Resonance

I've been a lot of places but none of them is California.  Cal-leaf-for-nya.

How do you explain the inexplicable? Like it's a place that just remembering makes a smile play out across the corners of my mouth. It's not the people. It's not the tech industry. It's not the size or the shape. It's something intangible, something expansive. Something resonant, that vibrates a chord back like no other place does or can. Dalmatia was a neighboring note. Austin, a faint echoing fifth, in the triad.

There's a bridge near Seattle[1] that collapsed from vibrations. For a long time they thought (and it's still being taught) that the bridge failed from resonant frequency -- that is that the wind hit the note that a bridges' steel knows how to sing and the whole bridge began dancing with such joy that it broke from its suspended moorings and fell, piecewise, into the sea below.

This has been since debunked. The bridge's undulations was, at root, caused by whiplash that was spurred by high winds passing over the solid metal side girdings. Not being aerodynamic enough. Not enough room to let the wind just pass thru caused its eventual collapse. Galloping Gerties' final ride.

I cant help but remember tho the thought of that most delightfully dancing bridge and wonder: What would it be like, to live in the most perfectly resonant place on the planet?

[1] the Tacoma Narrows