Memory from Central Park

August 4, 2000

Michael Hawley / mike@media.mit.edu

It had the look and feel of a perfect June day, except it was August and as relaxed as a beach holiday.  I went to New York to hunt for apartments, and hoped to see a special friend who has been hard to reach lately; but I had promised myself that the next time I went, I'd take time to find the bench in Central Park that Marti Meyerson made as a memorial for her brother, David, and reflect on my memories of him.

The map was not very precise; or more accurately, my memory of it was pretty fuzzy, so I wandered all around from the children's zoo to the boating pond to the obelisk, looking at benches.  I was planning to meet Sandy Choi and Brad Geilfuss, two friends and former MIT students, at David's bench.  Well, I wandered for a long time, and perused a lot of memorials on a lot of benches: for Alice - 50 years was not enough; Earl the Pearl - you made us glow and helped us grow; John Denver.  But I couldn't find David's.  I wandered for a long time.

Sandy found it first and called me on my cell phone.  The bench is at about 5 O'Clock on the southeast side of the great lawn, southwest of the obelisk: http://www.2m.com/David's Bench.html

As I saw it, my memory flashed on one of my other favorite benches: an immense stone bench built as a monument for Bart Giamatti on the old campus at Yale.  It's curved in an arc, so that two people sitting on it are always drawn into conversation.  What an eloquent reminder of a wonderful, engaging man.  I took a look at the plaque on David's bench and remembered the "lyrics" from his emails, losing a few tears.  I remember watching the way David's emails changed, a reflection of the way his perception and expression matured, as he began the serious study of writing.  I still have a lot of his email.  After a bit, Sandy and I left to take a walk.

I remembered Mort mentioning how this was a place where kids liked to frolic, and how nice it was to think of David in that context.  Much later in the afternoon, around 4 o'clock and as I was generally aiming for the airport, I returned.  My plan was to sit there for a few minutes and meditate.  The last time I tried to do this, my flights were cancelled from Boston, and I wound up in a traffic jam, meditating behind a schoolbus belching diesel fuel in the Sumner tunnel.  I walked up Central Park West, past the Museum of Natural History, and cut into the Park.  But this time, when I reached the bench, there was no place to sit: David's bench was loaded with kids, climbing all over each other, playing and laughing like crazy.  It was a much nicer picture than me sitting there, lost in my mantra!

A beautiful afternoon: the bench does its job well.

A perfect summer afternoon.

There were lots of other benches, but for some reason, all the kids were on this one.

Mike