The ideal bench as a symbol
The bench as a symbol of encounters of all sorts. Of friendships, of love affairs honest or dishonest. A forbidden fruit.
The leisure and pleasure
The leisure and pleasure of sitting on a bench, of being free. The bench as antidote to the lockdown times.
The ideal bench on Santorini, photo C.A.
The bench of rosy perfection
The young couple was sitting on a bench surrounded by bushes of fukshia pink roses with a scent that was making the whole area smell like a perfume shop. I didn't have a camera with me and even if I did, I am not sure that the ideal couple would have given me permission to take their photo.
It was such a romantic, almost kitschy and old-fashioned scene. The roses looked like a frame around the two people who were hugging and kissing and whispering words of love to each other. The intense pink roses, loads of them, flashed like neon lights, as if they tried to tell all the world "look at those two, look how happy they are". And for a moment I quite forgot the virus and the violence and all the vile things in life. This snapshot I didn't take, in all its rosy beauty, made me believe that life is indeed a rose garden. Well, for some people at least...08.06.20
Glorifying the bench
The hot Australian sun shines glorious like a sovereign over this bench in the Botanical Gardens of Ballarat.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088B3MPT8
Ein Buch auf Englisch
"The ideal bench" oder "Gedanken für alle Jahreszeiten": Eine einfache Bank in einem Park irgendwo in Deutschland wird so zum Nabel der Welt.
Sie finden es hier als Taschenbuch und auch als eBook.
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B088B3MPT8?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860
The book taking a rest on a bench
The book "The ideal bench" taking a rest on a bench. This is the ideal place for reading a book.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B088B3MPT8
A bench with a view
I am also reminded of my 'secret garden' in Greece, in the countryside of Attica, amidst grapevines and Byzantine chapels. There, too, only a faraway plane about to land at the Spata airport, reminds one of the time, the era, the achievements of technology.
This be the bench
Not far from the ideal park with its ideal benches, there was also an ideal forest. A forest in the city, within walking distance from the centre, a green place with various trees whose names I did not know. I knew however how to walk among them, to stop at every clearing and to observe in the fall the mushrooms that looked like giant sponges. The park might have felt like home but the forest was beautiful as well. It had the grandeur of the wild.
The ideal bench: This book will change your life
Or maybe not...It can simply make you see things, benches in particular, with different eyes. It can make you stop as you pass by a bench. You will be invited to sit down for a while and observe the world around you. It doesn't have to be some spectacular or breathtaking view. Just a common bench that you've seen a hundred times during your everyday walks. You may feel tempted to steal some minutes from your busy schedule and dedicate them to the bench. To yourself that is...
The ideal bench (the photos)
Always in search of the ideal bench, I took many photos in parks or in squares. Some of them appear in the pages of this book. At the same time, I received lots of pictures from friends who spotted their own ideal benches during their travels near and far and sent them to me.