GLOBETROTTERS WRITING PROMPT CHALLENGE — BRIDGES
A Bridge to Ecstasy
My favorite place to be
My favorite place to be anywhere in the world is a wooden footbridge. To be more specific, a suspended wooden footbridge. To be precise — the most primitive, rickety, highest, wavering, dangerously decrepit-looking footbridge you can find.
I’m serious.
I’ve never found the perfect one, but I love them all.
I’ll even take approximations. Substitute metal if you must, a raging river beneath for great height above, or even unsuspend the thing if you feel it’s necessary.
Just make it primitive or jungle-hidden and put me on it.
I could wax all wise and philosophical about why I love these bridges.
I don’t know why. Like anyone, I’m averse to heights and not fond of danger. On the other hand, I love how I feel when perched on my ideal bridge.
I feel calm. I feel relaxed. I feel perfectly secure and safe. Hell, I probably feel loved.
I can see how one might expect that on a small, unsuspended version.
The thing is, I feel calmer, more relaxed, secure, and safe, the more primitive, rickety, high, wavering, and dangerously decrepit the bridge.
This seems weird, so I don’t overthink it. I just savor the experience.
The images I’ve shared so far have been relatively non-threatening. I wanted to proceed slowly in case you’re phobic about the subject.
Let’s take a lesson from Danté and risk abandoning all hope.
I want to show you a bridge that put me near ecstasy. All it lacked was height. Fortunately, it spanned a raging river, and its steps were rickety and missing. Just mentioning it makes me feel like Meg Ryan in that movie with Billy Crystal.
Not every suspension bridge can be a jungle bridge, but that doesn’t matter. As I said earlier, you can substitute qualities if you must. Greater height can go a long way toward regaining spiritual satisfaction.
I found this true in Northern Ireland. That’s me in blue.
In keeping with the biblical injunction that “the first shall be last,” I’ll finish this little piece with an earlier encounter.
Before Steve and I began our 7 1/2-year journey worldwide, we visited Vietnam. To my surprise and great joy, we found an almost perfect version of my favorite place.
Steve captured the moment exquisitely, framing and labeling his photograph Vanishing Point, which has become his most purchased image ever.
For me, the image subliminally evokes the greatest bridge of all — one’s crossing to the other side of life.
And that might explain it all.
