Living with Landmarks
When I worked for five years at the oldest and most prestigious art school west of the Mississippi, I crossed this bridge twice daily and never failed to marvel at living with an American icon. It's called the "Golden" Gate but it's really red. Bright, orange-red. Massive. Impressive. As you drive across, six lanes wide plus room for pedestrians along either side.Yet, when you see it from afar, it seems as delicate as jewelry, stretched lightly between the Marin headlands and the city, more like a tiara than a titan.
Here in San Francisco, we have many of these icons - the cable car, Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf - but, none can outshine this amazing piece of human ingenuity that is at once dainty and mighty.
Driving across last week with the convertible top down, shooting pictures as quickly as my camera would take them, we caught her on a clear day but with her head in the forming fog. Living with landmarks demands that you open the eyes of your heart.
posted by Zoomie at
7:40 AM
4 Comments:
Zoomie,
For those that might be wondering ..
I will point out that you weren't driving and snapping too!!
MB
Oh, I weep at your description. How poignant.
Every day I drove across that bridge to work, I told myself I was so lucky to be crossing a landmark.
(When I was a kid, returning to the "mainland" from Hawaii on the Matsonia, my dad woke me up at some ungodly hour to see the Golden Gate Bridge as we crossed under. "It's not gold," I said, and went back to sleep.)
Count me in too. As I come to work I go up and over a pass that goes over 580 in Richmond. This perches me in line o' site of the GG Bridge, SF and The Great Bridge. Just as the sun comes up it hits SF with a kerpow and is such a spectacle. Yup, another day in paradise.
Biggles
BuzzB, thanks for the clarification!
Cookiecrumb, loved your story about the GG Bridge as a kid. Kids are such a tough audience!
Rev. Biggles, know just what you mean about the kerpow! The city is dreamlike in the morning light and the bridge just glows. Lucky us, huh?
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