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04.10.03 - 12:32 a.m.
Bridging faith
writers often map themselves in relation to some geographical space... the country folks lay claim to some nearby ocean, lake, mountain, river... city dwellers pick skyscrapers, or busy intersections, maybe some gateway like an airport or train station, regardless of where they call home, some landscape always hovers in their background defining who they are. if when i map myself the brooklyn bridge arches over my shoulder (hmmm, maybe i should actually include a color photo of the bridge as it stands today to add to the old black and white photo, and older drawing before that.) i have to cross a bridge on my walk home sometimes. it's a two-lane bridge, with sidelanes for pedestrians. and it crosses over a waterful whose waters rush mercilessly beneath me. no one could stand a chance surviving a fall into those waters, much less an intentional jump from that bridge which has got to be a good 200 feet or so above. [no worries about me crossing over this bridge's railing tonight. i happen to live near a campus notorious for students choosing the numerous bridges here as a means to kill themselves...honestly,twice a year at least - the police pull one or two young 20 something's body from out of the waters here...it's an awful dark humorous joke embedded in the culture. jeffrey eugenides makes a sarcastic aside in his first novel about here. anyway, i'm feeling low levels of sadness but i've already crossed that bridge and am safely here writing about it! (smile)] i fear that bridge only because i can see the white water rushing below, 'in between my toes' so to speak.. through the grates. when i was maybe 9 years old a bridge on interstate highway i-95 that crossed a river running through greenwich, ct collapsed (was it the mianus bridge?) anyway, my god, once a kid realizes that bridges are not always sturdy her worst nightmare are born. it's hard to keep walking over bridges without remembering there is no guarantee they could fall. i've aged since then, but still i have to walk over these bridges on campus with my eyes closed... when i feel terribly depressed i have to close my eyes to block out even the possibility of this option towards death... there's something about the brooklyn bridge though...maybe because it's at least a century old...maybe because it connects brooklyn and manhattan, two borroughs with histories so much larger than my life ( that the fact that this mortal can walk from one to the other with her own two legs inflates me also with grandiosity ...lindbergh flew over the atlantic, and i circling, have walked over the east river...
the point is that when i do make this walk i forget momentarility that bridges are fallable, that my body and life are even more so, and instead, i cross that bridge with the faith of flying pilots .. when i walk over the brooklyn bridge, i don't hesitate, fearing that a whole city will fall apart behind me...the promenade will still be there, as will brooklyn heights, prospect park, the first stop on the #2 clark street - or jay street/burrough hall (a/c/e) stop.... the belief that i can't fall. confidence (from the latin, "con" + "fid" meaning 'with' 'faith'). my confidence in the bridge beneath my feet. Why do i stride in joyous ease over bridges that embody my utmost confidence?: because i trust unshakeably in the structures that take me there; because i've walked that structure before; because i don't need to rebuild the brooklyn bridge myself to make *sure* that it's sturdy enough to carry me; because my eyes remain fixed on my goal of reaching lower manhattan, and never waver or peer nervously looking for cracks in the brooklyn bridge that will become the origins of the bridges distruction; because my i trust the sight of the future so completely, my anticipation grows and grows and no matter how many other people are also crossing the bridge, even if the walk takes much longer than i've planned, i've only have feelings of joy..not resignation that i can't...and i never do have srerious thoughts that some other person walkign must rescue me or carry me over the bridge on their backs.... of course i've belabored this allegory of briding faith to make it through my current hectic, unpredictable life, so i guess i don't need to write an aesopian ending, complete with the summarizing paragraph that begins 'THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS".... tonight, i have got to walk through my 45 rambling pages of my first essay question (yes folks, i've protracted this ordeal since february) place ever single brick in place, confident this bridge can take me where i need to go. JUST FOR TWENTY MINUTES, I CAN ONE PARAGRAPH AT A TIME, I CAN FACE MY BRIDGE. TURN MY CHIN UP AND WALK.. and, if it's not too much to ask of myself, why not set my sights on seeing ledsrsmpbetal tomorrow as if their faces were the bright lights of the big city (rather than the cu police coming to drAg another fallen student out of the gorge-ous waters). xx c
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