The Ghost of a Breath
We are all composed of layers, like the silt at the bottom of a riverbed, stirred by the passing of time. Sometimes, the world moves too quickly for us to hold onto its edges, and we become mere blurs in the periphery of our own lives. It is a strange, hollow ache—to be present in a place yet feel as though you are only a whisper of smoke, drifting through a doorway that has already closed. We leave behind the residue of our movement, the faint heat of a palm against a table, the echo of a footfall on stone. Is it possible that we are most ourselves when we are not entirely solid? Perhaps the truth of a person is not found in the sharp lines of their face, but in the way they dissolve into the air around them, leaving behind only the rhythm of their passing. If you were to stand perfectly still while the world rushed by, would you finally see the shape of your own shadow?
Liesl Cheney has captured this fleeting, ethereal quality in her work titled Secrets of the Soul. It reminds me that even in the busiest of places, we are all just ghosts searching for a moment of stillness. Does this image make you feel like a spectator or a part of the dance?
