A Month of Pictures - My World (Thoughts on Irene)

This sketch was one I started while The Boyfriend™, Trolls and I were back home, in June. We were enjoying the first of two or three idyllic days - just enough sun, not too hot - taking it easy after having driven for two days. The Trolls, of course, were antsy after having been cooped up in the car for far too long, so I decided to take us all to a local swimming hole at The Pumping Station.

The river was far too cold for adults (and barely warm enough for two Trolls used to the bathwater-like temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico), but we Were enjoying the energy of the moment and the fresh air.

As The Trolls dared each other to get in the water first (and tried goading The Boyfriend™ and me in, too), I got out my sketchbook to capture the covered bridge that ran the spance of that stretch of the river. My sketch time was short-lived, though, because we were soon off to other adventures, but I didn't think too much of it. In fact, I remember thinking "I'll finish this the next time I'm here", not realizing that very soon the bridge wouldn't be there for me to sketch again.

It's just a bridge, but it's also a piece of history - of MY history. Of thousands of people's histories. Generations of kids - including my own - swam under that bridge. Generations of kids made out with each other in the cozy confines of that bridge - including The Boyfriend™ and me. Every year, a new group of adolescents dared each other to sit in that bridge and wait for the ghost of Eunice Williams.

The bridge is gone now. Washed away during the flooding brought on by Irene. It makes me sad. I won't get to finish this sketch, while sitting on the banks of the river underneath it.

I suppose I'm being dramatic - a covered bridge washing away is by no means comparable to the levies breaking after katrina. But that a piece of history is gone. A thing that has always been there - part of the fabric of my life - is gone.

If nothing else, the urgency to get back home is even stronger. I don't want anymore unfinished sketches in my book.