The Listening Bench
A Place to Exhale
🪶 Written by:
“A Midwife of the New Story”
With creative collaboration by: An attentive companion in the mythic woods
Nancy was a retired elementary-school teacher living alone.
Widowed. No children. A long-time resident of her neighborhood — the kind of woman who had seen the world change considerably from her front porch.
After the sixth blackout that year, she walked into her small side yard and looked at the dusty, unused picnic table sitting beneath the camellia tree.
It was the kind of day when silence felt heavy. The power was out again. The news had been grim for weeks. And she noticed even the kids weren’t playing outside.
So Nancy did something simple.
She wiped off the benches.
She brought out a tray with a teapot.
She set out six cups — not because she expected six visitors, but because something in her wanted to say:
You’re not alone here.
Then she made a sign:
Need a place to rest? Come sit. Need a talk? I’ll listen.
She placed a few more items on the table — bottled water, sun hats, a notebook, and a handful of seed packets.
That afternoon, a neighbor kid wandered over and sat beside her. He didn’t say much. Just watched the camellia blossoms stir in the breeze and drank a glass of lemonade.
The next day, a delivery driver stopped by.
Then a pregnant woman who’d just left a doctor’s appointment and wasn’t ready to go home.
A few days later, the bench had become something more —
a tiny station of human welcome in a world that felt like it was unraveling.
Nancy didn’t fix anything.
She didn’t change the world.
But she made a place where others could exhale.
And that was more than enough.
✨ Reflection
In times of breakdown, we often look to big systems for dramatic solutions.
But what if the most powerful act right now is your quiet one?
What if the world begins to mend — not through sweeping reforms —
but through small, sacred acts of rehumanization?
A table. A cup of tea. An open chair.
These things matter.
They say:
We still believe in each other.
We still belong together.
We are still willing to pause and tend to what is precious and tender.
That’s not wishful thinking — that’s visionary thinking.
And it’s how the next chapter begins.
💭 Creative Invitation
Where in your life could you create a “listening bench”?
It might be:
A real picnic table in your yard or complex
A weekly hour at the library where you host quiet connection
A “guest cup” always kept ready in your kitchen, just in case someone stops by
Whatever form it takes, it doesn’t have to be perfect — only sincere.
We are rebuilding the world in pocket-sized ways.
Not to save the system.
But to save our humanity.
🪷 Questions to Carry
Where could I create a soft place for someone to land?
What act of quiet hospitality could become a neighborhood ritual?
Is there a bench in my life — literal or symbolic — waiting to be offered?
📆 Coming Next in the Series
Essay 5: The Listening Circle
How neighbors gathered in a quiet backyard — and how presence, not perfection, became the medicine.
A small story of relational repair, slowing down, and listening each other back into wholeness.
📚 Read Next in the Series
🔹 Essay 1: A Time Between Stories
Part I of the “Bridge Into the Next World” series.
We begin with a quiet acknowledgment: that something is ending, and something else is asking to be born. Read it here »
🔹 Essay 2: A Personal Invitation
Part II — How ordinary acts of beauty create extraordinary resilience.
From small gardens to soft benches, we explore how people are already shaping what comes next. Read it here »
🔹 Essay 3: A Creative Invitation
Part III — A call to those sensing a shift, and wondering what to do with it.
For sensitives, artists, and ordinary citizens — reflections on how the new world begins. Read it here »
🔹 Essay 5: The Listening Circle
A backyard fire becomes a gathering point for interwoven stories — each one part ember, part offering.
→ Next: The Lighthouse and the Loom
🧵 More essays and glimpses to come…