mapquest said it would take me four hours and forty seven minutes. a fourteen mile walk punctuated by a five mile ferry ride to see f2fb friend #317 michele piersiak. i sometimes do an eight mile walk around the perimeter of winnetka, so i figured it couldn’t be that bad.
oh how wrong i was. my theory about new yorkers is that they do fifty three terrifying things and that’s before they get to work. i didn’t expect to be scared in quite this way.
the williamsburg bridge is the seventy-fifth longest suspension bridge in the world, which makes any american immediately say “pshaw! there are seventy four others that are much tougher!” still, i got stuck along the 1600 span that towered over the water. i couldn’t move forward and couldn’t move back. this happened three times. each time, i had a vision of me being the homeless chick who lives on the williamsburg bridge, unwilling to leave or to move. accepting handouts and generally letting personal hygiene take a backseat. i’d be an object of pity, scorn, and perhaps curiosity. i’d feed pigeons. i would have several pet rats who would be attracted by my pungent body odor. i’d lash myself to the bridge during storms. i’d lose my cell phone!
i had to get unstuck. i was so scared my feet had fallen asleep and if i didn’t get moving the legs would be the next to go. i started saying thank you. thank you to the rain. thank you to the shoes i was wearing. thank you to the guy who had helped when the mapquest directions were just a bit . . . off. thank you even to mapquest. i said thank you to my facebook friends, pausing only briefly as i realized the reason i was going across the bridge was to meet f2fb friend #317 who had introduced herself on facebook. i thanked american airlines for getting me to new york. i thanked whoever built the bridge (later i learned construction on the bridge began i n1896 with henry hornsbotal as the chief architect and leffert buck as his engineer)
as i approached the end of the bridge i felt an odd exhileration. and it wasn’t just relief. it was a sense that i was buoyed up by all the people i had thanked, even by henry and leffert although at that point i didn’t know their names.
and i got off that bridge and found the staten island ferry . . . thanks to five different new yorkers who made me think that new yorkers are the friendliest people on earth! i thank them too!
i didn’t expect to get choked up by the staue of liberty, so i sat on the side of the ferry that does not get the view of the statue. but as we approached, i couldn’t help myself. statue of liberty, dollface, i’m grateful to you!
and so i was wrong. it could be that bad. and yet, it also could be wonderful!
arlynnpresser 