The Bridge Was Still There

The Bridge Was Still There

Some places you visit once.

Others keep showing up in your life.

San Francisco belongs to the second kind for us.

Whenever I post a photo of San Francisco on Facebook, our friend Željko responds with almost clockwork reliability:

“For me, the most beautiful city in the world.”

That, of course, is open to debate.

Beauty, as we all know, is not only in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes it is also a matter of the right light, the right moment – and probably a little bit of memory.

But there is one thing you have to give San Francisco:

The city doesn’t let go of you easily.

In the late 1990s, we were here with my father and his wife, Annemarie. It was her birthday, and we celebrated with a wonderful dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf.

In 2014, we came back with Lena. Sitting in the Ritz-Carlton, we watched Germany beat Argentina in the World Cup final.

Not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when you think of San Francisco.

But memories have never been particularly interested in guidebooks.

And years later, we were back again.

With Lena in San Francisco – and always, that bridge.

—

A Night in Sausalito

This time, we were staying at the Gables Inn in Sausalito, the oldest hotel in town.

Historic.

Charming.

Right on the water.

At least on paper, it sounded promising.

Reinhold was less convinced within minutes.

The place was so poorly soundproofed that the shower running in the room above us sounded as if someone had pulled the plug beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and the entire Pacific was about to pour into our room.

We probably could have lived with that.

More difficult was a constant, loud clicking noise from somewhere outside, its source impossible to identify and apparently determined to keep us company all night.

Eventually, Reinhold gave up and went to the front desk.

Did they perhaps know where the noise was coming from?

And was there any chance it could be stopped?

The young woman didn’t know.

But she did know something else.

If we had spent more money on a room, she told him rather matter-of-factly, we probably would have gotten a different one.

Presumably one without the clicking.

The guest was truly king here.

We did not sleep well.

—

Some People Save a Morning

The next morning, the world already looked a little friendlier.

At breakfast, an older couple from San Diego were sitting at the next table. A simple hello turned into one of those conversations that sometimes seem to come out of nowhere when you travel.

About travel.

About Europe.

About America.

About life and everything in between.

We didn’t know their names or their story, and chances were we would never see them again.

But for a little while, four people sat together in a breakfast room in Sausalito and had something to talk about.

Sometimes that is enough.

Apparently, the night had also brought a change of personnel at the front desk.

The man on duty that morning was exceptionally helpful. He helped us arrange payment for the Golden Gate Bridge toll and patiently explained an alternative route to a viewpoint because the road we knew was closed.

And so we set off.

Toward a bridge we already knew so well.

Familiar views. Shared memories.

—

And Yet, You Stand There Again

There are sights you see once.

Check.

Photo taken.

Move on.

The Golden Gate Bridge is not one of them for us.

We had been here several times before, and still we couldn’t escape its pull.

Maybe it is the sheer size of it.

That red against the blue of the Pacific.

The fog that sometimes makes parts of it disappear.

Or perhaps it is the fact that it has stood there since 1937, looking as if someone simply decided to connect two worlds.

And there we were again.

Of course, it didn’t take long before we found ourselves talking to someone.

This time it was a man we initially took for an American.

He gave Reinhold the somewhat questionable advice that, for the sake of a photo, he should let me climb over the railing first. If I didn’t immediately plunge into the abyss, Reinhold could always follow.

Wonderful.

The man had a sense of humor.

And he was Canadian.

He wanted to make that very clear.

He wasn’t exactly shy about sharing his feelings, either. Fate, he told us, had dealt him a terrible blow.

His daughter was getting married in a few weeks.

To an American.

Pause.

An American from Tennessee.

Our sympathy was limited.

—

Three Miles Downhill

After so many hours and days in the car, we were ready to move.

So off we went.

Nearly three miles downhill through a shady eucalyptus forest, with the Golden Gate Bridge appearing again and again between the trees.

The air smelled of the ocean and freshly cut wood.

It was quiet.

Hard to imagine the crowds that make their way through here during the summer months.

That day, we had the trail almost entirely to ourselves.

The farther down we went, the more enormous the bridge seemed.

And eventually, we simply stood there.

No item on an itinerary.

No sight that still needed to be “checked off.”

Just the view.

The wind.

The ocean.

And that bridge.

Of course, we also knew its other story. That this beautiful structure had become a place of deepest despair for so many people.

Perhaps that knowledge eventually changes the way you look at it.

No less in awe.

Just a little quieter.

From down here, it somehow looks even bigger.

—

The Bridge Was Still There

Standing there, I found myself thinking about how many times we had been to San Francisco.

In the late nineties with my father and Annemarie.

Annemarie’s birthday.

Dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf.

Years later with Lena.

The World Cup final at the Ritz-Carlton.

And now Reinhold and I were here again.

Decades had passed in between.

Journeys.

Goodbyes.

People who were no longer there.

And a life that had simply kept moving forward without ever asking us where we wanted it to go.

San Francisco had changed.

We had changed.

But the bridge was still there.

Perhaps that is why we like returning to certain places.

Not to see whether they still look exactly the way they used to.

But to feel, just for a moment, what we were like back then.

And what we have become along the way.

Then we started back.

Three miles.

Uphill.

After all, you can’t spend forever thinking about life.

It was still there.