The Weight of Air

I was walking home through the park this afternoon when I saw a young boy try to jump over a puddle. He didn’t quite make it, landing right in the middle with a splash that soaked his sneakers, but he didn’t seem to mind at all. He just stood there, laughing at the water dripping off his laces. It made me realize how much of my own life is spent trying to avoid the splash. We spend so much energy calculating the distance, measuring the risk, and worrying about the landing. We forget that the joy isn’t in the successful jump, but in the brief, weightless moment when your feet leave the ground. That split second where you aren’t quite here and you aren’t quite there—you are just suspended in the air. When did we decide that being careful was more important than the thrill of the attempt? What would happen if we just jumped, regardless of the puddle?

Minh Nghia Le captured this exact feeling of weightless abandon in the image titled Serendipity. It is a beautiful reminder of what it looks like to be fully present in a single, unscripted moment. Does this image make you want to jump, too?