I had a free day and the whole trip ahead of me. The baby is in the wardrobe, the husband is at work and some letters to complete. It seemed like a boring day, so I came up with something unexpected. Without further preamble or planning, there is one thing: I sit on a bench. He had no excuse to wait for a quote or mitigate the confusion, and he didn’t even search the mobile phone for a limited vacancy. I feel like my pants are down. After a few minutes of adjusting, he began to notice how the wind obscured the fallen leaves, and how the sun moved the shadows of the trees. I saw people correcting each other, their pace quickening, the minutes growing slowly and inexorably. And so the morning comes, like happy cheer.
It had only been an hour when a colleague approached me from the neighborhood and asked me if I was going all the time. -Of course-, he argues, -Why?-. He drew silence and looked to the sides evasively, as if it were something obvious. Sitting alone on a bench is reserved for very specific profiles like a pervert, a retired man, or Keanu Reeves. The street is for running from one side to the other, not for sitting. It is an area of space, the distance between points. From your home to work, to the dentist, to the bar, or to another home. We are just sitting in the street with a lot of money in our hands and a bill to pay. Tavern balconies were replaced by benches as a meeting space on the street. Sitting for free is something marginal and against the system. My colleague, of course, wouldn’t let me go with all this stuff. “No, no, nothing,” I answered, per se.
Your exceptional attitude confirmed my idea. I was brought to the bank with renewed conviction. A street can also be a destination, and I think banks are the best embodiment of this idea. They are a gentle arch on the road, and rogues who can protect themselves from threats that come their way. It can be a refuge where you can replenish your strength, and a suitable space for meeting. Turn the weather into a shelter and bring the street closer to home.
I spent my teenage years between banks. The donkey is resting between two wooden shoulders and life is paraded before my eyes. There was a bench in my neighborhood where I smoked cigarettes and psychoactive alcohol with my friends. Ah, we philosophize hard and fight the more serious things. I also had a romantic lover’s seat at Campo del Moro, the best place my pocket could afford for a date night. There was plenty of seating to carry bottles and friends around Parque del Oeste. Benches for kiting and sunbathing. Facing seating, great for joining a large group and having a meeting, a date or an affair. It even had benches perfect for swimming and looking out endlessly.
When I stop sitting on chairs, I think while sitting on one of them. Maybe when you find it difficult to get money to go to bars and restaurants. When I became independent, I found my shared floor at Lavapiés a more private place to do romantic, psychotic, and social things. In the first place, the I was born that grew and changed, or the Madrid that reduced the public banks to an endangered species. Bouillon was banned, and ceremonial gathering around the bank was criminalized. They declared war. Little by little, the banks increased in popularity, until they were converted into individual benches to prevent people from resting without a home. Some have disappeared and their space has been taken over by the stands as invasive species.
It was like this for a society that was rushing towards hysteria, and in this world full of worries, obligations and necessities, one could not stop living and sit in the middle of the street. Banks are an anachronism to a world that once existed. Something classic What a way to appreciate their cheerful people. Ojalá vuelvan, as the long trousers flew, the gamba cocktail or bigot. But today there are remnants of the past, peaceful life, where there were no pedestrians in the city, there were no customers, and there was no rhythm of life.
It could be a combination of three things, but today, as I step out of my routine and sit on the bench, I promise to return to these places more often. Claim them with an activist vacancy. Take a hike on the road every now and then.
He demanded a break so badly that if I got there late, I had to go and take him back to the guard. So I think Matteo has had a year, that he’s starting to visit parks with the fury of a child, and that even in a couple of years (when I can watch him from a distance without him killing himself) I can sit on a bench and watch him play. See it grow. And watch life go by.