Does the pedestrian bridge over the Main River qualify as being tethered I wonder? What is it about bridges that lure me to walk to the middle, pause for a bit and gaze into the distance? We don’t have too many bridges over rivers here. Most of them are over freeways and the nearest river is 100kms to the south. There is a pull of opposites, a gravity-defying act that lures me to bridges and a need to see what’s on the other side.
The Rua Da Academia das Ciências in Lisbon is a narrow lane 100m from our family’s abode. Cars that turn into it have to slow down to navigate the sharp turn and pedestrians hug the wall to let the cars pass. The arch and the bridge a bit further on used to connect a convent and a church many centuries ago. It is rumoured that the priests secretly used the bridge at night to visit the nuns.
Mozambican-born Portuguese South African; reflecting on travel, writing, editing, life, family and change that has social impact; chief wide eyed in wanderer, wonderer and bottlewasher
