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Illustration by Nijah Smith
Last spring when the first lovely days of the new season called us to our gardens and pleasant walks around the neighbourhood, my friend and neighbour, Donna, and I had spent several hours in the glorious sunshine enjoying the new beginnings on our properties.
When it was time to sit down and relax, Donna pulled out her chair – a practical, red metal, not particularly comfortable chair – from her garage as I stopped by to chat. I needed a seat, too, and after turning down Donna’s offered chair, I sat on an overturned plastic bucket. It was fun to refresh our friendship and catch up on news that we had missed during the long winter indoors.
Over the next few days, the beautiful weather lured us into our gardens and at the end of the afternoons, the opportunity to sit down, relax and chat some more lured us to the chair and bucket that Donna had left outside her garage.
It soon became obvious that we needed more than a hard metal chair and a too-low bucket whose base was a tad too small for comfort. Donna decided we needed a bench. After checking around some of the local garden centres and finding benches that checked all the wrong boxes – too hard, too long, too pricey – she found a bench online that looked like it would fit our needs.
It was just about sit-down time the next day when the unassembled bench arrived by courier. Excitedly, she opened the box and started putting it together. We proudly high-fived each other as the pieces joined up and the bench started to look like one. A few minutes’ assistance from a neighbour tightening up some stubborn bolts and it was complete.
As the bench was turned right-side up to loud cheering, we found it fit perfectly in the space between Donna’s garage door and the edge of the driveway. And what’s more, it was the perfect fit for two 70-somethings to carry on late afternoon chats.
The bench soon attracted comments and questions from other neighbours, who then took the opportunity to sit down – on the red metal chair and overturned bucket – and join in on the conversation. We’d offer the bench for those who were regulars but most people declined to take Donna’s spot on the left side.
One day, someone called out from the sidewalk: “What do ya do on that bench?” Quick-thinking Donna called back: “It’s our Thinking Bench! We think about important things happening in our lives.”
Word got around that the bench was used for thinking about things, and, alongside the bench, Donna’s tub of colourful portulacas with a piece of local driftwood in its centre attracted more visitors and comments.
Not long after, another neighbour walked up and said: “I hear this is a thinking bench. Do you mind if I sit down on it and do some thinking about a decision I have to make?”
He sat, alone, on the bench in the pose of The Thinker. Some time later he left with a smile of satisfaction on his face, declaring: “This is a decision-making bench!”
Summer went on and one day, Donna was caught nodding off on the bench. Startled by a passerby calling out “Hello!” she quickly pointed out that she was meditating. The bench became known in the neighbourhood as The Meditation Bench, The Decision Bench and The Thinking Bench.
It was all those things and more. The bench had become a gathering place at the end of afternoons, a place for a glass of lemonade and sometimes wine, where relationships grew and people felt welcome. It was a magical spot that enhanced friendships and calmed our souls, a place of gathering for friendship and joy and laughter.
A friend of Donna’s who had only heard about the bench but had not seen it, drove up in her car one day, and was immediately drawn to the simple, grey-wood bench that was giving so much pleasure to so many people. She asked Donna what she called it. Donna replied that she had been thinking about getting a little plaque made for it, but couldn’t decide on what to call the bench – The Thinking Bench, The Decision Bench or The Meditation Bench?
And so, last fall as we came to the end of sitting outdoors, we were faced with two dilemmas – what do we call the bench and what to do about it in the winter? The answer to the first dilemma was obvious. And for the second one, well, we sat down and thought and meditated and decided to put it in Donna’s garage for the winter. When I glimpsed it a few times over the next months, the bench looked forlorn, a catch-all for empty flower pots, some boxes folded down for recycling and a single green mitten.
But now after a long winter, Donna has a little metal plaque ready to attach, spring flowers are ready to bloom in the warm sunshine, and we neighbours are ready to welcome The Bench back into our lives.
Wendy LeBlanc lives in Picton, Ont.
