The Pratt trailhead is about .5 miles from my house. A rocky moderate climb of another .5 mile or so used to bring a morning hiker to a picnic table which was tucked under a small tree, where one could sit and enjoy a view of the Ojai Valley. It was a great place to go on a Sunday morning with the paper and a thermos of coffee. Last year the table disappeared. Someone simply decided that it was a nuisance or a liability…or perhaps it was just a small mean gesture.
I have always been charmed by well placed benches and take quiet joy in plunking myself down to understand why this particular spot earned a bench. I have appreciation and admiration for communities which place occasional seats along a path, just places to sit and reflect, to talk out an issue with a partner, to share a moment with a friend. There are a number of benches dotting the property run by the Ojai Land Conservancy (a local endeavor that has been a true gift to the valley). Most are memorial benches, placed with fondness for a loved one lost. One of the simple joys of life is to pause on a morning hike to meditate for awhile on some remote bench, where the only sounds are birds or the wind moving the trees or perhaps nearby rushing water. While I confess that have lost my patience for indoor meditations longer than a few minutes…perhaps just a bit of stillness after a little yoga…I will gladly spend a half an hour on a shaded bench by a lake or stream.
These benches become destinations for me when I walk, which is daily. Our dog, Doc, has come to know my patterns and will head straight to a bench and lie down. Among his many other admirable qualities, he is patient with my moments of reflection and usually just settles in and enjoys the moment. We understand each other. There is a bench along the Shelf Road hike which perches a couple of hundred feet above our house, where Doc and I can walk several mornings per week. The experience of combining a spectacular view of the Valley with looking down on one’s home is a wonderful exercise in reflection and gratitude…sort of putting things in perspective each day. Yet there is foot traffic on this trail, so it is rare that one can get more than a few minutes of uninterrupted peace. For serenity and stillness punctuated by the distant sound of playing children, there is a magical bench in the Oak Grove where Krishnamurti annually spoke. There is another in the river bottom where one can sit for long periods and watch the hawks dance in the wind. It is what Winnie the Pooh would call my Thoughtful Spot.
As we once settled a school onto several hundred beautiful acres in the Upper Ojai, I tried to create and sustain “philosopher’s walks”, which are paths to stroll which featured occasional spots to stop and think or counsel a student. (While most schools seem to like to keep everyone in sight, I always appreciated a school campus which featured spots to be alone or to have a quiet conversation. For counseling a teenager, an office will rarely provide satisfaction, but I cannot tell you how many times I told a student that I simply had to get out of the office for awhile and invited them to take a little walk. Walking and talking, perhaps finding a place to sit, brought many a teenage crisis to solution.) The campus featured several distinct areas of civilization and we designed a path to link them, built small bridges, planted trees, and constructed benches along the way. As this was the shortest route between two points, it was always a challenge to dissuade the maintenance staff from driving vehicles along the path. But I was firm in the vision that the path was only for walkers. Sure enough, on a recent visit I found that the philosopher’s path was overgrown and unused, the bridges buried in weeds and the benches gone. However there is a well worn dirt road that runs across the field, which nowadays must serve as a freeway for foot and vehicular traffic rushing from upper to lower campus, with no suggestion that one might wish to stop and simply Be along the path. I felt a sense of loss.
I still feel a sense of loss each time our morning walk hits that point on the Pratt Trail where the picnic table once resided. It is a small thing to lose, really, but so are moments of stillness and reflection. It is so easy to blast along our daily paths, racing headlong into getting where we are going. A small bench is a suggestion to “stop here for a moment”…”What’s your hurry?”….a bench sits like a small gift that invites you to spend a few minutes opening it. Meredy and I have recently decided that we want to have a bench memorial together…not some tombstone in a cemetery, but a bench along a path where passers-by may pause and enjoy a moment of peace or converse with a friend. Of course we hope that bench still sits a long way off, but I hereby invite each of you to find it, sit down, and have a moment of reflection…on us, so to speak.