35W

I’ve been blogging in my head a lot lately, which means unless someone builds a skylight it’s very hard to know what I’m thinking.

I use to consider myself lucky to cross the Mississippi River every morning. I liked to pretend (and I do this a lot) that I am a wise holy woman in her red jetta making a treck across the water three times before the sun sets.

I believed it made me blest. I believed I was above all people, most lucky.

Until the bridge fell--and now every morning it is an interesting journey into my psyche.

Will my stomach tighten if I'm in stop dead traffic on the Tenth Avenue Bridge while hearing the jack hammer to my left?

Can I avoid looking at the rubble?

Will I picture the body bags in my mind’s eye?

And sometimes I am just angry. I am angry that this is the only way to get to school and I don’t understand the crowds of people who come every morning to look at the wreck of 35w.

I counted three people with easels last week PAINTING. I want to roll down my window and yell what the fluck are you seeing or simply walk around with a video camera recording the reasons of why they have come, why they have made this journey so I can understand or relate to their journey.

I want to stop every car in front of me and ask them if their stomach also tightens, if they breathe in deeply when they have crossed to the other side.

I am a poet. I understand we are in a constant journey to death. I've never avoided it and sometimes I've even embraced it. I think I understood this frail line even before I understood parts of my own language.

I’ve known everything could change in an instant. It is not this fragility which frightens me but I’m bothered by the constant alienation from the human race—this visual reminder that I’m never or I do ever want to be, that person in the crowd. I can’t fit there and I’m not sure why.

I will be reminded three times today.