I’ve loved doing backbends since childhood. I never managed a proper cartwheel or handstand, but the bridge was always my strong suit. In my first yoga classes, Anya praised me for my bridges but warned me to be careful. I remember her saying that this pose helps us stay open to people and the world. Over the last year and a half living in Germany, this pose has become harder. Where before I could practically fly into it and hold it for a long time, now my lower back aches and the depth is shallower. I count the seconds, trying to return faster, more carefully. Too much openness to people and the world can be dangerous for your health. And then you can never really go back to your former self — to stand up and step out of that uncomfortable position, to hear your own voice.
Recently, a new metaphor came to me: I am a bridge between a beautiful past and a beautiful future. The past, into which I pour my sadness — scrolling through photos, videos, old recordings, works, idealizing it, decorating it with flowers. Protecting it from the constantly imperfect, changing present. And the future — equally beautiful, dreamed of, with people I don’t ask if they want to come with me. My hands reach for the far riverbank of the future, my feet planted in the past, trembling at the thought of falling. Afraid, because below me flows a strong current of reality I did not choose, a reality that could crush me and sweep away fragments of my dreams and memories into the nearest ocean — the present, which I try not even to look at.
I should clarify: I am a beautiful, but broken and fragile bridge. Every day I am flooded by Düsseldorf rains, trucks and fire engines drive over me, parties happen on me, and people leave without cleaning up. They leave without saying goodbye, or they say it so long and ambiguously that they occupy my space, blocking passage for others. Information flows over me, shaking my supports and weakening love. I am a bridge losing its love, unable to filter what comes in and out of my ceramic-heart structure. And love, by the way, is the main glue holding the whole construction together. Lately, it seems I’ve forgotten how to accumulate it — to gather it from my inner reserves, dig deep, recall my passions, rake it up like combs in the Carpathians, lie easily in the bushes with a purple tongue. Adults need strict discipline for this — not just to avoid missing deadlines, earning money, or maintaining authority, but to make time for themselves. Caring for rituals and small joys. Seeking favorite trees and cafés in the city you live in, even through dislike. Even when there’s no time. Today, we put everything aside and go for a walk along the river, buying cashews, dates, peaches, and soap bubbles. Breathing fresh air. Choosing a new dress, buying flowers from the corner shop. The recipe for accumulating love: climb trees, listen to jazz, try a tango class, walk barefoot. Weekly, or even daily, depending on your level of “illness.” This is the secret to self‑restoration and collecting love — ignoring it leaves nothing.
I think it’s long overdue to set up barriers at both ends of my bridge, to close the road for reconstruction, to reinforce myself, to re‑pave. To name parking and emergency fees, to make passage paid. For example, I charge honesty and truth from the very start of this stretch while you are near me. And if you cause an accident on me, please take responsibility and talk to me. Don’t flee the scene. Give testimony. Don’t disappear. These rules should be printed in large letters at both ends and guarded: mistrust and restraint.
And include the cool German temperatures. Recently, I bought a monstera and put it by my bed. I named it Libélula — Spanish for dragonfly. I love turquoise shiny libélulas. They mean summer, and soon these creatures will sit on my knees while I lazily paddle a kayak, with a sunburned nose and sticky marmalade hands. I will count how many seconds it rests on me and record it in my book of records, something like Ray Bradbury’s “what happens every summer.” It’s amazing how plants fill a space with life. And then I thought, even though I am a bridge, it would be wonderful if I were a botanical bridge. And everyone who steps on me would plant something on me. In time, the plants would entwine my structure with roots and branches, and I would be the most beautiful and strongest bridge in the world. I told this idea to my Libélula, and she liked it.
She said she would gladly grow on my botanical bridge.