Bridges of Madison County

- By Robert James Waller

“So here I am walking around with another person inside of me. Though I think I put it better the day we parted when I said there is a third person we have created from the two of us. And I am stalked now by that other entity.”

I read “Bridges of Madison county” last night. It is a small novel and it is just simply fabulous. There were a few words that were just not words but pricks in your soul. A pure ecstasy - that is what the book left me feeling. I saw the movie first – Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood, both portrayed their characters beautifully. But, words have a way for me, they convey beyond their meaning and they possess me in a way nothing else can and hence I fell in love with the novel more than the movie. Though the style of writing or the concept of love has not been as authoritatively conveyed as Ayn Rand, the feeling of being in love and the feeling of longing and the feeling of romance has been beautifully portrayed. (It is not a comparison of styles of the authors, since both conveyed a completely different concept all together.)

Attempting to define love is like trying to imitate Shakespeare, close to impossible, but one cannot refrain themselves. I already tried and I know I failed and attempting again might be commendably catastrophic. That being very candid of me, I am humbled by these authors who can perceive the thought and can portray it in a way that echo my feelings. (Laurels to the author and claps to me too :D, well, let me take a piece of their pie, hmpf!)

Living in an age where insecurity is the word that creeps in every minute, seeing love has become a myth that folklore sing, forget about feeling it. Sometimes I wonder, if there is love in this world, other than rotten selfishness. But then, again, I come across these writings and think, there exists love somewhere, if I open my eyes to see it and stretch my arms to embrace it. Lucky are those who feel it.

This is a story of compassion and longing between a Nat Geo photographer and a farmer’s wife. Like any other romances, this novel encompasses passion in its true sense and dives you into a world of hope and despair, just as every love story does. Nat Geo photographer, Robert Kincaid, travels all the way to Madison County, Iowa to do a story on covered bridges. Those bridges that mean nothing to people who live there, but in the hands of a photographer who MAKES the photos, they are something else all together, affirming the phrase, “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder”. Having temporarily lost his way, he drives into the driveway of Francesca Johnson, a farmer’s wife, whose family is in Illinois state fair for the week. Taking a moment to catch his breath and to admire the beauty of the simple figure clad in jeans and a cotton shirt, he steps out of his car to ask for the direction to the covered bridge. While walking down the drive way barefoot and unhurried, Francesca takes a moment to study the person and to brace the flutter in her belly. Answering the question that it is not far away, she surprises herself by saying that she would be glad to show the bridge herself, if he wants it. Flabbergasted, yet recovering fast, Robert acknowledged the offer and appreciated it, much to her delight. Thus, began a journey into the land of passion and lust and love.

“Modest intimacy descended upon the kitchen. It came, somehow, from the cooking. Fixing supper for a stranger, with him chopping turnips and, therefore, distance, beside you, removed some of the strangeness. And with the loss of strangeness, there was space for intimacy.” Amazing how a simple invitation can turn out into something more than a casual conversation. Before the animal instinct takes over, the human nicety of conversation… he spoke of his trips, art and poetry and she spoke of her life in Italy and her life as a farmer’s wife, confessing finally the truth she buried deep within her, for her family. Bidding a farewell, he left and she already looks forward for another day.

"Jesus," he said softly. All of the feelings, all of the searching and reflecting, a lifetime of feeling and searching and reflecting, came together at that moment. And he fell in love with Francesca Johnson, farmer's wife, of Madison County, Iowa, long ago from Naples.

The simple things hold meaning, the unnoticed things were noticed, suddenly the perception of human mind changes, from mere courtesy to lust. Dressing for dinner, which turns into a whirlwind - entwining two souls in ecstasy and changing their lives forever, forgetting the world and living for that moment in pure and exquisite passion. Whispers of love, warm caresses filling them up in the heat of the moment, telling their fondest dreams and creating a world of their own, Francesca and Robert Kincaid begin a journey that day, in the aftermath of their passion.

"What are we going to do?" he said.
She was silent, torn‐apart silent. Then, "I don't know," softly.
Torn between her responsibilities and her love, she chooses an alternative that is never easy. To nurture her love to the one man she loved, day after day until she could be his, in ashes.

"As much as I want you and want to be with you and part of you, I can't tearmyself away from the realness of my responsibilities. If you force me, physically or mentally, to go with you, as I said earlier, I cannot fight that. I don't have the strength, given my feelings for you. In spite of what I said about not taking the road away from you, I'd go because of my own selfish wanting of you. But please don't make me. Don't make me give this up, my responsibilities. I cannot do that and live with the thought of it. If I did leave now, those thoughts would turn me into something other than the woman you have come to love."

With the decision taken, they part with heavy hearts, each knowing that they would be haunted forever. Though there were many women before Francesca, Robert Kincaid never lay eyes on another woman again, not as some vow of celibacy, but because he simply was uninterested. And despite executing her responsibilities as a wife of a farmer and mother of two children, Francesca, thought about him. Love can exist in the heart and can find no means of expression, yet can fulfil us in a way nothing else can.

After her husband’s death, Francesca tried reaching Kincaid once, though unsuccessfully. She receives a parcel from his attorney’s after his death, the memories of their love and a strange request that his ashes be scattered at the Roseman Bridge – the uncovered bridge that brought him all the way from Washington to Iowa, where he met her. On her birthday, every year, it is a part of her annual ritual, to re-visit those memories in her mind’s eyes, every single moment – from the car in the drive way to the painful parting…

Finally, her kids could understand her strange request of her ashes to be scattered from the Roseman bridge. She wanted to give herself to him – in eternity. “I gave my family my life; I gave Robert Kincaid what was left of me.”

“In a universe of ambiguity, this kind of certainty comes only once, and never again, no matter how many lifetimes you live."

Love happens once and sometimes it does not survive the test of times or the responsibilities, but, love is within you forever. Walking into another relation or living with another person – all these are material comforts, but love that touches the soul, lasts through times immortal and that is the true meaning of commitment which cannot be defined by a thread or a ring.

A book that left me overwhelmed.