A Bridge Like Any Other Bridge

Like every other bridge, the 965 foot long Thomas Creek Bridge connects what is on one side to what is on the other. 345 feet high, it is the highest bridge in Oregon. Standing in the middle, looking down between the truss supports, the creek below looks meager, muddied brown, and shallow. Evidence of its might is visible too. The outline of brown silt is much wider than the creek itself. No plant life has grown within 20 feet of its current curves, a sign that it surges and swells. Piles of logs, which from this height look like a scattering of toothpicks, temporarily rest near where this creek meets the ocean. The creek delivered them and the ocean waves pushed them back. Perhaps on the next surge they will be carried out further and travel on. Their green adorned relatives, Sitka Spruce, blanket this valley. Never further than 50 miles from the Pacific Ocean, these coniferous evergreen trees grow to be 160 – 230 feet high. Some seven centuries old, these ancient individuals lose their distinctiveness when seen from above. Only the vastness of the ocean horizon surpasses the effect of looking down from this height.

I can no longer drive over bridges without thinking about my sister’s jump. On November 9, 2002 she chose the San Diego-Coronado Bridge, a two mile long connecting roadway that curves 80 degrees and slopes gradually upward from Coronado Island in order to reach high enough for navy ships to pass below without being at too steep a grade for vehicles to climb. Its pinnacle 200 feet above the San Diego Harbor is a fatal height. A body falling from this height can reach 70 miles per hour, a speed exceeding the posted limit for vehicles. The low 34-inch high concrete side railings afford an enchanting panorama. When I drive across my eye is instead drawn to the prominent blue signs repeatedly urging potential suicides to call a help hotline. Frequent jumpers make it the third deadliest bridge in the United States. At 24, my sister was one of the hundreds that made this traumatic choice.

It is June 2006, almost four years later, when I drive over the Thomas Creek Bridge. I had just turned 28. Each year following her death I have aged one year older than she, my older sister, a fact seemingly at odds with nature. Gaining the perspective of age, I could tell her that things wouldn’t have stayed the same but for her the future could not be separated from that present which was painful beyond solace. I am alone on this trip, driving from San Francisco to Vancouver along the coast. It is this aloneness, the open spans of time driving and being close again to the ocean that prompt me to consider her with greater frequency. Feelings of uncertainty break into the detachment I became accustomed to in my relationship with her.

I pull off the road after crossing the bridge, returning to it on foot. Looking down, I contemplate those moments before her death; how others have told me they imagine it. My mother envisions her fall felt like flying, a release, and that she experienced the sensation of being caught by the arms of god. Her father believes she must have felt regret mid-air, experienced terror and a brutal impact. Our brother senses her determination was blinding, intuits her motions had to be quick, and hopes it was easy.

I cannot decide what I think. I did not understand her and don’t imagine that I will. I walk back to my car. There I scan my guidebook. It reads:

Between Gold Beach and Brookings, US-101’s windy, hilly roadbed is studded with the cliffside ocean vistas, giant conifers, and boomerang-shaped offshore rock formations of Samuel Boardman State Park. The park covers most of the ‘Fabulous 50’ miles between the two towns, and all of the above mentioned features come together at Natural Bridges Cove, just north of the Thomas Creek Bridge, the highest bridge on the coast north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate. Despite a sign, this turnout is easy to miss because, from the highway, it appears to be simply a parking lot fronting some trees; from the south end of the lot, however, a short trail through an old growth forest leads to a viewpoint several hundred feet above three natural rock archways standing out from an azure cove.

The description entices me. Natural bridges carved by waves sound beautiful and I am determined to see all that I can on this trip. I look around. This pull off looks like nothing but a forested front, there is a trail sign, so I start walking toward it. I pop my ear buds in, select a song from my roadtrip playlist and enter the forest.

Only a few hundred feet in on the trail I feel enclosed in the forest space. Below me, ascending with some struggle, evidenced by a shortness of breath, is an elderly couple. As I approach the woman mutters a question, had I seen any bridges, to which she is quickly shushed by her companion. I sense from this they have fought, she is exasperated, he (was reluctant to admit he was lost) feels responsible. I pretend to have not heard her, or him trying to silence her, because of my music. However I have one ear bud in and one out, by way of courtesy. I smile and pass on, then hesitate for a moment, realizing this path may not lead to the bridges. But I go on, not wanting to be behind them or to pass them; instead, welcoming the adventure of where I am. I walk down the sloped path, leading through a floor of ferns. Above are the Sitka Spruce, most without limbs at the lower levels. Up close their bark is thin and scaly. Sunrays break through the spaces between the trees. Mist moistens the air and I smell both dirt and salt.

The next man I meet carries a large tripod with a camera affixed to the top. He too is short of breath as he ascends the path I descend but his affect is entirely unlike the last pair. A smile beams from his face, his eyes are alive with delight, and the manner in which he intakes a breath indicates that he is eager to talk. I still have one ear bud in and one out but this time there is no music. Wary to be engaged, I leave it dangling as if there was. He talks anyway, blissfully open hearted, ignoring my efforts to distance. He tells me the views are great and jokingly asks if I brought my fog block. Like an angelic messenger, he instructs me to take the path to the left through the meadow at the fork. I smile appreciatively and leave it at that.

I reach the fork he described and take the left. It does not look as promising as the path down but I yearn for the beauty and openness reflected on his face. Soon I am waist high in blue Irises, bunches of white Queen Anne’s Lace, yellow wildflowers and grasses. Fog moves in, obscuring what lies ahead. The breeze picks up, inspiring me to sway a little bit in motion with my music. I feel a slight shift in my body, a release of the usual tension and control I carry. I imagine I can twirl and dance, even though my movements are still slight.

A bluff arises out of the fog, behind it only the lines of the ocean and the sky. The promise of another dramatic drop beckons me. As I approach the edge the absence of safety rails and barriers of any kind strikes me. There is nothing between me and the steep drop down. I could step off, a strong wind could push me, or I could topple accidentally, all with the same result of a fatal fall. My breath catches in my chest. I inhale once, twice, three times in rapid succession as if I am about to weep. The fog has cleared giving me a glimpse that straight down are rough, black, wind scarred rocks jutting out into the waves, creating an isolated beach. Here is a place no one could walk to, a place where no one would come upon you. Reminded of the man with the camera, I bring out my camera. But the view looks dull through my lens, flat and gray from the mist coming back in. I don’t even bother to push down the button. I look back, committing it instead to memory. Physically I feel in this view a risk and an appeal. I feel the struggle to stand still with the strong wind pushing at my body, the moisture in the air salty in my lungs as if I was inhaling tears, and the loud empty echo of waves, wind and silence of other life pounding at my ears.

Again the fog thickens, shrouding my sight. So I focus closer. Down from my feet, beyond where my steps could safely go were small trees, not much more than a foot in height, growing from small ledges in the rock face. They look fragile but I sense they have already endured a great deal, growing so exposed to the elements of the ocean winds. I turn. Behind me the meadow is also disappearing in fog. I have only sight of what is immediately near me, what I can touch, the present. I sense the abyss below and the vast space of what lies behind me but I cannot see it. Here an image of my sister, Feliciana, comes to me; or rather, a sensation. I feel what I imagine she might have felt before she jumped off the bridge: faith in the abyss, a mixing of fear and safety, beauty, only the present moment. My arms outstretch in front of me. I want to see them, feel the air with them, raise them above me for no one to see. I cry. The grief fills me up and spills out. I want to dance. Instead I whisper goodbye. I linger a moment more to remember and then I walk back to the meadow.

Here I put in my ear buds, sing aloud a song that makes me think of her, and start my ascent. I have crossed a bridge between the way down and the way up, one that connects me to her.