An object in motion stays in motion, unless acted upon by an external force; an individual remains lost in the perpetual cycle of life until grounded by the seemingly simple act of sitting on a bench. By the laws of physics, the familiar grooves of a wooden park bench forces the human population to stop and smell the roses, to stop and connect with the present moment.
From held hands caught in the blessing of your peripheral vision, to an overwhelming pull to join an old man sitting in stark solidarity, or a bench presence going from duo to single in the closing scene of a cinematic masterpiece; park benches have and will always forever foster opportunity for connection.
There’s something to the art of sitting and either connecting with yourself or another. It is simply inappropriate to cover surface level topics while so deeply in the moment. Perhaps it is the comfort supplied by the act of sitting on the physical bench, by the wooden slats stabbing into your spine, poking a hole into the depths of your soul to be spilled upon the bench participants.
Teenagers throughout Bend commonly complain of this oh-so-small town having nothing to do, in the predicament that they don’t find themselves compatible with the obvious puffy wearing, beer drinking, dog petting pastimes of a Bendite. Because of this, I myself spend a significant amount of time on park benches connecting with the atmosphere of Bend in my own way.
Upon returning to a classic spot of mine, the bench on the corner of Pioneer Reach, I was met with a starkly empty cement rectangle, in which a familiar bench used to live. Did this loss sadden me? Deeply. Yet, searching for the silver lining, the loss awoke the inner Nancy Drew in me. However, upon attempting to connect with peers over it, I found that the well of people who feel passionately about park benches is withering and near dry.
So, how and why must we go about reviving this lost art?
Where do you go in times when you are struggling and overwhelmed? Everyone has their safe place which they return to, its meaning built brick by brick from memories past. The place that reassures you that everything will work out, as you exist simply and unapologetically alone.
Summit senior Kennan Lahey stresses the importance for a place like this.
“Everybody is so occupied with either their phones or activities or friends that nobody really has time to think for themselves,” said Lahey.
A place to think for yourself is vital in protecting the authenticity of your mind and actions, as it allows you to truly connect with your mind, body and soul. A park bench offers the marriage of beating the dead horse of actions past, with the balance of perceiving the future world moving by.
For those who thoroughly enjoy a good people-watching session like myself, a moment on a park bench may not be so bad after all. Nobody will question the fact that you are directly staring upon strangers. For those untrained in the art of acting naturally while doing so, try grabbing a companion and existing alone together.
The plaques bolted onto a park bench rarely read a dedication to an individual who sat on the bench alone. Instead, they are dedicated in memory of years of flourished connections grown organically from the soil of the bench.
Before either shockingly serious news, or burning hot gossip is shared, the storyteller is commonly heard telling the listener that “they may want to sit down for this.” Why is that? As humans, we are simply more comfortable in the act of sitting rather than standing, lowered heart rates bolstering the fact that we are scientifically calmer.
Perhaps the comfort in being completely vulnerable on a park bench is the fact that if something wrong is said, the listener can’t just walk away, they have to intentionally get up and leave. A second step that may in fact keep them lingering to hear the speaker out. Maybe it’s the fact that your eyes share the scenic outlook, rather than the intimidating eye contact of each other. Both wisdom and ungodly truths are revealed on benches in film, proof that this seemingly simple place fosters the opportunity for both destruction and growth.
Yet that’s not all. As mentioned before, benches offer the prime people-watching quarters. The nosiness allowed on a park bench is simply unquestioned, a completely normalized act. Once a passerby is out of earshot, the picking apart of the social interaction can begin between the two on the bench.
“I think that you can understand the different ways that people work with each other and I think it’s just interesting to see the different way that people are going through their lives,” said Lahey.
While I joke that all I want when I die is a bench in my favorite place, there are truths underlying this humor. I don’t even need a plaque, just my presence haunting the minds of innocent bench sitters to be hit with the epitome of the importance of the simple seat. Not the ghost of Christmas past, but the ghost of a bench sitting future. Do me a favor, don’t wait for my ghost to bring this realization to you. Instead, do yourself a favor and go sit on a bench.
