In 2014, I attended the first annual Iceland Writers Retreat. At the time, I was contemplating leaving my day job for a freelance writing career. Walking in the natural area around Perlan, I saw this bridge jutting out from the path, not appearing to connect to anything on the other side. It was so rickety-looking, I wasn’t even sure if it was meant to be walked on. It seemed like a powerful, and somewhat frightening metaphor for my present circumstances.
I did not walk on the rickety, open-ended bridge. I didn’t want to be the dumb tourist who destroyed an art piece, or the dumb tourist who fell and needed rescue from a natural area inside the city. So I stayed on the path, which soon switched back below the bridge. From the lower path, the bridge looked like this:
I did not go back to cross the bridge. But I did go home and quit my day job.
