A Meeting under the bridge

A special thing happened tonight when I went to turn on the lights for the penultimate time. When I was leaving the bridge store room a man approached me outside and asked if I was something to do with the project. I introduced myself and he explained that he had come all the way from Forres to see the lights being switched on. He had been following the project on the blog and wanted to come and see it for himself. I was delighted to see him and showed him inside the bridge and explained that you can actually walk from one side of the bridge to the other, inside the structure. The bridge is in fact a tunnel. I joked about the contrast between the firework display/rock concert which took place last night at the harbour - attended by what seemed like the whole of Stavanger - and my quiet light intervention powered by hand. But he didn't seem disappointed by the effect and continued to ask me questions.
This meeting made me reflect on the project as a whole: It had been my intention to make the site beneath the bridge more of a meeting place and less of a passing place, but I didn't expect it to happen in quite this manner, with me being part of that meeting. I don't know if the lights have made any difference to the space but I hope the effort to make the lights come on each evening has had some kind of impact. I have enjoyed every single meeting I have had - under the bridge and otherwise - it's been a great journey. I'm so glad I made the decision to move away from the original proposal of having pv panels and wind turbines on top of the bridge, and instead deciding on this human powered system. This project isn't about technology, it's about people. Yesterday I asked myself "what is human energy anyway"? Obviously it's kjoules, but it's also something else - it's about motivation. Hopefully this project has motivated people as others have motived me, and maybe that motivation will be carried forward in weird and wonderful ways.