The Weight of Water

Time is not a line. It is a pool. We stand at the edge, watching the ripples move outward, trying to catch the shape of a moment before it dissolves into the next. Children know this better than we do. They do not measure the seconds. They simply inhabit the spray, the sudden cold, the blur of movement that defies the stillness of the air. We spend our lives trying to freeze the water, to hold the motion in our hands, forgetting that to hold it is to lose it. The blur is the truth. The clarity is only a ghost we chase to feel safe. When the water settles, the silence that follows is heavier than the noise. We are left with the dampness on our skin and the memory of a pulse that has already moved on. What remains when the fountain stops?

Jim Alonzo has captured this fleeting rhythm in his work titled The Bratpack in Action. He allows the motion to breathe, leaving the edges soft and uncertain. Does the water hold the children, or do they hold the water?