On a lazy Sunday morning recently, I saw a story on Bartonsville, a small Vermont town that lost a covered bridge in Hurricane Irene a few summers ago . The locals refused to accept this loss and one very determined woman, as she watched the bridge wash out in the flood waters, made sure it was rebuilt.

Ever since, I have been thinking about bridges a lot – a lot, a lot – maybe too much – who knows why – hibernation has grown claustrophobic. Ice pellets are still falling from our skies. Just every so often,  a a blue skied day with a hint of spring in the air keeps me going a few more weeks. I love these hills of mine but I sure do start missing the leaves right about now and my mind looks for an escape, and if not in body, my mind sets off traveling over bridges, old and new.

And it spins on… burnt bridges, crossing bridges, all the bridges I have ever been on, wanted to see, will see someday – all of this shuffles through my mind like a deck of cards.

Burnt bridges always first. I have burnt my fair share of bridges but what if it isn’t a burnt bridge? What if the bridge was environmentally unsound and never should have been built? I know, that’s just annoying. Not a bridge that has burned – one that isn’t essential to be put back? I am talking about the non-essential temporary bridges? Shaky relationships, built on bad pilings. I know that’s a bit much but it helps me when I like this – I’d rather picture the bridge being carefully dismantled and the river/stream/ocean returning to its normal natural state than a blackened pile of embers? It seems kinder, healthier somehow.

Despite my proverbial bridge burning, my travels are littered with great bridge memories.

Watching for the Sagamore Bridge to Cape Cod, after hours of being squashed in the car with my family, a summer’s prize to be the one to shout “I see the bridge, I see the bridge” first.

Living in London (man, was a long time ago) and walking across Battersea Bridge on Bonfire night with a box of wine & a mind for mischief.

Crossing the most unsubstantial, shaky, bamboo bridge somewhere in the wilds of Thailand and having one of those moments when I wondered what the %$#* is in the river below me and wishing I passed on that last serving of mangoes and sticky rice, almost being knocked over by a thousand year old woman with three tons of things balanced on her tiny body.

Guarding my valuables on Charles Bridge, warned that I would be outsmarted by the wily pickpocketers of the fairytale city of Prague (my pocket and I made it, despite the hype)

Pausing on bridge in the Serengeti to watch what I thought would be a bunch of hippos but instead was one glorious bird for what seemed like a life time – the silence of Africa getting into my soul.

Driving over the newly unveiled Zakin Bridge in Boston on the way to a job and in the middle of a time in my life that was perhaps the making of me but for a while was the breaking of me.

The loved up and beautiful bridges of Paris for too many reasons to list because my love for Paris is at the center of my sentimental heart and where my traveling all started.

And rebuilding bridges…. back to our intrepid Vermonters.

Last weekend, I drove through my wintery hills to see an old friend that life’s silliness almost washed away from my life. The kind of friend you make when you are young and foolish, who many years later proves that time traveling is possible, who will make you remember the best and the worst of your life, and make you belly laugh and cry at the same time. Someone I missed terribly when our bridge was out – sometimes, rebuilding is the only way.

Maybe I love bridges because I am a bit like those Bartonsville folks. I washed that bridge out myself but damn if I didn’t spend the last few years wishing I could rebuild it and what I lucky woman I am that it could be. Bridges, so many bridges, to be burnt (maybe not too many more, I am not getting any younger), crossed, seen and rebuilt.