park benches
My brother was married on Saturday and he asked me to do a reading during the ceremony.
I struggled for ages to find the right piece to read (with no help from my brother).
In the end, I wrote this instead.
I asked James what he wanted me to read for the wedding and he helpful told me “I dunno, you pick something” I sent him poems and song lyrics but nothing felt right. Finally, I saw sense and stopped asking James and spoke to Emma. “Just read something that means something to you”, she said.
So I’m going to talk about park benches because I can’t go through a park without stopping to read all the plaques that I can find. Some of my favourites are in Russel Square, in Bloomsbury in London. One simply reads “Happy Wedding Anniversary, what a wonderful world!” Another is in memory of “Anne, who loved London and the changing of the season in its beautiful parks and squares” Then there is a park bench just near the central fountain in Russel Square that reads “In loving memory of my husband Dr. Krishna Vasdev” from Stephanie Vasdev. And then a little way along at the next bench another plaque that simply says “A dream has come true to be next to you” also from Stephanie Vasdev. I love these park benches, They are a quiet but public way of displaying love. t
Another of my favourites reads “In Memory of Joyce Lessner, A lovely lady, mother and nan. She came here every day and always spoke to someone. So sit on Joyce’s bench and say hello to the next person you see”. Because these plaques are not memorials but markers of a relationship, that person’s relationship to their loved ones, to the nature around them or to the strangers they meet. Stephanie Vasdev’s bench is a physical manifestation of her love for her husband and their relationship, a way of sharing their connection even after one of them has gone.
But my very favourite bench is in another park nearby, just off Gordon Square and hidden beneath a tree where most people don’t notice it. On this bench the plaque reads “Here beats the happy heart of our emotional geography, Jack & Rachel” This bench like the others is a symbol of a relationship, a union, of two people expressing their love for one another. But unlike the others it is written in the present tense, a story still being told. This to me is what a relationship is, what marriage is, a story that you decide to tell together.
So what would James and Emma’s park bench say? On their own they would be very different, James’s would probably read: “Don’t feed the birds bread it expands their stomachs and is bad for them” and he would then complain about the positioning of the bench and how it had been installed. Emma’s would be in a shady spot warning sitters to “Apply suncream, to relax and take a nap”
I don’t know exactly what James and Emma’s park bench would say. It would be something new, something not yet written, something of their future life together and their present. It would be a symbol of their relationship and love for one another, the care they take of one another and their ability to put up with one another. All I can do is wish them every happiness and ask that they never forget every now and then, to sit on a park bench together and think of the happy heart of their emotional geography and where it might take them.
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