bridges standing still

Chicago celebrated the Fourth of July on the night of the Third, holding its annual fireworks display over the lake. I was there visiting J.; she had just finished taking her national board exam in her med program, and I had chosen that week for my vacation, and Chicago in summer is a great way to blow off some restless steam and add another year to what I hoped would become an annual tradition. We spent the late afternoon and early evening with her fellow med student friends picnicking in the park.

Unlike some of my experiences with students in the humanities, the med students willingly accepted an outsider into their social ranks without unspoken judgment or talking too much shop, and I had a lovely time. Once real dark set in, we packed up and moved with the rest of the hundred thousand celebrants to stand in the streets on the lakeshore and admire the gorgeous explosions over the water.

I've always loved fireworks, and these were truly spectacular, all the deep, heart-jarring booms and trailing streaks of color that I look forward to every year. J.'s friend O. snapped pictures, hoping to get a good one; we all alternated between making fun of each other and standing in silent appreciation of the show.

The amazing part of the night, though, happened when the fireworks ended and the crowd began moving. I've driven on some of those streets in the daytime, and they're always whizzing with traffic; but every year for one evening automobile traffic stops and human traffic swarms the pavement. The festive atmosphere was made even more jovial by this rare release from the traffic laws that define American orderliness: We felt patriotic, and we felt naughty, and since patriotism started off as naughtiness, we gloried in upholding our country's origins by breaking, for a little while, from its laws. The men in our group mapped out the best way back to where we were going, the girls followed, and my heart burned with good American pride every time one of those well-bred boys turned and craned his neck to account for everyone else in the flock.

Our mapped-out route took us along a different way than the previous year's: This year, the bridge over the River was stopped. Cars sat silent, bumper to bumper on the arch, and we commented on its rather eerie resemblance to a zombie movie like I am Legend. Like an army of ants the pedestrians overtook the bridge en masse, even more delighted to be allowed to be naughty and walk between the waiting cars.

The view from the center of the bridge was astounding: The dark water curved directly to the horizon, a mirroring centerpoint for the lit high rises stepping back from its walls. I pulled out my cell phone to take pictures, not caring how touristy it looked; but then I heard hundreds of exclamations, and looked up to see Chicago natives everywhere running to the walled edges of the bridge, whipping out their own cameras and leaning over the river, calling their friends to take their portraits against the backdrop.

Snapping her own shots of the view, J. explained, "Pedestrians are never allowed on this bridge."

All around me I heard people saying, "...once in a lifetime view..." "...never see this again..." "...omigod, once in a lifetime, c'mere, get me standing right here..."

Our group scattered considerably, since all of us were hanging back to capture the moment. I savored it as long as possible, hardly looking where I was going when I finally decided that the naked-eye experience topped anything a picture could show me later. The cityscape was breathtaking, one of those sights that makes you somehow believe in human achievement and human goodness, that makes you catch your breath in pride at what you are, and what you all are together.

My cell phone doesn't take the best of pictures. I erased most of them. I don't need them to be terribly good, however; when I look at the ones I have left, once in awhile, I see against the dark backdrop of my mind the shimmer of lights, caught and held by black water under a black sky, and I hear around me the sounds of human wonder at humanity, astonished and captivated, united by a sudden beauty.