I sat on the other side of the room and watched the activities surrounding the bench. The walls were covered in lush black fabric and then upon the fabric, art work scattered….
I had walked into that segment of the room earlier to view the pieces there, but was not too impressed. No, I’m not saying that the art work was un-impressive, I just mean that I have an eye for something different.
Upon one wall hung strange dolls… lopsided arms and legs, missing limbs, missing facial features, or having over exaggerated sex organs… to me, they were like Voodoo dolls and I neither wanted to know the people that inspired them nor the person who created them. Upon the second wall hung paintings done in metallics… the lighting and reflections from the metals, caused much of the definition to be lost… therefore, so my interest. Upon the third wall hung abstract scribbles… no definition of form, no unity, no reason to try to figure it out… and so, I moved on to the next section of partitioned walls.
Now, from my vantage point, across the room, with too many glasses of wine and a scoop of “Drunken Tomatoes”… my perception wasn’t the same as it had been while I stood next to the bench and cringed at the site of a belly dancing Voodoo doll, with one long, fat leg and a missing boob… I suddenly saw the bench as the artwork and the three black clad, partitioned, art scattered walls became “accessories” to the amplification of it’s unique beauty.
A piano bench, I hadn’t noticed before… a beautiful, black, worn and very used piano bench. As I watched, man after man, woman after woman and artist after artist, ignored the bench and gazed upon the walls. They pointed, squinted, cringed, cocked their heads, laughed and looked both confused and pleased… I watched them, as they became animated accessories to the bench.
A friend interrupted my study of the bench with a question that I found difficult to answer… “what are you looking at so intently?”, she asked. I reached deep inside my mind for an answer. I felt a tear begin it’s journey from my soul… and all I could come up with was “Life”. She patted my hand and said, “I’ll get you some Ginger Ale, you’re still not sober enough to drive.”
Becoming more aware of the hot lava tears on my cheek, I let my attention drift back to the piano bench. My 
heart skipped a beat, as upon it sat an old man… He himself a piece of art… He was clad in shades of black and grey. His white hair, silver rimmed glasses, pale skin and fragile frame…a thing of beauty. He sat with his hands clasped in his lap, pondering the abstract art wall. I watched him and began to wonder who would miss him, if he were gone. Did he have a wife, children, grandchildren? Was he a member of a church or social group? Was he the last of his lineage? Was he happy? Did anyone care to call him or check in on him on a daily basis?
I wiped the tears from my face, with the napkin that came with a glass of Ginger Ale, stood, steadied myself and made my way to him. I asked, “is this seat taken?”, as I pretended to dust it off. He looked up at me and said “if you would have it?” How charming, I thought… We sat in silence for a few moments… me staring at a canvas upon which the artist had vomited something in shades of purple, red and orange… he, staring at me…
I slowly turned my face towards his and smiled. He asked, “why are you here?”. I gulped, looked into his lonely grey eyes and began to tell him about the bench… “Well, I was sitting over there with my friends, I’ve had more adult beverages than my normally detoxified body can handle and I noticed that everyone was making their way around the bench… ignoring it, not even taking notice of it’s presence and I realized that I had done the same thing… it made me “sad” for the bench. I began to wonder where it had come from, where it had been, what it was made of, how many recitals, Thanksgiving sing-a-longs, composers in love, lessons taught and learned, lives that had moved on… how many realities had it seen? And how it sat now, in a room full of people, alone, untouched and unnoticed and I became sad for it’s loss. Then you were here and you became part of the benches’ reality and I began to wonder about your life. I decided that I wanted to be part of both of your realities, if only for a fleeting moment.” He smiled at me and said “great answer”…
We sat and talked for quite some time. He was 87, a retired scientist/teacher, who had lost his wife to Alzheimer’s, two years earlier. He had sold or given away everything, because he had lost his Everything and nothing mattered anymore. He had spent the last year, traveling all over the United States… visiting family and friends, what few where still living. After having stopped for lunch, somewhere in Nashville, he found himself turned around and heading away from the interstate, but the lure to continue on this path was too strong for him to turn around just yet…. and then he saw the “Open House/Art Show Today” sign, in front of the art studio, and thought of his wife. Like magic, there was an available parking space on the same block. He signed in at the reception area and made his way around the studio… he helped himself to the hors d’oeuvres and open wine bar. He had talked with many of the artist and just wanted to collect himself for a few moments before making his way back to the interstate. The only available seat, was the piano bench… so there he sat, thinking about his late wife and all the art she had created and he had given away. He thought it was “divine intervention” that he had traveled for so long, in an attempt to put his late wife out of his head and in an odd set of wrong turns, “lost his way” and ended up sitting in an art “gallery” thinking of nothing but her…
Then I had misunderstood his question “why are you here?” and gave him an answer that only amplified his own thoughts, about how we should never forget even the saddest of moments in our lives and that even the stranger who sits next to you on the bus, is now, part of your reality, your past, your life…
I, feeling more sober than I had ever felt and he, feeling the presence of his wife, decided to say our goodbyes and depart from the bench. Upon standing, I realized that he had said I mis-understood his question, so I asked “what did you mean?” He said, just what I had asked…”why are you in this place/what brought you to the art show?” I answered, “My sister is one of the featured artists and I came in support of her.” He said, “no, that was the answer I thought I was looking for, but you were here today, to sit on an old piano bench, with a lonely old man and rejuvenate his spirit… I’m going to call my son and ask if his offer to help renovate his basement, in Franklin, is still open. I think I’ll stay in the area and become a “bench” for my grand kids”. He leaned in, kissed me on the forehead and then walked away.
With shaking hands, I sat down on the bench again. My date for the day had canceled at the last moment, earlier in the day I had a slight migraine headache and had laid down to take a nap. I wasn’t coming to the art show alone… I’d have to park two blocks away and walk the street unescorted, both to and from… I didn’t want to be bothered with trying to make my way through Titan football traffic… I’d rather stay home, in bed, alone, lonely and disappointed in my broken date… but my sister needed me…and I had that pretty new blouse…free food/drink… “Darn-it all!, I’ll go for a few minutes, and then, maybe, I’ll run over to my favorite “new age” store and come right back home”… I was an hour late, but found a parking space less than a half a block away… ran into friends that I didn’t know were going to be there… did some unexpected business networking… and discovered the bench to be a miraculous piece of art… divine intervention indeed…
~sheila rippy (09/09/08)
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