Blog #4: Drafting

        

In Mark Twain’s “Two Views of the Mississippi”, he emphasizes his idea of changing perspectives from first impression to veteran, which can also be used to change one’s view of University Bridge. A simple concrete structure, meant to connect the students in the northern residence halls to the heart of the Arizona State Tempe campus. Herds of kids commute daily across the bridge, a diversity of hurried underclassmen and calm staff members. The University Bridge, connected to the famous Palm Walk, was supported in design by a chiropractor with the goal to relieve pressure from fellow students and pedestrians’ lower back and legs. It offers an impressive view of the busy University Drive road during the day and an even more inspiring scene at sundown when the city lights are at their brightest. The University Bridge is the perfect place to capture it all at once.

The bridge stands, arched, symmetrical, and two sided. Anyone going up from either side of the bridge is presented with the option of steps, or plain runway cement. Although the steps are normally easier to take, most students subconsciously stay to their right, wherever it is that their destination lies. Personally, the first time I went up the University Bridge, I wanted to take the steps over the feeling of climbing a hill. But naturally, I found my feet maneuvered towards the flat, ramp style side to the right. “Why did I come this way?” I asked myself, several times. It is like a rule of humanity among crowds that this very bridge brought to the surface.

As a novice to this particular walkway, I could not help but be nothing more than enchanted and stricken by how amazing it felt to stand at the very top of the bridge, how stunning the humble view off the ground in the middle of a busy road looked, nor how it felt to finally come down and immediately miss a small version of being “at the top of the world”.

Like in Mark Twain’s “Two Views of the Mississippi”, there are countless attributes and beauty that this landmark possessed and then rapidly began to lose as I better familiarized myself with it. In the beginning, the impression of the bridge is typical for everyone; it brings together flocks of people, all sharing the similar goal to get where they need to be. It overlooks one of the busiest, most popular streets in the city of Tempe, rain or shine. The bridge connects one area to another, and even serves as a temporary place of loitering for some kids at nightfall. It is unarguably one of the campus’ most memorable structures.

As soon as one gets accustomed to the bridge, every trip up and down becomes a routine as well as a mission, mimicking exercises like cardio and jogging. Getting to the very top is almost painful; especially when the scorching Arizona sun is bearing down on you and all you can think about is making it across the bridge as fast as possible. Arriving to the foot of the bridge presents one with the set of steps. The steps are small, a little too small, and difficult to walk over for impatient individuals like myself. People rush past each other and skate boarders clash with others. One can suddenly find themselves dreading the trip up and down the arch University Bridge. What once seemed so convenient and thrilling to take advantage of, is now another thing to avoid while making my way to class. Much like Twain’s story about the river, the bridge loses its simplicity and beauty:

Now when I had mastered the language of this water, and had come to know every trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as I knew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition. But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could never be restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetry, had gone out of the majestic river! (Twain 208)

After learning how to pilot a riverboat, Twain lost the ability to see the simple beauties in the river. He could only see the dangers in the river's subtle details. In the story, Twain fondly recalls a memory of when he had witnessed a beautiful sunset when he was still new to steamboating. He described the majestic reflections of the fading sunlight, and the delicate waves of the water. He then goes on to describe how after becoming a pilot he would only recognize upcoming winds from the sunset and a dissolving sand bar from the bubbles and ripples. Where he had once found beauty in the river, he could then only find work.

The first time I found myself on the other side of the University Bridge, I thought about whether crossing it made up for avoiding waiting at the crosswalk with the others. It seemed as though half of the northern resident area students continued to use the stoplight, while others rushed to the University Bridge. Was the bridge everything I anticipated? Is it everything I thought it was? Does the beauty of overlooking the heart of the college town worth the troublesome characteristics of the bridge that have presented themselves? The view from the bridge has never changed, whereas my opinion of the bridge itself has dissolved immensely.