The Space Between Steps

I stood at the edge of the subway platform this morning, watching the gap between the concrete and the train. It was only a few inches, but it felt like a canyon. I hesitated for a second, my foot hovering in the air, feeling that strange, sudden weight of gravity. We spend so much of our lives trying to keep our feet firmly on the ground, measuring every step, checking for stability, and avoiding the unknown. But there is a specific kind of freedom in the moment of suspension—that tiny fraction of time when you have already let go of where you were, but you haven’t yet arrived at where you are going. It is a terrifying, weightless place. We are taught to fear the fall, but perhaps we should be more concerned with the fear of never leaving the ledge at all. What would happen if we trusted the air to hold us, just for a heartbeat, before we landed on the other side?

Fidan Nazim Qizi has captured this exact feeling of suspension in her beautiful image titled Leap. It reminds me that sometimes the most important part of a journey is the moment we choose to leave the ground. Does this image make you want to jump, or does it make you want to hold on tighter?