The other day I was out on a walk. I saw this…
It’s a tiny bench. It’s pretty benign. It’s basically four pieces of wood put together and placed on the ground. It’s crudely made with a handful of nails. The edges are rough.
But here’s the thing, it’s miles from anywhere. Few people are ever going to come across it, but there it is. It’s in the perfect spot. After hours of trudging it was just what I wanted. The ground around it was saturated, and although the seat is only about 20cm off the ground, it was perfect. I was able to rest and I felt relief.
Someone put this bench here. Not the council, not the government, not an organisation. This was built by an individual. It was too rustic to be anything other. Some person, having walked this path in the past decided to lug this lumber all the way here, at the half way point of the walk, miles from anywhere. They brought it here, assembled it and left it here for folk like me to benefit from for as long as it lasts.
This got me thinking about the civic nature of this gesture. About the fact that we don’t see much of this kind of thing, and perhaps we ought to. Much of life is now packaged up in commodities. Things are usually traded, bought and sold. If there’s no value in ‘a thing’, ‘the thing’ is not created.
This simple bench has taught me that it’s nice to see civic gestures like this. We need more civic benches. More ‘things’ which have no transactional value. More things which are done just because there’s ‘a good’ to someone, even though the recipient of ‘the good’ will never be known. We do ‘the thing’ because someone, somewhere, at some time will reap the reward from our labour.
There was no trace of who made this bench, and that’s perhaps the best thing of all, the fact that it’s a silent gesture of kindness. There’s no quid pro quo, no expectation of repayment. It’s just a mark of kindness, and I was grateful for it.
I will notice things like more from now on, and hope that there’s a part of me which will contribute similar things, silently, where, and when I can.
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