The Weight of Gravity
In the physics of childhood, gravity is not a law to be obeyed, but a suggestion to be ignored. We spend our early years testing the limits of our own buoyancy, convinced that if we run fast enough or jump high enough, we might just leave the earth behind. There is a profound, unstudied trust in that leap—a belief that the air will hold us, or that the water will rise to meet us, or that the ground will be there to catch our fall. As we age, we trade this kinetic faith for a more cautious, measured existence. We learn the names of forces and the consequences of momentum. We stop throwing ourselves into the unknown because we have become too aware of the landing. Yet, the memory of that weightlessness remains, a phantom limb of the spirit, aching for the moment when the body forgets its own heaviness and simply lets go. What would it feel like to surrender to the air once more, without checking to see if the earth is still waiting?
Ryszard Wierzbicki has captured this exact surrender in his image titled Water Run. It is a reminder of the time when we were all capable of such beautiful, reckless flight. Does it make you want to jump, too?
