Probably the most powerful symbol for Duluth is its Aerial Lift Bridge, which connects the mainland (so to speak) with the long thin finger of sand called Park Point. It is literally a lift bridge, in that traffic stops and the road surface rises whenever one of the huge ore or cargo ships comes under it. In the summer, there is even more "up and down" to make it possible for tour and sail boats to come in and out of the harbor. It is a beautiful structure, kind of a gateway to open Lake Superior, the other Great Lakes, and, via the St. Lawrence Seaway, the world.
This week, someone said to me that they thought that when I lived here in the 1990's, I underwent my first "birth" as my own person, sort of a "who am I?" outside the context of the east coast world and expectations that I had previously known. I had to turn inward for validation, as many of my resume highlights like Smith College, the University of London, and Time Inc. were foreign to the culture out here. Then in 1999, I returned back east when my mother's health declined and I spent, as it turned out, twenty years revisiting various facets of the old me from a new perspective. Of course, I returned here this past summer, after a winter of tsunamis and my dad's death, and there has been another rebirth. Something in the depths of this lake lends itself to truth, love, and clarity. What interests me really interests me now, what doesn't interest me really doesn't interest me. No more pretending or trying. I was on Park Point on Sunday, watching ice fishermen and iceboaters and parasailers on the clear reflective sunset surface of the bay, and then later drove back across the bridge with sparkling lights of the city on the left and the pitch black of the lake on the right. It was beautiful, it was symbolic.
It's another bridge moment for me. I am thankful for a journey that never fails to surprise and give me rich material to write about. I will keep writing, although perhaps a little irregularly over the next few weeks, as my little boat makes another foray into life's great waters. May your dark December be filled with light!
