a bridge

“You need a bridge,” he said. “To get you from one place to another.”

My husband says he’s only here on earth to think up ideas for other people to use, since he claims his own ideas never go anywhere. That was all he said, pretty much, “You need a bridge.” And that bridges are useful. Musicians use them. Builders use them. I used one, symbolically, I suppose. And it worked.

It was just the word, “bridge,” that triggered the memory of this bridge we used to play on when we were little. It was a covered bridge over a creek, and we used to climb up onto the side of it, play small pranks on the cars passing by, like wouldn’t it be so funny if you hung over the side with your butt up in the air?

We were ten 😉

But what bridged me from chapter one to chapter two, where I was hopelessly stuck in the fog, was not the bridge at all, but the childhood memory that was sparked from the word “bridge.” A childhood memory, and the scene I ended up writing had absolutely nothing to do with a bridge of the literal or figurative variety. But just the word got me from one place to another.

I wonder what other words might be useful sparks to use when we’re stuck in the fog? It would be nice to build up an arsenal of these useful triggers. Bridges, to get us from one place to another.

Thanks, hubby! Brilliant! 🙂