Connection And Reciprocity On A Blue Bridge: Join My 365-Day Peaceful Photo Challenge
DAY 255. Living with irrevocable differences and curating peace through contemplative photography.
May 14, 2025
My walk along Emmons Avenue continued to the Ocean Avenue Footbridge — a rich blue wooden span connecting Sheepshead Bay’s Emmons Avenue to Manhattan Beach’s Shore Boulevard.
There, an older couple walking hand in hand, silently communicated their companionship and relationship, made the bridge more beautiful by their passage, and directed my observations to reflections on all those who have crossed the bridge during its 145-year lifetime.
Initially built in 1880, the bridge was reconstructed in 1930 and recently upgraded, with a grant of $750,000 covering much of the work to support its continuity and reciprocity.
While a News 12 reporter hurriedly walked away from the bridge after covering its renovation, I lingered, intentionally slowing my pace further to absorb the moment — the couple sharing the gifts of each other, and a walk hand-in-hand, and the gift that ensured the bridge’s sustainability.
I recalled two beautiful insights shared by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book, The Serviceberry: the idea of storing one’s wealth “in the belly of [one’s] brother” and the Greek word oikos, which is the root for the words ecology and economy — ecology meaning the study of the house; economy means the management of the house, aka ‘the world.’
I studied this couple before me and considered how they must enrich each other’s lives and how their home must be a place of reciprocal interdependence and trust.
In our world, the systems of relationship — the goods, services, and shared experiences that keep us alive — are intertwined. Just as the blue footbridge joins two parts of Brooklyn separated by water, our lives are connected through acts of reciprocity.
In a gift economy, wealth is not measured by what we acquire and hoard but by how we freely give to one another without keeping a direct tally in return. It is a quiet trust characterized by generosity and mutuality. We give, knowing that someday, life’s abundance will find its way back to us.
Observing the couple, I felt reciprocity’s heartbeat in their gentle interaction — a receiving of care rooted in years of giving. Their connection was not a transaction like the buying and selling of market economies. It was a living art installation of sharing life’s bounty without expectation.
This slow, mindful walk on the bridge became a contemplation of connection. It reminded me that, in a world of irrevocable differences, there is priceless value and profound beauty in the relationships we forge.
Our most valuable relationships transcend the passages of distance and time and echo the principles of gift economies. They store wealth in the bellies of our brothers and sisters. Our shared experiences, much like the graceful span of the bridge, bind us together in a continuum of support, ease, love, trust, and our shared histories.
What small acts of connection and reciprocity will you nurture today?