1^st Place Winner - Bridge to the Past

By Linda Farmer

INSPIRED BY ART PIECE #154, Bridge To the Past

She stands poised between yesterday and tomorrow, gazing into the sepia sky as she gathers her courage and takes a deep breath. Stretched before her is much more than rusting steel trusses and aging timbers; the distance she will travel today measures miles farther than the span across which the old bridge stretches. The torrent of emotion within her runs much deeper than the swift, dancing current below. Her future is as uncertain as the sagging, rickety planks beneath her feet yet the network supporting her is as secure as the iron framework of the bridge. Stretched out before her is her life, as crisp and clean as her white shirt and as innocent as rolled up jeans.

Tender bare feet take first one, then another tentative step as she moves ahead. If she looks back, even glimpses over her shoulder, she won’t have the courage to continue. Though supported by the strong arms which have raised her, she knows that if she turns back now, she will always wonder. Who was she? What did she look like? Was she tall or short? Strong? Smart? Was she like me? Could she dance, and did she love poetry and raspberry jam and the smell of burning leaves too? She takes a step, wincing at the rough board beneath her feet, her breath halting as the firm earth beneath her is now forty feet further than two steps ago.

There is nothing familiar beneath her; the memory of a faded photo seems indistinct yet runs as deep as the gorge below. A few more steps and the boards creak and bow. There is no turning back now; she’s as far from the past as the future. Who will she find? And who will be waiting for her when she returns? Her answers come only from asking, her questions framed only by what she knows already. Who will she find herself to be?

The bridge has carried her thus far and will see her through when she returns home. Home, to the love and support of parents who chose her to contain the essence of their love, all their hopes and dreams and passions, pressed and molded into the softness of a chubby toddler’s rosy face.

She had changed their lives completely, though they knew very little of her past. They were told only that the mother was young and confused…and that she passionately loved the child she carried, too much to keep her from a better life. The couple imagined her as beautiful, intelligent, and sensitive; perhaps talented, too. They wondered if they should ask. But when the call had come, they didn’t care about her past. The couple could only see their empty arms now filled. Now it is her turn to ask.

When she has learned what she needs to know, the bridge will take her back to tomorrow, where she will begin to dream in color. And her parents will be waiting once again to hold their daughter.