Australia Ruminations #2

You climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge and you are reborn.

You join a delightful group and somehow revel in the knowledge that you and your partner are the only Americans. You are teamed with a lesbian couple from England, a younger married couple from England, an older married couple from Scotland, someone who might be Irish, and a mother and daughter team from Sydney. You shed any and everything that is not attached, gear up in a wonderfully atrocious jumpsuit, and go through a practice drill. You check your fear at the gate. You embrace the moment of something new and ascend as you never have. You travel through tunnels of wet, carved stone. You grasp the metal rungs of ladders that shouldn’t be there and hoist yourself, knees quaking, upward. An infant’s whisper from speeding cars and trucks and buses. The very wind of them passing through your hair. And then you queue up. Together you join and celebrate the arc of the structure. At the crest, you take in the beauty of The Rocks, Circular Quay, The Amp Tower, The Sydney Opera House, the entrance to the Pacific; and you kiss the person next to you and you ride the stutter-step of your heartbeat knowing for that one moment in time you have become a living part of the Sydney skyline. Be you a Yank, a Brit, or a Scot in blood you are now an Aussie in spirit. The entirety of your being is a pause.

And too soon, you cross and descend. You shed the jumpsuit, say goodbye to your group, and you leave. Your exit is as anticlimactic as you would hope. And hand in hand, you take to the street, turn the corner, and find the perfect pub. You grab a table outside and finally let go of your breath. And when the beer comes it is cold and tastes like everything wonderful you ever knew.