Certain perks come with being in a new city and not knowing folks, like waking to an agenda-less weekend morning. If I made it to the farmers market, or a dusty aisle of the used bookstore, great, but as I departed my front step, I was determined to let twenty bucks and the wind be my compass, not a prescribed endpoint.

Forsyth Park is a stones throw from my apartment, and shares its south side with an eclectic coffee shop and ever-lively scene. I strolled that way, enjoying a cookie, cup of tea and loose read of the NY Times, before returning to the park. Benches are spread throughout, and given that temperatures were already blazing, it was a shaded, less noticeable one that drew me.

“Mind if I share your bench?”
“Not at all, just people watching. Name’s Laverne,” he said with an outstretched arm.
“Abbie. Nice to meet you.”

We small-talked sporadically for some minutes, touching on a difficult economy and unprecedented war, during which a few apparently familiar friends trickled in. Joe introduced himself as the dishwasher at the Italian restaurant on Bay Street. As he stared at his phone some minutes later, however, he explained that in fact he’d been waiting seven months and six days to get a call-back for another shift. Crew made a flashier entrance, rolling-in on a rusty, orange bike with “beat-up tires that never go flat.” He was jazzed about his new haircut and talked ecstatically about turning fifty-two next week.

Somewhere in this mix I became keenly aware of how refreshing it was to sit with people, even if strangers.

At two different points, corny men approached and asked the guys if they “knew where they’d go if they died this afternoon?” I never did understand why they didn’t try to sell me salvation, but was content to observe, nonetheless. My bench-mates played along well, and even politely entertained the shiny brochures and departing words of, “Just believe and you’ll be saved.”

I didn’t say anything after the first intrusion, but when the second guy left I kinda lost it and felt the need to apologize. “I’m a Christian, too, and don’t understand how people got off treating Jesus like that…like he’s some slot machine, or guilt-driving jerk who talks about hell and sinning all the time…” They let me have my vent, but chuckled through most of it.

“Abbie-girl, don’t sweat it,” Joe said sympathetically. “You’d be surprised how down in the dumps I’ve been, and outta nowhere comes one of those yahoos sayin’ God loves me and life’s gonna be okay. Hard to hate ‘em too much at that point. And the truth is, usually my days do somehow get brighter after they leave.” Laverne piped-in with a quick follow-up, “Long as nobody goes bringin’ my mama into it, they can say whatever they want.” We all laughed.

At some point in our array of conversation, I shared of my recent move and the challenge of leaving a secure company of friends, to a new company of none. “Well that seems about right,” Crew said. “Leavin’ good company is like goin’ from sugar to shit.” Part of me bent-over cradling hysterics at this point; part cradled wistful resonation.

Morning came and went and at some point, I decided to move on. Laverne stood to give me a hug. “Come back and visit sometime, will ya? And when you need a place to crash, you know where the open door is.”

Few moments have found me with a greater belonging, or realization that home can be found in places less formal than four walls and a roof. Like on a bench, I guess.