Another piece of the puzzle

Yesterday morning while I was at work I happened to have an interesting conversation with a client I see occasionally and have known for several years. This man is in his early 90’s, though he seems a bit younger than that. And while his body is tired and worn, his mind is still sharp. He had told me in the past that both he and his son were professional photographers, specializing in industrial and architectural photography. Which is a occupation that sounds a bit boring, at least in the way he described it. Therefore, I never asked him much about it. Not only that, but he is a man who is rather quiet and reserved, and he has never volunteered a whole lot of information. But once I had served him his breakfast, I sat down for a moment to fill out my shift notes and check my messages. He was reading the newspaper as he ate, and once he had finished, he placed each section in the middle of the table, offering me the chance to read it if I wanted. On the front page was an article about some sort of charity run that had recently taken place. And that inspired me to mention to him the epic walk I took earlier this month. I was expecting either a muted reaction, or that he would be surprised that I would have wanted to do such a thing. Or, he’d respond like my husband, wondering why anyone would actually want to walk across the Bay Bridge….

Unsurprisingly he said he never had any desire to do that walk, although his wife and daughter did so for many years. But his reason for not wanting to partake was most fascinating. For the next few minutes, punctuated by him taking his daily medications, he recounted how he was “all over that bridge” back when he was hired to photographically document the construction of the second span. And then he told me about how his father (also a photographer) was tapped to record the building of the original span. As I listed with rapt attention, I just had to know all of the details. I asked him if he climbed the bridge, and he said he did climb the cables and was in some sort of bucket lift that enabled him to get the shots he was commissioned to take. He said he worked on a lot of construction projects here in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and New York. He told me about photographing the building of the second span of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York, and yes, another bridge I just had to know about – the Key Bridge! I asked him if he got to climb on the Key Bridge and he said yes, and that he also went up in a crane to get pictures of it.

It is almost unbelievable how so many people have at least some connection with these mighty metal monsters, and especially those like this man who have had a most intimate familiarity with them. Perhaps this is part of the reason that what should be nothing more than a section of highway ends up becoming so much more to so many people. Of course, the fact that some 17,000 people crossed the Bay Bridge that November morning must mean something.

There is another thing that suddenly dawned on me as I was finishing my shift and leaving that man’s home that morning. I thought of that little souvenir I received once I completed the walk across the Bay Bridge. This was a medallion commemorating the run/walk that is in the shape of a puzzle piece. Not long ago I received a link to the site of the organizing company where I could purchase each of the previous medallions from the last three annual events. These were also shaped like puzzle pieces. I suppose this is one of those “collect them all” sort of things, not unlike the like trinkets that kids used to get out of cereal boxes. But being that it is close to Christmas, I have other things I’d rather spend my money on, and so I passed. But then I realized that that walk itself, at least for me, is indeed a piece of a larger puzzle, for which I do not have all of the pieces. Honestly, I don’t even know how many there are supposed to be, nor what will be revealed once I hopefully have them all and can assemble them. How fitting that the medallion was in the shape of a puzzle piece, as were those of the past three events. When I first saw it, I thought to myself what a peculiar design that was…but, no pun intended, it is most fitting.

Going back to my analogy of my journey as being like Dorothy’s in the Wizard of Oz, this medallion is not unlike the one that the Wizard bestowed upon the Cowardly Lion in the end. It had no power to change anything in and of itself, bringing to mind that old rock song lyric “Oz didn’t give nothing to the Tin Man, that he didn’t already have…”. Unfortunately at the moment I cannot place from which song that line comes. The Cowardly lion also received no additional courage from the badge that Oz hung around his neck, but it did symbolize the fact that he had completed that part of his mission. For me, that symbolic puzzle piece is but one part of a larger whole, an accomplishment of a segment of the journey. I don’t know from where I might acquire the next one, what form it might take, or how many more there will be. Only time will tell…