Down in the River to Pray
Sat Aug 04, 2007 at 12:52:59 AM PDT
As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol' way
And who shall wear the starry crown?
Good Lord show me the way
O sinners, let's go down
Let's go down, come on down
O sinners, let's go down
Down in the river to pray
As I went down in the river to pray
Studying about that good ol' way
And who shall wear the robe and crown?
Good Lord show me the way
As sung by Alison Kraus for O Brother, Where Art Thou.
This was the first thought that bloomed in my deviant brain I heard the news about the I-35W bridge going down into the Mississippi at Minneapolis:
"What a rush it must have been to ride that bridge down to the river."
At the top of the front page of this morning's Tulsa World, the headline was:
ODOT: Oklahoma bridges are safe
ODOT is the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. Immediately below that, the subsidiary headline was:
I-244 bridge Tulsa County's worst
Mrs. Dr. Omed drives over that bridge, twice a day, ten times a week, on her commute to and from her place of employment in an undisclosed-at-her-request location somewhere in South Tulsa. She also crosses the 71st Street bridge twice daily. Both of these bridges are on the Arkansas River on the reverse S-curve around which Tulsa has grown. Both of these bridges were completed in the early '70s, almost the same vintage, both in quality and time, as the I-35W bridge (though not of the same design).
According to the American Society of Civil Engineers' Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, Oklahoma has the highest percent of unsafe bridges of any state. The ASCE gives the nation as a whole a D- on bridges.
Tuesday evening, on my own commute from workplace to home, I 'got the wind up,' pulled into a parking lot, and just sat there for a minute. I experienced what I call the flashbulb effect. The whole world lights up and I'm the filament of the flash bulb. My hindbrain began broadcasting a familiar biochemical alert to my whole body: "Something is happening. Pay attention. The earth is shifting under your feet." I called Mrs. Dr. Omed, and asked "Are you alright, is anything weird happening on the news? No," she said, "I'm fine." I told her, "Be careful on your way home."
I experienced what most people would call a premonition. The trouble with this and other feelings of oceanic grandiosity I experience is that whatever insight that my unconscious has integrated, it has no practical use, except in terms of art. The trouble with this feeling of premonition is that it is only a feeling, and if my 'getting the wind up' has any connection to the future, I don't see the future, I feel it, like a man groping in pitch dark. So I'm on alert, paying attention—but the truth is 'Something' is always happening, and the ground is always moving.
We want something discrete when it's all indiscretion as far as Fred aka the Collective Unconscious is concerned. Fear is regret for the future; regret is fear of the past. I don't fear the past, for the most part. I do regret the future on occasion, whether I will or no, or as it is liturgically phrased, not by my will...but by that which has no will and no intention.
I like old, really old, unsafe bridges, particularly old style overhead truss bridges. I will drive out of my way for a rickety, unsafe bridge I have not yet crossed. I mean real antiques, not these Interstate bridges built in the sixties and seventies. I also like rivers and streams, any sort of flowing water, above or below ground. I've damn near drowned or otherwise kilt myself several times messing around rivers—and bridges. I used to jump off bridges into rivers, for recreation. This was before I became an old greyback, a bag full of creaks. For pure adrenalin rush, nothing beats jumping from the superstructure of an old truss bridge into a flowing river. It is a religious experience. Baptism as it should be. Repeat as necessary. I'm not kidding.
I feel the future/past dreaming itself down my bones, like the cold, delicious thrill that ran down my legs and arms when I was willing the lizard in my brain to let go and jump from the top of an old truss bridge into the river, down into the swimming hole. Ah. After the letting go, stepping into air from the superstructure of the bridge falling through the summer sunlight forever. I'm falling still. The water stinging my feet like a million bees, plunging into sun shafted warm water passing the thermocline into cold dark murk, buzzing feet sucking themselves into the silky chill mud of the riverbottom. A long moment, toes exploring, and kicking free, rising towards air and light. I'm rising still, too.
I wonder, was there not another dreamer on that bridge that felt the thrill and not the fear?
Cross-posted to Dr. Omed's Tent Show Revival, with pictures.
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