Crossing Bridges

With 2020 behind us, what’s ahead?

Definitely not the bridge in this story. Photo by David Emrich on Unsplash

A few days ago, I drove past a house with a bridge in its garden. The garden was a hectare of lawn, flat, and mowed to putting-green smoothness. In the absence of a natural waterway, the owner had excavated a shallow ditch and lined it with concrete and river rocks. Above it, the bridge had whitewashed timbers and hand rails painted in glossy red enamel. With a two metre span, it was not a grand bridge, but it crossed the ditch and that was what mattered.

Since then, I have been thinking about this sturdy red and white bridge and the ditch with its spotless pale rocks laid in rows, and the vast, otherwise featureless, sward that surrounded it. What was the story behind this singular piece of landscaping? What could I learn from it?

Without knocking on the front door and asking the owner, I was stuck with conjecture. Still, a lack of facts is no barrier to having an opinion, because *shrugs* 2020.

The owner wanted a bridge, so they built one. Normally a bridge would cross an obstacle, so they built one of those too. There’s no path connecting the bridge to the house or front gate, but the setting is irrelevant. Bridge and ditch give each other context; they form a self-contained, coherent unit.

And this is my plan for 2021. To do things for no other reason than I want to do…