Paradox.
If I had to choose a word for life today, this would be it.
Paradox.
For everything that is alive seems to be bound to this inescapable – and so very elusive -balance between two (apparently) opposite extremes. The fact that we must not run around in fear of losing opportunities and the truth about… Well… Uniqueness.
And there it is… Paradox. Yet… Somewhere in the middle, there seems to be a sweet spot, a form of perfection, a genius, per se, that keeps escaping me – for I am just one more limited, imperfect human searching for the infinite while I must, also, conform to limitations.
And as I think upon that and prepare to go out into to the world and live the best day I can menage, I look at this photo I took a year ago and realize how it almost didn’t happen… And how it (probably) never will… again.
The way the sun came down on that statue (my favorite one, the one that represents autumn), like a divine shower of light. The angles. The visual poetry of it… Breathtaking. I took one look at that scene and it hit me…
This is one of those moments. I must seize it. Run, Flávia, run – I told myself. Because I had only a tiny fraction of time. An extremely narrow window of opportunity that would close within seconds. And so, in that moment, I was able to listen. To follow through. To give my best shot despite the fear of it. Yes, fear! Because… Let’s be very honest for a second… What is more painful than not having what you want?…
I think you know the answer to that. Yes… What is more painful, a lot more is…
To almost have it!
To allow yourself to believe that the thing you want – or see or desire or love… that vision of a dreamlike version of your own universe… whatever that might look like to you in a moment of your life experience… To allow yourself to go for it, nearly touch it and… then… feel it drifting away from you… There are no words to describe, fully, the terror this notion can impose on us – though, mostly, in such a unconscious way that we are able, for the majority of time, to go about our lives disguising this fear as “laziness”, “caution” , “procrastination” or other, less dramatic, feelings. I know how that goes… I have done it myself. Many, many times.
But not on that day.
On that day, for some reason, I was more awake, faster, braver.
On that day, I exposed myself to wanting really bad to capture that heavenly image on camera, so that I could always remember what it felt like. And so I ran. I angled. I took a shot. And… I got it!
A couple of seconds later, there was no light to be seen there. The window had closed.
It’s been precisely one year since I took this photo. I still go into that park almost everyday. At that same time. And I always look at that very same spot to see if the light will come again.
It hasn’t yet…
It was… Unique.