vendredi 17 septembre 2010

Brooklyn Bridge: second and final part

Second parts are not always good. And this one has not the pretension to challenge the assumption. But you have to do this part because you have to finish what you've started just to close it, not to leave it open, so later it can't come to hunt/haunt you (as Sophie would put it) even if the results are not great.

If I'm not mistaken I was supposed to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge from one end to the other.
And if my memory doesn't mislead me, I did walk over it. That same day of August 28th, 2010. Oh yes, I still have my notes. And other evidence that I did.
                                                              
                                                              
For more than a year I used to pass by car over the BB 2 times a day 5 days a week. Now, the schedule has changed to 2 times per week and from the car, one level up, we always can/could see the people walking over us on a platform located on the center of the bridge day in and day out.



The feeling was/is always the same: wanting to trade places with those people but looking like it'd never take place. Going to or coming from work in the mornings and afternoons was not the perfect time to really do it. You save a lot of inconveniences having your own means of transportation but you miss a lot of things for not taking public transportation and this was one of them.

Life and their paradoxes! You want things when you can't have them or having them is always at the expense of something else. You can not have everything!... Or maybe you can but not at the same time. And that's why I left the car behind, so I wouldn't be tempted to withdraw until I had completed the intended task.

I remember I was there then exiting the train 4 in the first stop on the Brooklyn side after leaving Manhattan a couple of minutes before. I didn't know yet how to take the Bridge if the purpose was to try to cross-walk-over-it.  But who was I going to ask?

Well, you know, it's much harder than it seems to find a friendly face who can give you directions about how to take the BB on foot. Because you should know that the key to whom we have to ask is in people's faces. It's surprising the amount of information that humans (but not only humans) can hold there. All emotions or lack there of are there in people's expressions for us to read. And you don't have to be an expert like Paul Ekman to interpret them. Have you seen the new series based on his work: lie to me?
And some people use them like shields. They can look bad or mad as a way to protect themselves against being approached. What a misery of a life! Like that one that just passed me by...
On occasions like this what works is to go with our gut feelings because it rarely fails.

Finally after some trial and error (Oh no: Russians!) and with the help of a friendly female (some women are great willing to give directions) I got my way to start cruising the Brooklyn Bridge.
Yeaahh!
                                                                                                                      And you know what? It's not that bad! After doing it, now I think that if you really and truly believe or feel like you are a New Yorker you shouldn't leave this just to tourists.
In fact you should do it more often...It's very good for people's health and for lazy people it could help to have some work-out at the same time they enjoy the most beautiful views of lower Manhattan, the other bridges (Manhattan Bridge, Williamsburg bridge Triboro bridge) the statue of liberty (very far away, indeed) and as a bonus on the horizon, the Atlantic Ocean and the sky, where they just get confounded in such a vague and imprecise line....       (Here I'm going to stop, I don't want to say how thirsty that walk left me and not precisely the kind that is quenched with water)...

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