Gravity and Other Promises

I spent this morning watching my neighbor’s toddler try to jump off the bottom step of their porch. He would crouch down, squeeze his eyes shut, and launch himself into the air with such absolute, reckless faith. He didn’t care about the landing or the inevitable stumble; he only cared about those two seconds where his feet weren’t touching the ground. We spend so much of our adult lives trying to keep our balance, tethered to the floor by responsibilities and the fear of falling. We forget that there is a specific kind of freedom found only when you let go of the safety of the earth. It is a terrifying, beautiful surrender to momentum. When was the last time you let yourself be suspended in the air, trusting that the world would still be there when you finally came back down to it?

Leanne Lindsay has captured this exact feeling of weightlessness in her photograph titled The Thrill of the Ride. It reminds me that sometimes we just need to let go and enjoy the rush. What does this image bring to mind for you?