Stone Arch Bridge

I’m a hopeless romantic at heart. I very rarely express it openly but can admit it. After learning about “structure of feeling” and contemplating my own actions, this personal tendency became even more evident to me. This last Friday I was feeling overwhelmed by all of the projects, papers, and exams that need to happen before Thanksgiving, and I went to the place pictured to the left. Having been there once before, I remembered how it brought me back to myself and a clear state of mind. Like I said… hopeless romantic without meaning to be at all. I went by myself in the morning, insisting I would walk the while three-and-a-half miles from my apartment, and I turned off my phone. [No technology, only nature, and also a bit of “infantile narcissism” that this place was mine and mine alone to go to.]

This picture I took from a side of the bridge that a path does not lead down to. Yes, I swung a leg over a low chain fence and climbed down a steep hill to the riverfront. [Whoever designed Toms was not a romantic and clearly expected everyone wearing them to be walking on flat, sturdy pavement.] Even though the bridge is man-made, its old architecture and the little bit of city on the horizon just adds to the beauty and made the very place I was standing feel more rural. The flowing water, the bright sunlight, the few remaining greens I found, all contribute to the effect; the feeling I get of complete awe, raising goosebumps on my flesh, but at the same time obtaining a sense of being entirely at peace. This whole process happens within a matter of seconds of seeing the scene, and my mind is silenced. I don’t think about anything, I only know that it feels really nice. As William Wordsworth would describe it, I’m “in a state of vivid sensation.” I think I took the picture unconsciously trying to portray this feeling as best I could. I went to the side of the bridge off the beaten path just so I could get the sunlight; the branches sort of frame the scene in a way that makes the beholder want to part them and go in; and the fact that no people are around portrays how it seems to all be for the viewer and the viewer alone.

I believe I went to this place, knowing I would feel calm again because it was less urban than what I had been in for the proceeding weeks and, here, William Wordsworth says: “...the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint and speak a plainer and more empathetic language…our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated.” Here, bits of nature win over the full-blown city, the body overshadows the mind, and there is really no specific reason or proof for this feeling. I was simply able to find truth through my own conscience in a sensible way and didn’t need to make an analysis of what I was doing in order to understand that place of comfort and ease.