Braced

Some evenings around five, I start crying as I commute from Mercer Island to Seattle.  At that time, if you drive west on the I-90 Bridge over Lake Washington and into the city, traffic stops completely before clearing up again.  The cars all stop to look at a man—older, usually wearing a Seahawks jersey—marching a US flag on the pedestrian side path.  Under the giant US flag is a black POW MIA flag.  I don’t know who this man is, but the way he marches the bridge is beautiful.  One hand anchors the pole and the other braces it across his chest, pointing the flags over the water.  His whole body is completely flexed with effort, from the shaking of his forearms to his rigid jaw, but somehow there is no physical struggle.  He is composed.  Even when the wind blows hard enough I can feel it knocking against my passenger door, he kneels, flag pointed determinedly over the lake, his body a triangle brace until the wind passes and he can continue marching.

I tried to tell someone about it, how it made me cry because it was beautiful.  Beautiful?  A grizzled man in old clothes marching because he probably lost someone he loved?  Grief, pain, and the actions that we do to attempt to fill some emptiness, express some emotion, are beautiful to me.

I drove by him the other night.  He was not marching the flags or waiting for a gust of wind to pass.  The flags were propped up against the railing while he screamed at the cars.  We still stopped for him.  Stared at him.  But couldn’t hear anything he had to say.

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