For more than two decades I have welcomed many weekend mornings in a space that has remembered me. I take a seat on the bench hoping to gracefully blend in with nature has already started. The birds come in shifts– bluebirds, morning doves… Woodpeckers peck metal and it rattles like a jackhammer. A hawk visits occasionally, when the crows are not nagging. A mockingbird sings the songs of others and keeps his distance as long as I do the same.

It’s quiet. Get there early enough and nature is the only sound.

On that bench, many conversations have transpired. It’s sturdy and holds the weight of the subject. When you make these meaningful connections enough, the space remembers and seems to embrace. Young boys trying to figure out life. Fathers and sons in the ritual of movement and stillness. Old men talking about cancer. Side by side. Nature holds the gaze.

Truth is you never know what spaces become sacred. But, when they do you know. And you realize that its form, regardless of its original function, becomes a part of the story, known by the sigh of…

“The bench.”