Lynn, whom I hadn’t seen since she started working at Starbucks. She likes getting to chat with people all day but says it’s challenging to keep having to brew more and more coffee. “I should do this more often,” she said about doing nothing. “This breeze is perfection.” You can feel the perfect breeze in other parts of this bench- and tree-filled park, but the front lawn gives you the best vantage point for easing out of the grind.
Then, as will happen after doing nothing, we talked about things that really matter: our cats. It was great to be with Lynn, whom I hadn’t seen since she started working at Starbucks. She likes getting to chat with people all day but says it’s challenging to keep having to brew more and more coffee. “I should do this more often,” she said about doing nothing. “This breeze is perfection.” You can feel the perfect breeze in other parts of this bench- and tree-filled park, but the front lawn gives you the best vantage point for easing out of the grind.
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Garfield Park
South Pasadena Park
This park greets you with a big hug in the form of a radiant rose garden and flapping flagpole. The welcome extends throughout the park in the variety of comfy places to sit and do nothing: cast-iron and stone benches, picnic tables, ledges. With my back against a sky-high sycamore, I took in the aroma of fresh-mowed grass, glad to be in the presence of fellow loafers, including two people wearing painter’s pants who had settled between giant fig tree roots to enjoy lunchtime burritos. I also saw a person in a white dress reclining in a lounge chair with two little dogs; they got into a friendly conversation with another person walking three little dogs, and they were soon joined by a third person with one big dog. It sounds like a math problem but is really a solution: Dogs make great loafing companions.
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Vista Hermosa Park
Echo Park Park
You can feel exalted at Vista Hermosa Park, set on a gently sloping hillside overlooking the downtown skyline. One bench is particularly treasured by selfie takers, its view of towering rectangles softened by leaves of oak and toyon. I took my turn sitting there and low-key thrilled to the wind in the willows. While I was waiting for my long-ago students Adam Castro and Isaac Plummer, still in their band the Crudes and delayed by working on their first corrido, I played one of my favorite loafing games: Notice what’s yellow. That’s how I learned to identify California brittlebush and yellow sweet clover. When the guys showed up, they filled me in on the improvement this park represents for the neighborhood, which Isaac said turned into a “gang playground” after the Pacific Electric tracks got torn up in the 1950s. I took it as a lifetime achievement award that my former students were totally down to do nothing together. “I need to do this more often,” said Adam. “I’m always either boxed in a room or driving to go be boxed in a room.”
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(Mark Gozonsky)
Jalapa Park
Covina Park
Jalapa Park features a magnificent Olmec head, a 5-foot-tall stone statue of a big, round head. The head has a human statue friend sitting nearby underneath an oak tree canopy, both of them doing nothing together. I loafed here with my teacher friend Ai Ikuma and her white husky, Omi, walking silently around the shady, loopy trails of this lovely small park right off the 10 at East Garvey Street and South Village Oaks Drive.
The many little bridges here let you feel like you are crossing into a more relaxed and open state of mind that lets you notice emergent thistle blossom and bristly wild cucumber. When I asked Ai what she noticed after doing nothing, she said it reminded her of this book she just got called “Art in the World” and how it encourages her to see the world in different ways. “You can’t just do it through books, though,” she said. “You have to do it with other people.”
The many little bridges here let you feel like you are crossing into a more relaxed and open state of mind that lets you notice emergent thistle blossom and bristly wild cucumber. When I asked Ai what she noticed after doing nothing, she said it reminded her of this book she just got called “Art in the World” and how it encourages her to see the world in different ways. “You can’t just do it through books, though,” she said. “You have to do it with other people.”
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