Life is a balancing act

life is a balancing act

and to keep from crashing

fatally to the ground

we must practice often

falling, bruised we sit up

broken we rise

and eventually step

out again...

to live.

-tkaeu

Phillipe Petit...courageous, crazy, amazing moments...watching him balance in extremes...

i remember the first time i heard of him...his story was part of the history of New York City dvd collection i watched through Netflix a few years ago...hearing his passionate connection to this time and space event and watching him "perform" on the wire, between the twin towers, myself, for the first time, i cried...

and was inspired...the visuals of him on the wire between the twin towers sent shivers down my spine...

and when the visual reminders of his historical escapade, the world trade center towers, were destroyed, obliterating the lives of so many...i can sense just a tiny bit of the shocking loss that followed...such an unexpected turn of events...relationships torn into bits and pieces literally (it is noteworthy to me that it was twenty-seven years between the triumphant tight wire walk between the towers and the tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001)...the irony of life.

and then the movie Man on a Wire came out...with all the details-the good and the bad of Phillipe Petit and what led up to the event on August 7, 1974...he is far from perfect as a man, but his courage, tenacity and creative, wacky genius lifts me....and actually reversed a domino effect that turned the WTC from financial disaster to financial pillars...his is one of the great life stories.

It is amazing what occurs when we act upon our passions with grace and even, I guess, a sense of humility...how our actions can so powerfully impact the lives of others when we are in our element or using our talents, passions to their fullest extent.

Though sometimes the impact seems swallowed up in ashes and we wonder "was there ever really any purpose after all" or "what was the point of it all"...I guess some of what we do is for future generations alone to appreciate, understand and articulate.

thinking of human frailty, connectedness, humility, and brokenness, as i am today...it is good to be reminded of stories such as Phillipe Petit. Thank-you Phillipe Petit. You are one of my heroes!