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Apr. 9th, 2002 02:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandolinIt's funny how fickle our memories can be. I can't recall a lot of the important things I should - the first time I met some of my closest friends (I know how I met them, but the first specific encounters elude me), my first day of kindergarten, the most bizarre event that happened to me in recent years - in great detail.
But I still have images and fragments that are nowhere near as pivotal as you'd think burned into my memory.
Such an image from last year popped into my mind this morning:
Driving down the highway, approaching the Bay Bridge. It's a foggy day, and cars speed away from the toll booth only to be swallowed by the fog. The only evidence that the bridge is there is the hazy outline up ahead and brake lights growing dimmer. So I follow the herd, pay the toll, and drive off into the grayness.
I can only see a few feet ahead of me, and the cars on the bridge are taking their time. The car climbs the incline, heading towards the crest of the hill. Just as we reach the top, the fog is gone.
Sunlight - clear, bright, cold sunlight - is suddenly beating down on us. The bridge supports cast a stark net of shadows on the asphalt as we speed beneath them. A few milesahead of us, the bridge dips again, descending into murky gray. You can't see anything in that muck.
In the rearview, this strip of clarity and sunlight extends another mile, as more cars emerge from an equally thick bank of fog. Nothing beyond it can be seen. There's just the sunny mile of the bridge, which begins and ends in fog.
For a second, I wonder if this bridge is actually taking us across the bay. The fog is so thick, and the sunlight above us is so stark and clear that I start to think we'll pass through the mists and come out in an entirely new world. Maybe I accidentally took a wrong turn, and this is the new expressway to Landover.
Then we descend, and the sunlight fades, and we emerge on the other side.
Aside from the stop for gas, that's all I remember about that particular car trip. Cool, cool, cool.
But I still have images and fragments that are nowhere near as pivotal as you'd think burned into my memory.
Such an image from last year popped into my mind this morning:
Driving down the highway, approaching the Bay Bridge. It's a foggy day, and cars speed away from the toll booth only to be swallowed by the fog. The only evidence that the bridge is there is the hazy outline up ahead and brake lights growing dimmer. So I follow the herd, pay the toll, and drive off into the grayness.
I can only see a few feet ahead of me, and the cars on the bridge are taking their time. The car climbs the incline, heading towards the crest of the hill. Just as we reach the top, the fog is gone.
Sunlight - clear, bright, cold sunlight - is suddenly beating down on us. The bridge supports cast a stark net of shadows on the asphalt as we speed beneath them. A few milesahead of us, the bridge dips again, descending into murky gray. You can't see anything in that muck.
In the rearview, this strip of clarity and sunlight extends another mile, as more cars emerge from an equally thick bank of fog. Nothing beyond it can be seen. There's just the sunny mile of the bridge, which begins and ends in fog.
For a second, I wonder if this bridge is actually taking us across the bay. The fog is so thick, and the sunlight above us is so stark and clear that I start to think we'll pass through the mists and come out in an entirely new world. Maybe I accidentally took a wrong turn, and this is the new expressway to Landover.
Then we descend, and the sunlight fades, and we emerge on the other side.
Aside from the stop for gas, that's all I remember about that particular car trip. Cool, cool, cool.
