The Weight of the Wind

To hang in the air is not the same as flying. It is a negotiation with gravity, a slow, patient argument held in the currents above the salt and the stone. We watch from the ground, tethered by our own heavy bones, and imagine that to rise is to be free. But there is a burden in the wingspan. There is the constant, grinding necessity of the updraft, the requirement to remain alert to the shifting temperature of the sky. Nothing is given. Everything is earned through the tension of muscle against the void. We mistake this struggle for grace, forgetting that the bird is merely doing what it must to survive the day. It does not know it is being watched. It does not know that its silhouette against the gray water is a story we tell ourselves about endurance. What remains when the wind finally drops and the earth demands its due?

Laria Saunders has captured this heavy grace in her image titled California Vulture. It is a study of a life lived on the edge of the sea. Does the bird feel the weight of the ocean, or only the pull of the air?