Recently, I have been noticing bridges.
Previously, I spent a lot of time just thinking about bridges. How it would feel to plummet into a stream of cars rushing to be somewhere else, the ease of the jump and the never-ending suffering of the landing. Not so much my own suffering from the fall, but the suffering it would cause others, whose love and affection I craved but never received. I would visualise in great detail how they would find out and how they would react, but I could never fill in the gaps of what they would do next.
In reality, my experience would likely have focused more on the pain and then the rehabilitation, assuming there was any room left for that, of course.
But I wouldn't know.
Because lately, I stopped thinking about bridges that way.
Instead, I have started noticing them. On my walks around towns and cities, I slow down ever so slightly when passing under or over them, visualising the stories of what they carried.
Recently, I found myself crouched on the footpath under a bridge after running into an injured pigeon, tucked into the metal crevices that bordered the road. The pigeon was shivering, swollen beyond repair, waiting patiently for its life to end. I wondered if animals felt a sense of hope in the event of injury. If they imagined healing, being taken care of, a life after repair.
In the underbelly of that same bridge, which bore the railway carriages that ushered people in and out of town, there was a small tent. It was green, standing out like a bush in concrete. I had never seen anyone enter or leave it. It was always zipped up, but I imagined an older man, forlorn and in pain, crouched inside like the little pigeon. I wondered if he had hope. I wondered if he imagined healing, being taken care of. If he pictured a life after rescue.
This bridge carried hope and dreams over it, but it also housed failing stability and faith below.
Today I walked over Chelsea Bridge in London. This too carries many cars and pedestrians, making their way into the city and away from it, building dreams and chasing hope. It runs parallel to Grosvenor Bridge, Albert Bridge, Battersea Bridge, and so many more lining the River Thames, connecting worlds that never imagined colliding in such a manner.
I notice that bridges like these carry joy, sometimes in the form of photographs: people wearing their widest smiles, waiting patiently to be captured by someone they love. I always offer to take a photograph for a pair or group, aiding in the immortalising of the memory, so it can be printed into an album or hung on a wall. The kind of photograph that smells like fresh air, sounds like noisy cars, and feels like youth relived.
I also remind myself that bridges like these have witnessed the depths of sorrow and despair, of people who find themselves loosely reaching over the railings, looking to immerse themselves in the waters below, never to be found. There are many stories of compassion and bravery: a young woman who spent six hours with a delivery man who refused to step back to safety, until he finally gave in and hugged her, in tears. Then there are the stories we never find out about, in the depths of night, that leave a vacancy in the lives of those who failed to love them in the ways they hoped.
Bridges repair. Bridges can be repaired.