Picturing It Slant

So I cheated. 

The bridge to Hardee-McGee Field doesn't look exactly like this from underneath.

So what?

Thanks, Emily (Dickinson), for backing me up on this one:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

Open Space

I.
I like my bridges wide and blue, arcing to span a river like hands reaching across a divide to hold one another.

II.

I like my spiders large and bright, weaving and writing silk, riding the air like tight rope walkers, only steady and firm like bridges.

III.

I like my berries suspended, plump and particolored, making the air speak space in a sweep of curve.

Water Music

Light and water and shadow: music for eyes and ears.

Bridges

1.
The earliest image of me that I recognize as me (as opposed to the actual earliest image) is a tile painted my mother painted. Here I am, standing on the bridge we crossed every day, going home or leaving it.

I remember playing Poohsticks, posing for a Christmas card, helping children onto the bridge to talk to Santa, my brother riding his motorcycle over the bridge (and landing in jail because he was too young for a license), the metal Robin Hood hanging from the lit lamp, glowing soft yellow-orange.

This bridge led me home.

2.
Lake Cheston has a series of four bridges along the water's edge. My favorite used to feel more private, before the dog park, now clearly visible on the way to, on, and from the bridge. It's still my favorite lake bridge anyway, largely because of the tree that blushes and then flushes every fall, throwing deep shade and dropping flaming leaves on weathered wood.

This bridge makes me feel at home.

Bridges

The stone bridges in Abbo's Alley are all of friendly size: mossy stoned and small, the bridges invite a walker to cross and pause with ease.

What is the peculiar charm of a bridge? The promise of the other side? The breaking of a barrier? The entrance into a new space?

For me it's the leisurely crossing itself. The step, and the pause, and the glance down to the stream below, looking as Pooh, Piglet, and Christopher Robin do for whatever floats down or doesn't, or the glance upward at sky or building or tree and leaf or blossom.

My childhood home had a bridge of railroad ties, and my current community has many of stone. I love them all for their endings and beginnings and for the vignettes they offer.

Early Height

In first grade, I was the second tallest student. (The first tallest was over 6' in seventh grade and became a star basketball player.) This photograph of our family Christmas card confirms what I remember: I was tall for a little person.

Notice that the top of my head reaches my mother's shoulder. My brother David is only a head taller than I am, yet he's 4 1/2 years older.

Here's the kicker: I was 8 years old. 8!

About the photograph: We're standing on the bridge under the Robin Hood metal silhouette and wooden sign Daddy made. Despite the coats and pea jackets, it was a hot day. My mother liked to plan ahead.

The Bridge

In an earlier post about the tiny white lights on my house, I mentioned the living room fireplace of my childhood. Around it were white tiles with green family scenes my mother painted and then fired in small basement kiln. I also mentioned the heavy table my father made for me, the top of which features six of those tiles. I love one of them in particular. My great-niece E is just about the age I was when my mother made this tile.If I wanted to wander, I was free to roam the woods behind the house or the creek running along the front of the property and streaming below the bridge, but I was never to go beyond the bridge. It was more than a limit, however: it was a kind of window on the world.

In second grade, when I had chickenpox, I sat on the bridge for hours and wrote down every license tag number of a passing car. I still don't know why, but I was fascinated that so many people passed during the day and I wondered where they were going and where they had gone, and why.

At Christmas, I stood on the bridge and helped my mother usher children into the light so they could call to Santa. Sometimes, I stood on the steps of the glassed-in porch and gazed at the white lights of the Christmas tree and the white lights beyond, strung along the bridge rails, and unfocused my eyes, imagining myself afloat among stars like The Little Prince.

After my mother read me the Winnie-the-Pooh books, I played Poohsticks, sometimes with a neighbor friend, sometimes alone.

I always liked leaning and looking, at first through the rails and then slowly over them. Looking up the creek from the vantage point of the bridge, I could see the Santa rock and the house out of the corner of my right eye, the lip of the landing before Mother's grotto garden and my whale rock across the creek, and the tree canopy shading both.

I loved the noting, the leaning and the looking, and still do.