The Weight of Gravity

It is 3:14 am. The house is holding its breath, and I am thinking about the things we try to keep suspended. We spend our lives fighting the inevitable pull of the earth, trying to hold onto moments that were never meant to stay still. We want to freeze the laughter, the light, the way a body moves before it hits the water. We think if we can just catch the exact second of suspension, we can keep the joy from sinking. But the water always wins. It waits for the splash, for the return to the surface, for the inevitable collapse of the pose. We are terrified of the landing, so we live in the air, pretending that gravity is a choice we can opt out of. We are all just falling, really. We are just waiting to see how much of ourselves we can keep dry before the inevitable immersion takes us under.

Ahmed Galal has captured this fleeting suspension in his photograph titled Freeze. It reminds me that even the most perfect, weightless moments are only a prelude to the splash. Do you ever wonder what happens the second after the stillness ends?