Way back when driving to visit Brooklyn from New Jersey was still fresh and new for me, promising friends and parties and dancing on rooftops, a visceral thrill would course through my body whenever I drove over the Verrazano Bridge, enhanced by whatever epic song was playing on any one of my countless mix tapes. Yes, that's right, mix tapes. A little red Ford Escort chock full of mix tapes. When the world had moved on to newfangled mixed CDs (look-e-here! so fast! so clean! so simple!), my driving experience was still inextricably tied to my car's low-fi tape deck. Each tape embodied the long, slow, repetitive, painful, maddening, heartfelt process of creating a work of audio.
Many years, a New York license and one silver Honda Fit later, driving in and out of Brooklyn is nothing. I shouldn't say nothing. But it just doesn't hold the same urgent love of place. Except when it does sometimes. It happens when I'm coming back from a long trip and I haven't sat through excruciating traffic. It happens because I'm sitting comfortably next to my love rather than driving desperately towards him; that's beautiful. And it happens even on those rare, ordinary days, despite the absence of something special. It's just a day, like any other. Except that the sky is an achingly vivid shade of blue. A power blue. It's a mix of clear, clear sky and inconceivably perfect clouds.
On this ordinary day, perhaps the radio has stirred up audio gold. Maybe it's a long-lost gem from the free-forming wild people at wfmu. Maybe it's a happy heart-opener from a mixed CD made with love from my love (we've upgraded from casettes, although they're safely in a box).
Regardless of what's playing, the sky on that day is all strong and soft (as in yoga, it's mix of "stira sukha," strength & ease); a majestic free flow rising above the imposing yet comforting structure of the bridge. And this old bridge may not be the prettiest bridge out there, but it sure has it's moments. So when I took this photo, I was moved. And happy to be on my way home.
