Crossing Bridges

I began my college search early, after much persuasion from my mother. She insisted that I needed to visit universities beginning in eighth grade after I had shown her a list of twenty-five schools from Boston to DC. I suppose she worried that my college search would mirror my search for a Communion dress in the second grade. She took me to six stores, where I constantly complained that no store sold the perfect non-gaudy, non-flowery completely white dress I had envisioned. Maybe she also feared that I would only like schools that would not accept me. To this, my father, ever the optimist, always responded: “Beth, stop worrying. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” So, a few years ago, my mother and I traveled to New England, where we visited Yale. We dragged our suitcases from the parking lot to the front door of the hotel, a Marriot across from a Mr. Chicken where we observed several drug deals—all just a block from Yale’s campus. As we approached the door, I warily reported to my mother, “Look. You need a pass-code to enter the hotel. Nothing good happens at a hotel where you need to enter with a pass-code.” Once she assured me that no one would murder us in our sleep, we left the hotel and walked toward Yale’s bookstore, a grey building set against the grey Spring New England sky. We walked at a brisk pace as a homeless man appeared behind me, his run-down bike rolling beside him. Suddenly, he screamed at me in his psychotic voice, “Going to Yale, you super white b****?” My mother grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the Barnes and Noble, muttering to herself that she would never send me there, that much-too-liberal school. I sighed, for I, already a sophomore, had yet to cross the bridge my dad had assured me existed. In fact, I deeply worried that I would not find a school I even liked. However, I need not have fretted, as I encountered a bridge on my last college visit to Penn. My cousins, aunt, and uncle joined us on the campus at nightfall and we walked around admiring the dark sky, the brick buildings, and the trees which hung over our heads. Few people joined us as we walked down the winding paths which disappeared from sight onto the other side of the bridge that separated the two ends of the campus. When we reached the bridge, my seven-year-old cousin James ran towards it, grabbed my hand, and looked up at me with his blue eyes. “Do you think we should cross?” He asked me, his eyes searching my face. I turned around and looked back at the rest of the group, who walked a bit behind us. In that moment, I smiled, for I had found the bridge I needed to cross.  I imagined that on the other side, beyond the cement, a tiny figure would appear and gradually would enlarge until I could make out its features and recognize my face. I could see that person walking with friends on a quiet night, never worrying whether she would cross the bridge when she reached it. She never attached too much personal meaning to that bridge, never realized it could connect her past and future. She never trembled in its presence like Gatsby as he reaches out to the unattainable green light. She merely saw a bridge, a concrete structure, which connected two ends of campus.  Nevertheless, I looked back down at my cousin and squeezed his hand, realizing that fantasy could never exist. Even if the school accepts me, I will always stand at the top of the bridge and wonder whether I should take a risk, ignore the shouts of hoodlums and the worry that the pass-code will not protect me while I  attempt to attain the unattainable. “Yes, James,” I told him, “Let’s cross.”