Sometimes I Just Sit and Stare

Do you? Ever just sit and stare?

I used to think it was a waste of time. Now, I find it meditative. I get my best thinking done on this bench. The park where I walk, Towl Park, has a ton of these. They are benches with little templates on them. They say things like:

May  Jones 1938-2017
Mother  Wife   Grandma
Dearly Missed

I like them. I like sitting on a bench and thinking about a person who is so loved, so missed, that they have their own bench. I want one when I die. I want to have a bench where someone can sit down if they are tired. Mothers who just want to get their kids tuckered out good so that they will sleep through the night. Runners who need to take a break. An old person with an old dog who just wants to sit and watch the sun rise or set.

I want to be their resting spot. Their thinking spot. And maybe, like me, they'll see that little plate and think to themselves, "Hmmm. I wonder what she was like?" Or not. Doesn't matter. I just would like to be there.

Maybe someone would get engaged on my bench. Maybe someone would be like me. Find out that their cancer was terminal and just stagger blindly into the park looking for something, somewhere to put all that pain and then sit on this bench and cry until they felt like they could put a brave front on things and then go back home.

I use this bench mostly to just stare, though. I sit and look out over the water and think about silly things like softball games that I went to or long walks or a particularly good book. I will sit quietly and just stare, thinking. There will sometimes be a half smile on my face. Sometimes not.

Sometimes, I will feel the soft drumbeat of my heart and think about a time when that sound will be lost. Gone. No matter. Another will replace it. Just as slowly as mine slows to a stop, another will take a tentative beat and then another and another and another.

The world hates a vacuum and I learned a long time ago that one can easily be replaced. You don't think so at first, but it happens. Someone dies and you think, how can the world go on spinning? How can we go on? And then, someone steps up and takes up the work of the one who dropped his or her life. The sun rises and sets. The seasons go on.

And before you know it, time has passed and all is well. Our lives were meant to pass in this way. You don't forget, but you do go on.

But, the bench can remain and be useful. Maybe someone will tell another someone that they are going to have a baby. Maybe a boy will find a way to gently break up with a girl or another boy. A dog will sit gently on his owner's foot, wanting to be next to him. A book will be left on the bench only to be retrieved twenty minutes later when they are nearly to the car and they remember that they left it on the bench.

The sun will make the bench warm in the summer and snow will coat it in the winter. Rain will slither down in the cold autumn and pelt down in a sudden spring shower.

Life will go on.

For now, though. I will just sit and stare into the water and think about L running through the sprinkler, her head thrown back, her legs leaping like a baby antelope.

Beautiful.