AN ODE TO BRIDGES

i did manage to get over and back the williamsburg last sunday.

huff huff huff up and then maniacal clatter of legs one after the other calves ligaments hamstrings clockwork tumbling down. it wasnt as hard as i thought it would be because the incline up is actually pretty gentle and the slope down is fun.

i realize im sounding like a soft-boiled emotional egg saying this but there is something about the physical construct of bridges that touches me and makes me feel in awe.

often times cycling back and forth the williamsburg bridge this summer, when i speed under the huge web of grey beams spanning over i strain my neck to look up, watch beam after beam loom and disappear.

my legs click into autopilot circles, the lactic pain is building but somehow distant as these beams go by and both manhattan and brooklyn flicker from static buildings to blurring sprawls of land. its all mesmerizing.

i used to be obsessed with imagining about how the first bridge conceptually evolved in someone's head. i mean. when u think about it. it must've been something rather romantically and irrationally resplendent.

i like to believe it began with someone thinking, i am here but i want to go there. over this colossal body of water. (impossible.) i want to walk on water. (impossible.) i am going to build something more than a billion times bigger than myself so that i can make this world a bit smaller. (also impossible, but i will do it.) and so bridges were built. first one, then another, then a thousand others.

i think my children will grow up with a seriously warped sense of reality because these are the kind of stories i am very likely to tell them instead of ones that are factually true. anyway. how did i get here.

yes. i like to cycle and run over bridges.