{"id":483,"date":"2017-02-15T05:07:27","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T05:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/?p=483"},"modified":"2019-11-19T07:09:20","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T07:09:20","slug":"thoughts-of-a-park-bench-by-hedwig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.jgu.edu.in\/blog\/2017\/02\/15\/thoughts-of-a-park-bench-by-hedwig\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts of a Park Bench &#8211; By Hedwig"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"436\" height=\"433\" src=\"http:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/tumblr_inline_omcrvxSAH21un32nx_500.png\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"485\" data-link=\"http:\/\/jgu.edu.in\/blog\/?attachment_id=485\" class=\"wp-image-485\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/tumblr_inline_omcrvxSAH21un32nx_500.png 436w, https:\/\/archive.jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/tumblr_inline_omcrvxSAH21un32nx_500-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/archive.jgu.edu.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/tumblr_inline_omcrvxSAH21un32nx_500-300x298.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 436px) 100vw, 436px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The world can be a scary place. Granted my life, as a bench on the football field, has barely seen anything beyond Student Housing \u2013 5 and the Bistro, but being rooted to a spot has its advantages. There are the football games I get to watch every day, and the conversations with the egrets. Sometimes the sparrows stop by too, but they\u2019re not as friendly. Proud little birds, but I\u2019ve seen too many of them come and go. They only make me laugh. &nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It does get lonely though. Sometimes I don\u2019t see anyone for two months straight, especially when it gets too cold and there\u2019s too much of a nip in the air for anyone to enjoy my company. I\u2019m left to talk to the grass, but they\u2019re suspicious creatures. They prefer sticking to themselves in their tufts. Of course there\u2019s the other park benches, but we\u2019re too far away to have meaningful conversations that go beyond just the \u201cHi, how are you\u201d pleasantries. There\u2019s nothing lonelier than being around your own kind but still being alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>That\u2019s why I started collecting stories.&nbsp;<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You see, most people use me for conversation. And when their conversations are over, they tend to leave behind parts of themselves. While no one has left behind a prosthetic hand or a leg (so far) that would have made for a great pun, they do leave bags and books and maybe even pieces of their thought. I\u2019ve heard more cries than dormitory room walls and I\u2019ve heard the sound of a lot of hearts breaking. It\u2019s funny, most wouldn\u2019t spare a second thought to my existence, but I probably know more about them than they realize. When the weather changes and the warm air is punctuated by laughter and excited chattering about something other than how cold it is, I feel my spirits rise too. It means there\u2019s going to be more stories for me to collect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>And I\u2019ll hold on to them. The stories have kept my cogs turning all this while, even as I grow another year old, and another shade of red light . I keep these pieces tucked away in a corner of my brick-lined back. Some come back, years later, to collect their pieces. Some don\u2019t. Some, well, try to find the parts they\u2019ve lost but they don\u2019t know where to find me. I want to tell them that I\u2019m right here, but I can\u2019t. And so I have their pieces. I never let them rust.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Maybe it\u2019s deliberate. The people here move and grow and find that they\u2019ve outgrown parts of themselves which they shed only for me to collect. This is a kind of growth spurt that does not stop. It comes voluntarily \u2013 first with moving away, second with learning and third with giving the old parts of you for safekeeping. I like to think I have this very important job, besides being a great place to take pictures. And maybe we only grow because we know that we haven\u2019t lost those parts of ourselves that we didn\u2019t think were worth keeping. We\u2019ve just relocated them.&nbsp;<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But hey, what do I know.<br>I\u2019m just a park bench.&nbsp;<br><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The world can be a scary place. Granted my life, as a bench on the football field, has barely seen anything beyond Student Housing \u2013 5 and the Bistro, but being rooted to a spot has its advantages. There are the football games I get to watch every day, and <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.jgu.edu.in\/blog\/2017\/02\/15\/thoughts-of-a-park-bench-by-hedwig\/\" class=\"btn btn-link continue-link\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corner"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Thoughts of a Park Bench - By Hedwig<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The world can be a scary place. 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