Whenever I'm in a city or town I will often gravitate to the nearest bench at every opportunity. Its that need for stillness, an island of reflection in the noisy flickering sea of bodies diving at me like a swarm of Messerschmidt's.
I like to imagine myself in one of those speedy stop-motion playbacks: the scurrying ants zipping about all around me, each following their strange arcane trajectories, the cars and buses stopping terrifyingly fast and then disappearing almost instantaneously as if by the speed of light, which I suppose they do in a way - its all about perception and scale anyway.
At the center of this spasmodic animation, is me, and many others like me, the watchers, the clockers, the searchers and the soul seekers.
To be a true participant and paid up member of the bench subculture, you have to be alone - sitting with a partner, friend or other familiar doesn't count - you have to be anonymous, a stranger, a part-time but relatively dedicated existentialist.
That bench becomes your station, your watchtower for a little while, a place to flop and expose yourself to the gaze of others while you gaze at them: you've made a statement, I'm getting off the merry-go-round, I'm not going anywhere or doing anything, I'm just watching the wheels go round.
Being a watcher, an apathetic bench-sitter can be mildly revolutionary in these go-getter, busy, busy, busy times. I must confess to feeling a twinge of guilt occasionally, a tickle of self-consciousness, a little scudding cloud of disapproval from the local human ecosystem. How truly terrible it is to stand and stare, well 'sit' and stare, well not stare - you know what I mean.
Today I was sitting in Princes St gardens in Edinburgh. Its like a natural amphitheater, ribbons of tarmac wind their way down to the bandstand below the famous Castle. These man made terraces are dotted with benches, and on the top tier just below the road there are a series of concrete 'huts', characterless but for the crude public art murals daubed on the rear walls...and of course, a 'fitted' communal bench.
They are surprisingly secluded,and may even be considered 'cosy' by some, a nice place for lovers to shelter from the rain and other, less savory phenomena, especially at night I should imagine.
The view is 'great', the expanse of the park and the foothills of the chocolate box castle, but this is not, and can never be true, pure Delta blues bench-sitting. Its too artificial and landscaped, your gaze is forcefully directed, nay yanked in the required direction - the view becomes a postcard, a prison window that you have no choice but look into, as you say 'oh ain't that sweet'.
To be a real man-of-the-bench you have to be somewhat exposed of course, like Jesus on the cross, whipped and berated by nature and the crowd. The still center of the urban tornado. I look at other lone sitters and feel a secret camaraderie, as if we possess some kind of esoteric code: a glance, a brief smile and the message has been communicated. We are lost in our own worlds but can recognise a fellow survivor on another island.
Sometimes I will attempt to reconstruct the lives of these sitters, write their biography, give a narrative to a face: where were they born? Were they the quiet one in class? Maybe she's an artist? Is he a man who never gets to see his kids anymore? Did they love or hate their mum/dad? What was their first sexual experience like? Have they watched someone they love die? And they in their turn are probably writing my story for me too.
Anyone can become a brother or sister, or 'person' of the Bench of course, its entirely democratic, but it only exists in a strange symbiotic relationship with the crowd. There is a kind of Flaneur aesthetic going on here, but without the sweat and pavement gymnastics.
One of my fantasies is one day meeting God on a park bench. I know its a cliche, but I'm still watching the candidates as they are watching me. Today an old guy around seventy, well dressed and somehow, 'possible God-material' in a wise, distinguished but world weary way, frowned at the passing throng and then smiled to himself while looking at his shoes. I like to think he was collapsing the wave function of probabilities and bringing reality into being everytime he blinked on his urban pew.
Hope springs eternal.
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