Peg Kerr's Journal

I took my cane to work, left it in my car, reasoning I'd go get it if I really needed it. About an hour later, I decided that yes, I really need it, and so I'm using it now. porphyrin kindly dropped off some arnica for me, and she recommended heat, Tylenol, arnica, elevation, compression, and no karate for at least a week. No karate???? *sulks* I should also talk to sensei. I'm doing the rehabilitative exercises cloudscudding recommended to me before, and I'll pick up a restrictive bandage on my way home. I'll bring my heating pad with me tomorrow.

Um, ab work? Upper body weights?

*going stir crazy without my daily walk on the bridge*

I had gotten a little out of the habit of walking the Stone Arch Bridge when that virus-related cough asthma-related cough was so bad. So I made the commitment to resume, calling kijjohnson on my cell phone when I started outside on my walk.

The day before yesterday, we cut the call short because the wind had risen so high that it was difficult for us to hear each other. Yesterday I didn't even go at all, because it was so cold, windy, and dark. I realized that my coat wasn't warm enough, and I didn't have a hat. I know, however, that I need to walk the bridge, particularly when winter starts to approach: not only do I need the exercise, I need the light.

So today, I wore my heavy winter coat, with my hat, and this morning I walked the bridge again. I couldn't call Kij, since Rob needed the phone today, so I was alone with only my thoughts and my iPod.

I never get tired of this walk, which seems almost strange to me. For my fifteen minute breaks, both mid-morning and mid-afternoon, I simply exit my building, walk two blocks to the river, turn at the Army Corps of Engineers building which overlooks the lock guarding the dam, and then walk across the bridge, turning back when I come to the bronze plaque overlooking the falls, halfway across the span. If I take a half hour walk during lunch, I go all the way across and take a circuit around the park on the other side before turning back. The iPod helps of course--one day earlier this week I didn't take it and then Kij wasn't available to pick up when I called her, and the walk then seemed quite different.

This time of the year, there are not nearly as many people. But still some. On bikes, wheeling strollers, and someone went by me on a skateboard today. Or simply walking, occasionally with dogs on the leash. There might be a knot of people or two by the long-distance viewfinders that overlook the site of the fallen 35W bridge, perhaps a group of Japanese tourists taking pictures. Several times a week I'll see a tour group riding Segways crossing the bridge, following the tour guide like a line of ducklings.

On the coldest days of all, there is only me. And wind, and the water, greenish-black, roaring over the dam, and the sky, sometimes sunlit, sometimes clouded. Gulls wheel overhead, and sometimes there is a V of geese flying overhead, heading south.

I love the bridge. I feel quite a proprietary pride in it, as if it belongs to me personally. The walk stirs my blood, and I know when I come back to my desk, my cheeks will be flushed and my breath rapid, my blood carbonated with exhilaration. It feels good.

Yesterday, I was a crazy woman who exercised up a storm. I rode the bike both to and from work and took it out at lunch. I also did my mid morning and mid afternoon walks across the Stone Arch Bridge. My thighs were burning as I bicycled home. My pedometer was over 16,400 steps for the day.

Today, I fought a headwind all the way into work. I was tired (not quite enough sleep). I was traveling away from the light rail line, and by the time I was REALLY wishing to bail, I was uncertain what bus lines I could take. So I went all the way. I labored along, eventually getting a stitch in my side and a cramp in my foot, and cursing the wind when the blasts got strong enough to shake the bike. Other bicyclists whooshed by me.

Life in general has felt a lot like that lately.

Yes, this is a metaphor.

no sun
no shadows
drape the air with cloud and mist
gray soft cool
mist softens the silhouette of the charcoal gray smokestacks
enshrouds and dims tops of the skyscrapers
the summer crowd that walks the bridge during the sunny days is gone
only me
a woman walking a blanket-swathed baby carriage
a man in a pea coat staring through the viewfinder over the river
austere gulls flap
wheeling
wheeling
wheeling
jagged parentheses, slate against the sky
gray and ebon-tipped against the snowy foam of the falls
white against the pewter river
spray from the falls breaks the water surface
black silver gray pearl white
shadow in the lock of the dam reflects white of the sky
foam from the falls roars into shadow

I took my usual walk across the Stone Arch Bridge for exercise today. About 1/3 of the way across, I came across about a half a dozen young men, probably college age or so. They were gathered around a blue flowered couch. A couch. On the Stone Arch Bridge. I ask you. That in itself was quite an undertaking to get it there, as the Stone Arch Bridge is rather long. Each was dressed in nice slacks and an oxford shirt, and they were wearing identical striped silver and maroon ties.

One man was sitting on the couch holding a large plastic penguin (the penguin was also sporting the same silver-maroon tie). They took a picture of him, and as I walked by, they seemed to be taking turns: each took a turn sitting on the couch, holding the penguin, as a picture was taken.

I suppose if I had stopped to ask they would have given me an explanation, but perhaps it is more fun to speculate. A fraternity thing, maybe. What else would prompt them to do such a thing?