English Comp 101
A bit busy, cut and paste, enjoy!
Water Under The Bridge
Having lived in the Valley of the Sun for a few years now, I've begun to recall some of the colors I miss from the Chesapeake Bay. Specifically, there was an orange glow on the trees as my girlfriend and I would drive over a bridge that led from downtown Annapolis, heading east.
You could only see this orange around sunset, a warm reflection coming off the pine and maple along the embankment. Something about the way the evening sun was cast back from the crowded foliage gave those thousand thousands of leaves a bright glow that expressed all the life in them.
At the time, it was the perfect end to a day at work. The water reflected that orange tint through its slate grey ripples, grabbing the vibrance of life from the color, but offering it back crafted in to an infinite array of small celebrations.
During those precious few months we took this route, I began to notice the bridge itself. Crafted of simple workmanship, and a length no greater than a long walk to the corner market, it would be easy to disregard. During that period of my life, if there was not a loud backbeat and a flashing marquee, I most likely would have never even known it was there.
The first feature to catch my eye was the whiteness of it. Unlike its younger siblings, whose stature was of grand scale in that area, it had a clean scoured look to it. Its brothers, while carrying heavier loads across rougher waters, seemed stained by the sea, which was angry at the affront of these sharp-lined and unimaginative towers of steel and concrete. That was another feature; it was very low to the water. Add this to its gentle curve, and it seemed to be embracing that small arm of the Chesapeake Bay. In a land of hurricanes you would think this little bridge impassable during a storm.
During one such storm, we took our route home. The sea was in riot, the waves sharp, clashing in the water, the whitecaps the horns of beasts battling for supremacy. But the bridge was a soothing swathe of grace across this scene, its squat symmetrical columns, like old vases put to use there, supported the wide marble topped rail that defrayed the salt spray from us.
Though the road ahead was littered with limbs of trees, with water threatening to come in from the swollen ditches on the side of the road, that bridge was a welcome bit of safety during the squall.
All told, this bridge could take a total of thirty minutes to cross, if traffic moved at a snail’s pace. In most cases, it would only take three to five minutes. A short span of time, in an everyday routine, that was full of beauty. I cannot recall any more well spent time in my life, only equals of different standards. I guess it is not the color that mattered so much, but the time spent admiring it.