In Praise of Parks and Recreation

Parks and Recreation is the show I’ve watched the most in my lifetime. I stayed up with it as it aired weekly during its run, and I go back and rewatch the series now about once a year. It’s comforting to me. The hope and genuine depiction of human decency is just something I find myself needing to turn to—more and more, the older I get. Even the moments of mockery toward the wonderful Garry/Jerry/Larry/Lenny/Terry/Barry get flipped by the series’ end (and yes, I do cry every single time I see his mayoral inauguration, with “All My Life” playing as he floats up into the sky).

I was particularly impacted as I closed out my 2022 viewing of Parks this weekend. The show, for all of its focus on local government and general human silliness, is about big, meaningful things. For one, it’s about chasing our dreams. It’s about taking risks. It’s about embracing what is difficult and trying anyhow. And, mostly, (at least to me) it’s about the constant search for connections—and our pursuit to support and champion one another.

It’s easy to dismiss this kind of show as being too sentimental or fantastical, but I don’t buy into that kind of filing. One way Parks hits its mark so well is by allowing the characters on the series to become much more than just general work-place proximity associates (as Ron might say). Instead, the characters we get so attached to—which is all of them, really—become family. Yes, these people work together and have to be cordial in some sense, but they become much more than that. In this little government office in Pawnee, Leslie, Ron, April, Andy, Tom, Ben, Donna, Garry, and the others, become, in metaphorical extensions, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and more.

These are people who are there for each other when times are good and bad. They stand by and support one another. They come to genuinely love one another. And it’s not because they have to; it’s because they want. Because it’s the right, decent thing to do.

Living in a real world that’s so competitive and mean-spirited and, frankly, just narcissistic (and more so by each passing day), it’s good to see this kind of reminder that we are here, on this planet, to ultimately connect and to love. Our families, yes, but also those people who become our families as we move through this life. And even those people in our communities we might not know very well at all.

Parks and Recreation reminds us to love people and to help people—to just be good and to help one another on this difficult and bumpy journey of life.

I love this little show; it does my spirit good.