The Bench Beckons: A Personal Reflection
Sometimes, the most profound invitations in life don’t come with fanfare. They arrive quietly—like a whisper on the wind, or the gentle pull of a weathered bench beneath an old tree. That’s how The Bench Beckons came to me—not as a dramatic calling, but as a subtle nudge to pause, to breathe, to listen.
In the stillness of that moment, I began to notice things I often rushed past: the rustle of leaves, the hush between heartbeats, the sacred space between doing and simply being. This piece grew from that stillness—from the stories a bench might hold, and the ones I continue to live.
As I approach a new season in my life, turning 80 this year, I find myself drawn more deeply to the spaces that ask nothing of me but my presence. The Bench Beckons is a reflection on those spaces, and the quiet truths they reveal when we finally sit still long enough to hear them. Namaste, Laurel
The bench beckons.
I hear it whisper—
“Be still. Stay for a while.”
I pause.
There is something sacred in its quiet invitation.
As I sit beneath the canopy of an old, sheltering tree,
the world softens. The noise recedes.
Time stretches wide like the sky beyond the branches.
This bench, worn smooth by sun and rain, has held more than just souls.
It has cradled conversations, confessions, quiet tears, and the hush of awe.
Rooted beside this wise old tree, it holds memory like the earth holds seeds—
tucked away, but still alive.
I close my eyes and listen.
The tree creaks softly in the breeze,
and the bench begins to speak—not in words,
but in the language of presence.
A woman once sat here with a letter in her hand—
unsent yet visited like a sacred place.
A child once climbed its arms, laughing with a crust of bread in one hand,
while a hungry bird waited patiently on the ground below.
An old man came regularly, settling in to watch the horizon—
greeting the sunrise as if it were an old friend.
And now, here I am.
My own memories rise like mist from morning grass.
Moments I thought long faded drift gently back—
Grief softened by time.
Love that still glows like an ember.
Questions that have found their peace
in simply being unanswered.
I breathe in.
I let it all belong.
And as I sit, I sense I, too, am leaving something behind—
a quiet imprint, an offering of presence.
A note, unwritten but understood,
tucked gently into the hush between the leaves:
“I was here. I listened. I remembered.”
One day, someone else will find this bench—
drawn by the same hush, the same invitation.
They’ll sit. They’ll breathe.
They’ll remember themselves.
The bench will welcome them.
The tree will offer shade.
And the stillness will hold it all—
the presence, the pause, the remembering.
In time, the empty bench will beckon others,
intertwining its offerings.
And the Universe, vast and eternal, goes on.
Laurel D. Rund
