Brooklyn Bridge Adventures
Adventure post #2
The city was alive, the dark of night bringing people out into the streets and filling the sidewalks and the queues for bars and the outdoor seating of the fancier restaurants. Music played and so many voices spoke their Saturday night revelry to the evening air.
Zach and I sat at an outdoor table, a shared slice of pizza between us, already half eaten, and with a glass of Colorado beer. It had been our third slice of the evening; we were pizza hopping.
We sat there on the wide sidewalk, watching the city rush past us, shadowed by the evening. The smells of bus exhaust, pizza, wet tarmac and Saturday night cologne, perfuming the air. Our conversation turned to planned outings, and how ours always seemed to go a little awry. Postponed. Rained out. Places closed. But I never minded, we always found adventures somehow.
But he did look a little sorry as he took another sip of our beer and explained that he had had a whole fancy evening planned out for us, exploring the city and taking us either down to the boat yards, or over the Brooklyn Bridge, before our plans had been changed by the weather and time.
My eyes lit up at the mention of the Brooklyn Bridge.
You see it was on my adventure list, (the list of things I was to do and write about for someone who had sponsored me to come here to NYC in the first place) and I had been craving to walk across it, for years, actually.
Zach looked at me, and his eyes got a glint in them as well.
"You want to walk to and over the Brooklyn bridge?" He asked. Slight incredulousness in his deep voice.
I nodded, my face creasing into a smile,
Adventures.
Apparently it was a couple of miles to the bridge.
(Two and half, google maps tells me.)
We left our table, the dollars for our dinner left waving in the slight breeze from under our beer glass.
We walked, through the bowery down wide streets and past fancy clubs and tall apartment buildings. Past Manhattan hipsters still too cool for the streets of Williamsburg. We passed Mat Damon's apartment, or at least that's what Zach said, pointing it out to me, mid conversation as I went on and on about something.. probably goats.
We snaked our way through Little Italy down streets strung with twinkling Christmas lights that reflected in the windows of restaurants, the tables and beautiful people spilling out onto the street, like the smell of good, rich, real, italian food.
We stopped and bought a giant lemon gelato from a street vendor and the flavor of it coming off of our tiny plastic spoons was almost sinful, it was so good.
As we got closer to the river we passed a beautiful woman in a hat standing on a dimly lit street corner talking to a man and holding the leash of a patiently waiting dog. As we passed Zach nudged me and after a pace or two he said with a lowered voice, "Do you know who that was?"
I shook my head.
That was Robin Wright Penn. (The actress who plays Jenny in Forrest Gump.)
Both our eyes grew wide in wonderment. I love New York City.
When we finally found the bridge my feet were tired from walking. But I was not disappointed in my view. Even the slight drizzle of rain against my dress was part of the scene, not something to be shaken.
The bridge was beautiful even before I had stepped a foot upon it. It glowed, lit up, tall and elegant in the dark, summer air. The arches reaching their smooth boned shoulders to be the backbone, holding up the monument that is the Brooklyn Bridge.
It was probably 11:30 by the time we stepped onto the slatted walkway. It was nearly deserted, empty but for a family ambling ahead of us, their three small children, slow with sleepiness. Occasionally a biker would ring his bell and we would step clear onto the southbound side of the line.
I leaned against the rail, and looked out over the water, felt the breeze hit my face, and run long fingers over my bare shoulders and arms. This breeze that had touched so many things, a breeze that lent me it's own lofty perspective as I looked out, over the darkness that was the water. I breathed it in, feeling myself relax letting the view fill me. I looked to the Brooklyn side and could see the analogue sign of the Watch Tower, flashing the temperature and time over the Brooklyn skycap. Brooklyn was lit up with light and as I turned upriver I could see the glowing strands that were the Williamsburg bridge and the Manhattan bridge, like glittering fingers, linking the burrows, like veins pouring life blood into and out of, the city. And then I turned and watched the city itself, twinkling and glowing in scraps of fog and glittery light. The buildings are so tall, the Empire State and the Chrysler building, the ones I can pick out from the mountain range of humanity.
We walked to the middle of the bridge and stopped. I just wanted to soak it in a little. This bridge. This city. And the peaceful view over the water, over so much darkness feasting my eyes on so much nothing. That's one thing that happens in New York. You are always seeing something. Always. Sometimes it's nice to just see sky, or water and let the blank fill you up inside.
I leaned out over the railing and could watch the traffic moving below me, the blurs of car lights, both white and red. They smeared like paint in my photographs, but it was beautiful somehow. It made me think of all the movies shot on this bridge, Kate and Leopold springing to mind, where Meg Ryan has to leap off of one of the beams over the water, the traffic blurring beneath her 90's boots.
I switched sides and noticed that along the posts and railings on the bridge were hundreds of small padlocks, locked and attached at intervals to whatever would secure them. I leaned in closer and could read names and dates on most of them, a few had a jolly line, or a word of wisdom. I noticed one just said simply: Hold the faith, for Johnny. It's date was 7.22.2008
People come from all over the world, they bring their love to the Brooklyn bridge. They inscribe a lock with their names or initials and the date and then they come and they lock their lock of love onto this monument as a sign of their everlasting love for one another, they lock it and then let the tiny key slip through their fingers and down into the murky depths of the east river. Sealing their lock, their love, forever.
Looking at the rows of luggage locks and padlocks made a heart string pull, how hopeful all those locks were, and how sad. I wanted to know their stories, feeling much like I do when visiting an old cemetery, something so beautiful, I can reach out and touch, but never know.
We walked on, the city shrinking behind us and the glow of 'The Watchtower' getting brighter as we neared the Brooklyn side of the bridge.
I turned, stopped and looked at the city. Zach stopped too. I leaned my head against his chest. Just taking it in.
This bridge, this city and this night are all so far away from the life I have known for myself, and yet, I don't feel out of place. I love the air filling my nose, and the wooden slats under my feet that millions have tread upon in their own quests for happiness. And I love that this city is beginning to hold me with strong arms and I am beginning to feel at home.
We walked all the way to Brooklyn and ended up hopping fences to get to the subway station that would take us both to our homes. We waited for half an hour in a deserted under grown subway tunnel, our only company the echo of our voices joined in singing Johnny Cash and the soft rustle of the subway rat we named Steve, his careful paws and curious eyes staring at us as we waited for the A train.
