Locking love
A love lock is a padlock that couples attach to a bridge, fence, gate, or other public fixture to symbolize their love. Its key is thrown away (often into a nearby river) to symbolize unbreakable love. Ugh. Who came up with this idea?
The history of love locks dates back at least 100 years to a Serbian tale from World War l. Supposedly, a local schoolmistress named Nada fell in love with a Serbian officer named Relja. After they committed to each other, Relja went to war in Greece where he fell in love with a local woman and broke off his engagement to Nada who, consequently, died from heartbreak.
Young women, wanting to protect their own loves, started writing down their names with the names of their loved ones on padlocks and affixing them to the railings of the bridge where Nada and Relja used to meet.
Today, largely due to social media and romantic aspirations, the sheer number of locks being attached to bridges and landmarks has become a rather rusty and weighty problem, causing safety concerns and vandalism.
Earlier this month, Grand Canyon National Park warned guests against attaching love locks. Aside from rules against littering and graffiti, the keys which are thrown away are often eaten by endangered California condors and pose a serious health hazard to them.
Some solutions are more creative than others. In Tampere, Finland, in 2012, two artists removed hundreds of love locks from Patosilta Bridge and melted the locks into a work of art, a 150 kg cube called One Love.
The strange ritual of attaching a lock to something to memorialize true love is really quite ironic. The best love, after all, is one that is freely chosen — not forced or overbearing. Real, true love never needs to be publicized or self-proclaimed. It is more like the water moving beneath these bridges — sometimes raging, sometimes a quiet trickle, but always flowing in the same direction.
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Photos courtesy: Petar Milosevic, Jin Wu.