About six weeks ago, I was sitting at a friend's apartment enjoying a lilac-scented breeze blowing through their sunny second floor windows. Late afternoon, dinner and friends coming together. Amazing homemade guacamole (with red onion — great addition!), a coriander-infused cold beer (interesting) and easy conversation rolling from one subject to another. On the south wall of their living room is a framed poster of the New Yorker magazine cover art from September 11, 2006. An artistic and interesting cover, regardless of whether you understand the significance of it or not. It's an almost all black and white depiction of a man walking skillfully holding a long balancing pole. As such, you assume the presence of a tightrope, but none is to be seen, and you assume the presence of anchors, but again, none are to be seen. The reason? The cover served as the magazine's five year anniversary remembrance of all that was lost on September 11, 2001. It artfully used Philippe Petit's unauthorized tightrope walk between the 111th floors of the Twin Towers on August 7, 1974, removed the towers, removed the rope, and reminded us of what can disappear into thin air.
Philippe Petit calls himself a tightrope artist and a world-class pickpocket. He's been quoted as saying, "I am someone who lives in the clouds and have no respect for the way humanity organizes society on earth. I don’t have a bank account, don’t have a car, don’t have a little box full of money." He is a life-long street performer and in 1974, he became, as the New York Post describes, "one of New York's most beloved curiosities." He has been interviewed hundreds of times, books have been written about him and in 2009, the documentary chronicling his famous walk, "Man on a Wire" (http://manonwire.com), won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. Today, he is a curiosity still, but a powerful voice for independent, artistic thinking and for choosing to live a singularly unique life.
Since laying my eyes on that poster, Petit has been on my mind. I find it wildly interesting that the New Yorker brilliantly chose him as a beacon of remembrance. The visual depiction is profound, no doubt, and maybe a little obvious, but I think ultimately his endeavor is a powerful example of the indelible grace of one individual soul, of 3,000+ souls. Six years of planning and dreaming for 45 minutes 110 stories off the ground, dancing across the wire. I think his act reminds us that there is profound value in the manifestation of the individual soul. A powerful subtext to the visual used by the New Yorker.
Also since that sunny Sunday evening, the hosts, my friends, have also been on my mind. Shortly after that dinner, they shared with me the profound struggle that they are now engaged in. They are battling time, opinions, treatments and physical and mental exhaustion, and a host of other things I can't even wrap my brain around. I am struck by the similarities between the artwork on their wall, and their battle. An invisible tightrope, a unknown path. When I think of them, I am reminded that you cannot choose timing and fate, yet these are hugely defining forces in our lives. I imagine they are trying not to fight it, but to challenge themselves to learn how to live boldly with what is in front of them and be fearless about the outcome. To walk that tightrope with confidence and verve. Honestly, I don't have to imagine it, I know it to be true. They are soulful and strong, methodical and wise, and I know they are tapping into each other's energy to face all that is now their new "normal." I deeply admire them as individuals and as a couple. What I find incredibly fascinating about fate is that Cancer (capital 'C') might have always been lurking in their future, but fate brought these two individual souls together to face it as a united front. I am holding onto that thought, because I want to, and have to, believe that there are slivers of good that can be embraced when trying to boldly challenge yourself to dance across a tightrope to the other side.
"To me, its really so simple, that life should be lived on the edge. You have to exercise rebellion. To refuse to tape yourself to the rules...to see every day, every year, every idea as a true challenge. Then you will live your life on the tightrope." - Philippe Petit
Man On Wire -- my favorite part, beside his grins and smirks as he danced across the sky, was when he swiped the cop's wristwatch off his wrist as said cop was arresting him in Australia. What a grand caper in NY in 1974. I remember that day. What I didn't know was that he stole away with some wild woman who grabbed him upon his release and thrashed around with him on her water bed. Now SHE'S someone I'd like to meet.
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