The Weight of Breath

In the nineteenth century, the Montgolfier brothers believed that smoke held a secret property—a levity that could defy the heavy pull of the earth. They watched the embers rise and wondered if a man might one day tether himself to that upward ambition. It is a strange human impulse, this desire to leave the ground while remaining entirely dependent on the very air we breathe. We build vessels of silk and nylon, stitching together thin membranes to hold a heat that is both our engine and our undoing. There is a quiet, domestic labor in the maintenance of such things; the folding, the checking of lines, the securing of valves. It is the work of keeping the dream inflated, ensuring that the boundary between the solid world and the vast, thinning atmosphere remains sealed. We spend our lives managing these small, vital closures, hoping that what we have gathered inside will be enough to carry us into the blue. If the seal fails, does the dream simply deflate, or does it return us to the earth with a newfound appreciation for the weight of our own feet?

Zain Abdullah has captured this delicate tension in his image titled Closing the Parachute Valve. It is a quiet study of the human hands required to hold the sky in place. Does the act of sealing the valve feel like an ending to you, or the beginning of the ascent?