Free Ruby Unscripted by Cindy Martinusen Coloma

Sundial Bridge.
    From miles away, the massive white column of the bridge’s dial is visible, rising from the trees like an airplane tail or a ship’s sail frozen in motion. The walking bridge stretches over the wide Sacramento River, with the dial rising on the far side with thick cables in symmetric lines holding the dial to the bridge. If someone could see it from above, it really would look like one of those old Roman sundials. And it really works.
    At the summer equinox on June 21, the shadow from the dial falls in perfect alignment with the time knobs on the ground. Mom took me one year to see it. The day was filled with local groups and musicians putting on sun-related festivities: sunspot viewing through giant telescopes, sun dances, and scientific games for kids. It was pretty fun.
    But the bridge at night—that’s when it’s nearly magical in beauty.
    If you cross the bridge and go down the trail that leads beneath the bridge, the huge cables that hold the dial look like a giant violin. But only at night and from this point of view. Also, the soft green glow that comes from the translucent glass reflects off the river below. In the summer, bands play at the little Turtle Bay Café, and there’s a stillness to the diamond sky above us.
    Not everyone loved the Sundial Bridge at first. Some people made fun of it—which, when I hear it, causes anger to rise in me and I want to call those people stupid or hicks or cultural losers. I’m not sure why I need to defend the bridge—it’s a bridge! And so I remind myself that there were people against the construction of the Eiffel Tower in 1889. And what would Paris be without the Eiffel Tower? So Redding has its Sundial Bridge.
    Anyway, back to my recurring daydream, or rather night dream or rainy night dream.
    I’m at the Sundial Bridge at night when the stars are their brightest.
    The soft green glow of light comes through the frosted glass walkway.
    It’s raining.
    I’m there with him . The unknown him every girl imagines and maybe someday finds, hopefully, though I don’t see that many women with a husband who looks like him . (This worries me, I must admit.)
    My him is there with me, though I can’t see his face, but his presence is more familiar than anything that belongs to me. It’s that familiarity I feel on rare moments among family—not those times when I’m sure I’m adopted or wonder why I can’t be comfortable playing games, undistracted, and not like the black sheep of the family. Not those moments.
    But the familiarity when I can wear anything, not even look in the mirror, and laugh as loud and long as I want. Something like that kind of comfortable knowing, but even more so. He, the mystery guy, is like a part of me, part of my future, but it feels like I’ve always known him too, and that we’ve always been a part of each other. Maybe that’s where the idea of soul mates was born.
    And so, okay, I’m reasonable enough to know this mystery guy may be all a dream and might always be. But I dream it anyway.
    In the dream, we hold hands as our feet walk over the glow of soft green light going near the white railing above the rippling waters of the Sacramento River. The clouds hang low and offer the soft rain that dampens our hair and faces.
    In some renditions, we sit beneath the covered area of the Turtle Bay Café and drink coffee or cocoa or hot tea, depending on what I’m in the mood for when I’m imagining. We lean close and talk about books, movies, and philosophy while warming our hands around our cups. Or we talk through our eyes, with silent mouths, as our fingers touch each other’s.
    Maybe we run across the bridge instead of strolling, and I slip a little, a graceful slip, not my usual awkward stumble. He catches me and holds me close, breathing in the smell of my hair, and the smell of him fills my senses, and the scent that is him is also