If Only

I was returning to my car from a brief conversation with a nearby stream. We had sat together early one morning and listened to one another's miscellaneously strung-together thoughts. While I did most of the talking, the stream mostly carried the conversation. My words left eagerly, ready to leave their progenitor and the monotony of being turned over and over. I could have sworn I heard a "yipee" as my words floated away and I sat there in absolution. With a newfound feeling of lightness, I began to make my way back to the car. As I walked the short way down the path and back to the asphalt road, I passed a bridge to the right of me. I've passed this bridge and crossed it many times, with full awareness of where it goes and how long it takes to traverse. Yet, after passing it, I suddenly felt compelled to turn my head back, to look again at the bridge. It had politely kept its tone down, as it was still early in the morning and neighbors were asleep, yet I heard its whispers, its calls for me to turn back. When I think back to this moment and my glance back - slightly romantic and slightly melancholic in gesture, and likely resembling one of those clichéd scenes where the protagonist looks back to see if their lover is still standing there watching as she walks away - I'm amazed. For when I looked back, my beloved was in fact staring right back at me. The scene was entirely idyllic, to the tune of a 19th century impressionist painting: The bridge was symmetrically placed, with the environs on either side of it equally apportioned, and the colors incredibly vibrant but in a hushed sort of way (I sensed no measure of arrogance from the collective of trees, sky, and wooden beams). But what was even more astonishing was that the other side of the bridge suddenly seemed foreign, for I no longer knew what was on the other side. It was alluring, with a tantalizing orange glow rising above, like the growing halos of an emerging sunrise. The bridge could have taken me to gardens in Kyoto, Japan during the springtime; or the backyard of a midwestern family of farmers, with a small playset for their 6 year old boy; or the beaches of Andalucia, where bodies lie naked like red-hot sardines. I had no idea what lay on the other side of that bridge. And just like in the movies that irritate you, I did not go back to my beloved. I let the day's agenda and the voice of reason pull me away. Damn that gruff, miserly voice. I could have had tea with Japanese cherry blossoms, or let the warm Ohio air kiss my cheek each time I swung forward on the young boy's swing. If only I had listened to the beloved, who sends its angels daily asking me to play.