Bridges

"The hanging bridge is closed for repairs, It will be opening again in the fall," the sign proclaims. The footbridge crosses the Brandywine just above the diversion into the canal. The water is deep and still, a refuge for ducks and other water-loving creatures. I just checked; they still have chain link fence around the entrance and you have to go to another crossing point if you're going to the other side.
As I stand, stopped on my route, I remember a different bridge that crosses the Sethi Khola right at the entrance to Pokhara, situated right where the gorge is narrowest, so there would be less bridge to build. It's just a little wider than the one in Wilmington, maybe a little shorter. It used to accommodate the animal and human foot traffic, but now with the areas on both sides of the river developed, it seems sadly inadequate.
On our way to school in fifth grade my friends and I would always pause at least for a minute to throw a stone down the dark gully imagining we could see the foaming water that we could hear while it coursed between fortress rock walls. We could see the the calm power of the river before it entered the narrows, and just downriver it spewed out the other end of the gorge in a torrent of white water. We never heard the rock hit bottom, but we had to try anyway. It never lost its intrigue.
It reminds me of another gorge, deeper and narrower, that I visited with my husband years later. It crosses the Rio Pastaza near Baños in Ecuador, under the shadow of the volcano Tungurahua. That must have been the vacation my husband and I took when our oldest two children stayed with Grami and Grampim when we realized there would be another one joining our family soon. We took pictures posing on the rocks in the pool at the bottom of that gorge with the untamed river tumbling in the background.
The pictures, snapped at a moment in time, span spaces and times in my life, a testament to deep gorges successfully crossed.

Shelter

In a shady cove in the woods in Brandywine Park, almost invisible from the main trail, a sturdy stone and beam shelter stands lonely. Those who happen upon it these days are up to no good -- as attested by the graffiti on the walls and smells and detritus around the back. But if those stone could speak, they would tell stories of families gathering to commemorate a marriage (low-budget) or graduation, badminton and punch, neighbors being community. It used to be fully equipped for a day in the park. These days it stand empty from dusk till dawn when the park is closed, while homeless men sleep under the freeway bridge a few steps away.
High in the Himalayas, in shady spots along the way, public shelters are common, mapped out about a day's trek apart, waiting for the next night's trekkers: tourists, mountaineers, merchants, refugees, goat herders. They provide a fire pit for cooking rice and dahl, maybe a nettle stew. Signs of previous occupants remain day after day, connecting users with others. It's safe shelter for the night.
In the modern day, editorials decry the lack of care for the religious pilgrimage sites (Hindustani Times, June 2013), and far too much graffiti mars these Indian national treasures. Now visitors drive their SUV's up mountainsides and don't take the time to stay overnight.
One day, maybe you can visit one of these shelters, either in the Brandywine, or in the Himalayas, or in your local park, and stay a minute to read the stories written there.