Tower of Power
mechanical musings
It leaves me awestruck on a near nightly basis. Its mass, its grandeur, its spectacle. When I go past it with Birdie on our pre-bed nighttime potty walk, I gaze up. My neck cranes as my eyes drift toward the heavens. Up is the only way to approach it. It is towering because it is, in fact, a tower. The source: a cell tower at the end of my street.
Specifically it is a guyed mast tower, as I found out through my very rudimentary research. A guyed mast tower is, according to the smartypants that lives in my computer, “a tall, slender, lattice-style structure stabilized by tensioned steel cables (guy wires) anchored to the ground, allowing it to reach extreme heights efficiently and cost-effectively for broadcasting, telecommunications (like cellular), and other wireless services by transferring wind loads and providing stability.”
Most people, at least those who care about such things, probably find the tower to be an eye sore. This giant red and white structure, a monument to man’s attempted dominance over all of nature, pierces an otherwise pristine skyline. It’s a stack of metal and flashing lights at odds with sunshine, stars, fog, clouds, snow, the sun, and the moon. It’s the kind of thing that wealthy white folks would never allow to be built in their backyards in the first place. I’m sure it lowers property values and makes people bristle at the sight.
But I love it.
I love it a lot.
When I walk by it, night after night, I feel delightfully small. My problems feel delightfully small. It’s a thing so much bigger than me. I’m reminded of how many things are bigger than me (hint: most things). Wild as it may be to say, looking at that tower gives me some of the same feelings as when I stood before the Grand Canyon. The vastness and devastating expanse make my insides tingle while quieting my nervous system. “Awe” really is the best word.
I also see the ingenuity and creativity of humankind when I look at that tower. How much history and experimentation and industry went into its creation? How many eons of homo sapiens building things, all the way back to the first caveman stacking one rock on top of another, led to this structure standing at the end of my street? One idea led to another led to another led to another brought this thing into existence and I get the pleasure of standing underneath it. Humans, for all our faults and misgivings, are pretty freaking clever.
The wind creates a tinny whistle as it blows through the guys holding up the tower. The pulsating red lights, alerting flying things of its presence, blink in unison. A steady heartbeat that travels up to the tippy top. I have the urge to hop the fence and start climbing.
I have a love-hate relationship with heights that mostly leans toward hate. I’m terrified of them, my whole body goes into panic mode at their thought, and yet they call to me. Not in a death-wish kind of way, but in a called-by-an-outside-force kind of way. A magnetism that I cannot totally explain. Given the opportunity to climb the tower at the end of my street, equipped with experts, dozens of harnesses, and every carabiner forged by man, I honestly think I would. My heart would race to the point of explosion and I would likely tap out before reaching the top, but I would do it.
Realistically, though, I never will.
Which is for the best.
According to the smartypants, radio towers typically range in height from 100-1000 feet, which is not especially helpful. Given that I’ve stood under the St. Louis Arch recently, and knowing that it is 630 feet tall (and incidentally 630 feet across), I would venture to say that my tower is between 400-500 feet. If I were willing to dive deeper into research mode, I could come up with an exact number. But knowing a thing’s height doesn’t change much.
In the meantime, I will enjoy my tower. As the Arch is the gateway to the west, my tower is a gateway to the heavens. It points in the direction of my wonderment and the eternal nature of the cosmos. May I never see it as an eye sore.