Category Archives: Art of the Listen – Bench Talk

What you hear when you really listen is much richer than what you hear when you talk. Read some of Darla’s thoughts as she listens to other’s stories.

Art of the Listen - Bench Talk

SOME ONE HAS TO LISTEN….

It’s an Art, you know.

The Art of the Listen. It’s why I write a lot about park benches.

Takes a very special person to provide this silent, powerful part of any exchange between humans. Here’s a story that hits the right note.

Last evening I attended a musical event. Not a derby festival, but actually a symphony. After the performance (magnificent, if I do say so), a group was talking about their own musical accomplishments. (as it always happens).

“I play classical piano,” said one.

” I taught music for 40 years in New York,” explained another.

“My whole family is musical,” said another. “My mother played piano, my father played the cello, I play the violin. The children are quite accomplished also. My grandfather toured internationally. “

“Oh,” said one in the group. “What about your grandmother? What was her musical instrument?”

The woman laughed. “Oh, grandmother didn’t play anything. In fact, she was quite tone deaf.

“But she always said she was the most important person in the room…

“Because someone needs to listen. Or what’s the point of music?”

It’s an Art.

SKATE ON!

Darla

(Thanks to Eftychia Athenodorou for her Pinterest post of the Music Bench by Jim Glover)

Art of the Listen - Bench Talk, Scabs and Other Body Parts, True Derby

SKIN IS ONLY SKIN DEEP

We all have it, you know.

Skin.

Derby girls know it because it is easily bruised, scraped (especially when in touch with velcro or the track) and painted.

It makes up about 16% of your body weight and is comprised of about 64% water. It is your largest organ.

It is waterproof and i insulates the rest of your body from temperatures, sun, chemicals. All the many nerve endings in your skin keep your brain in touch with the world around you.

We need skin. And yet it is only .5 mm thick at its thinnest point (the eyes, as in crows feet) and 4 mm thick at its thickest parts (palms and soles).

So why do we make such a big deal deal over what the top part of those millimeters actually look like, as in making it the biggest part of one’s identity?

White skin, black skin, yellow skin, and so on.

Good skin, bad skin, wrinkled or smooth skin.

Thin skinned people, thick skinned people.

Tight skin, saggy skin

Skin is only skin deep. There’s a lot of stuff going on under it. And it pretty much looks the same for everyone.

I say we quit looking at skin as our identity.

Skin is only skin deep.

SKATE ON!

Darla

(See what’s under this painted bench in Santa Fe, NM. Just a bench.)

Art of the Listen - Bench Talk, Political Muck and Such, True Derby

MEAN PEOPLE

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So, what do you do with the mean people?

You know, the ones you really didn’t intend to have a conversation with, bench or otherwise? But for some reason there one is, right in front of you. A real snake.

A stranger who could not get the door to open and laughingly I showed her how.

Big mistake. My mistake. My attitude, she says, going on to point out all the other gaping holes in my inadequate personality, punctuating each word with venom.

An invitation to fight if there ever was one!

What’s a derby girl to do? Defend? Fight back? She wasn’t very big. I probably could have won. But despite outside appearances, derby girls are smart, not mean.

And they play offense and defense at the same time.

“You know, ” I finally say after a few feeble defenses. “You may be right. I apologize.”

As we walk away my nine year old companion states firmly, “You didn’t have to say that. She started it!” (This coming from the girl who sat in the principal’s office for hitting back at a bully.)

“But I won,” I tell her. “I gave her a way to back down and it just made her look mean and dumb.”

Because sometimes being right may be the wrong thing to be. Or just not worth it.

And, as I heard growing up, you don’t get into a spitting match with a snake.

SKATE ON!

Darla

(Don’t know where this bench is located, and not sure I would sit on it, but thanks to photographer Wieslaw Jarek )

Art of the Listen - Bench Talk

SOUNDS OF SILENCE

So, I am a bit stumped. I want to say something about saying nothing at all. Keeping your mouth shut. But how do I do that without saying something?

It’s a powerful thing, you know. Every park bench conversation has a moment when one or the other bench warmer has an opportunity to open the mouth and spit out what is on his or her mind. Or just shut up.

Reminds me of some iconic songs. “When You Say Nothing At All”, “Silence is Golden”, and of course, “The Sounds of Silence”.

Recently two of my bench companions had young visitors to their houses. Both visitors were fed a meal and said quite openly that they “don’t like it at all.”

A conversation ensued in both cases.

“I don’t like this. Yuk.”

“In my day, a guest didn’t say that, you know.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“Say Thank You. Or take a bite and say you aren’t very hungry. Or push it around like you ate some of it.”

“But how will you ever know my opinion of it?”

“Who says I want to know?”

I like the second conversation even more.

“I don’t like this. Yuk.”

“OK, that’s fine. Next time you come over, bring your recipe and your money. You can go to the store and buy the food, cook it, put it in front of me and then I’ll tell you what I think about it.”

Since the world has moved well beyond Miss Manners to a place of opinion staters and influencers, where does Silence fit in?

Because Silence is an art form, you know. Silence speaks volumes. Silence has sound. Silence puts you in the power seat.

Or as Thumper’s mother said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” The best thing that ever came out of Disney.

SKATE ON!

(I’m really liking this painted bench from Las Condes, Santiago de Chile. I think she has her mouth shut…..)

Darla

Art of the Listen - Bench Talk, True Derby

THE FUTURE FROM BEHIND

(photo credit: Hanna Dymytriieva | Dreamstime.com )

More bounce per ounce, I say.

Recently I met with a group of derby girls from Seattle, Washington. I asked them about the future of derby.

“It’s the junior skaters,” they said, all in agreement. “They can do all kinds of things we can’t.”

“They fall down and literally bounce right back up. “

“They take chances we didn’t take. They come up with moves we didn’t think about.”

“They are redefining the sport from behind us.”

Seems to me that pretty much sums up life, I thought to myself later.

While we are fretting and arguing and trying to plan the future, maybe we should be looking behind us. To the next generation of chance takers, dreamers and bounce-back-uppers.

They may just sneak up behind us with some answers.

In the meantime, SKATE ON!

DARLA