Running the World: October 2012

It costs twenty-five dollars in tolls to cross onto Long Island and back by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

I may not have believed it if I hadn’t made the journey myself. The twelve dollars I paid on my way to Long Island was the highest toll I had ever encountered—of course, that was before I paid thirteen dollars to head back toward New Jersey.

I approached the bridge fresh off the New Jersey Turnpike, with my notebook open to handwritten directions I tried to skim in quick glances as I proceeded through the “no-stopping zone,” the portion of my trip that involved skirting New York City via a succession of different roads. I had crossed one bridge already and was squinting at my directions (“What was the name of that other bridge?”) when I saw the massive structure looming up ahead of me.

The Verrazano Bridge has more than one level, and so did the course of my thoughts.

Why, I wondered on some level, do I let trips swallow me up like this? Why do I let this loneliness set in? I could feel my identity blurring, the edges of my self-image dissolving like the Wicked Witch in a rainstorm. But the parts that fell out the holes or evaporated into mist were the best parts, and all the bad, the fears, doubts, the bad habits, remained and grew concentrated.

Why, I wondered. And I knew it was because I couldn’t see my reflection. Because I rely too much on external reinforcements. Because there were no familiar sights or faces to reaffirm to me, “Yes, Roo, you know who you are.”

I grew stern with myself. You have to be present here, now, I thought. Embrace this moment, hurtling over an unfamiliar road under a bank of angry-looking clouds.

On a level above this muddy brooding, I listened to an NPR broadcast. A “Science Friday” feature that day came from a university in Idaho, my home state.

On yet another level, I stewed about tolls. I had just paid a so-far record-setting amount to exit the New Jersey Turnpike. My cash reserves now struck me as inadequate. I gulped as I read the sign announcing the twelve-dollar price to cross the bridge. The “no-stopping zone” might have to be amended to the “look frantically for an ATM zone,” I worried. And then I remembered that I’d stashed some additional cash and forgotten about it, until now.

I began to drive up.

Up toward the crest of the bridge. All the levels of thought flowed into wordless awe. Something about grandiose bridges takes my breath away. I don’t know if it’s the contrast in size, as the structure towers above me while my car and I shrink into specks, or if it’s the beauty that I never expect to find in steel and concrete. I felt myself being swallowed up again, but not into emptiness this time. My stomach fluttered with the kind of butterflies I felt when my mom would drive fast over a certain hill in the countryside of southeastern Idaho. The thrill zinged out toward my fingers and down to my toes.

And then I noticed the signs: “Life is worth living.” One, and another and another. “Life is worth living.” Space. Next sign. “Life is worth living.”

To discourage suicides, I realized. Because this is a big bridge, and people would come here to jump.

“Life is worth living.” Under the prominent message, the signs offered a phone number. A hotline.

I felt solemn again, and happy because the bridge was so beautiful, and relieved because I had more cash than I’d thought, and still peeved because twelve dollars is simply outrageous.

Split into all these emotions, I was nevertheless present, there and then, when I came off the bridge and read “Welcome to Brooklyn.”

On the way home, I wondered if some of the would-be jumpers were just shocked at having paid out the two biggest tolls of their lives. The thought made me smile a few days later, when I was back from my trip and deep in my usual postmarathon slump. I was casting about for reasons why “life is worth living.”

There, I mused. A memory, a smile. A gift from the Verrazano Bridge. So I got something for my twenty-five dollars, after all.