Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus (A GeoEx eBook)

Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus

Up Close & Personal: A Pilgrimage to the Golden Gate Bridge

stopping to admire the incomparable views, whooshed by the wind and swooshed by the cars, soul-soaring to the depthless stars. When I reached the southern end, I found a sunny spot on the ocean side and sat to rest and reflect. To my left unfurled the coast of San Francisco, bright sandy beaches and beyond them the verdant expanse of Land’s End. To my right, the green headlands of Marin swelled all the way to the Point Bonita Lighthouse. And right in front of me, seagulls sailed and pelicans soared and the blue-gray Pacific stretched to the horizon, a watery bridge to Hawaii and Japan. I thought about bridges and connections. Since the Golden Gate’s opening in 1937, pilgrims have been coming here every day, from all around the world, to render homage to this sacred span. And even though the winds howl through here every day, some residue of that adoration, a sacred molecular accumulation, remains. I exhaled a deep sigh, and felt my spirit suddenly rise. I realized just how soul-roiling and heart-sinking the past few weeks, and months, have been. And I felt as if a great breeze had blown my soul-numbness and heart-despair away. I felt re- energized, refreshed, inspired to start again on my wanderlust way. Crossing the bridge on foot, step by step, cable by cable, had bestowed an intimate appreciation of this holy place, and by extension, of my own small role on the universal stage. I was one of hundreds of thousands of people who come here to worship this shrine that lifts, inspires, and fills us with awe, this communal creation that is so much greater than us all. I was now part of this global celebration, this culture-transcending bridge veneration. And I realized that when you cross the bridge this way, reverent and slow, you absorb the sacred energy other pilgrims have brought and left here, and you leave some of your sacred

that humans had built, piece by piece, hand by hand. I thought about all the people who had collaborated to make this wild dream a reality: the designers and engineers who had conceived it, the construction workers who had actually created it, girder by girder, rivet by rivet. At one point, I stopped and thought: Eight and a half decades ago, some human being was standing right where I’m standing, on a still unfinished bridge. Someone positioned this girder just so; someone hammered that rivet right where it is to this day.

I suddenly felt a palpable connection to the bridge and to the people who had built it, something that I had never felt in all those years of zooming across in my car. Mystical as it may sound, for a few moments, I became one with the bridge. I walked on. When I reached the north tower, I stopped directly underneath it and pointed my phone straight up, toward the midday sky. The surging orange-red spire felt like some ancient monument, like Stonehenge or Teotihuacan, a timeless temple to the sun. I continued on, smiling at bicyclists, waving at families,

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