Dancing with Giants

On the morning of August 7, 1974, when I was 8, a human being did one of the most amazing things anyone has ever done:  he danced with giants.

I vaguely remember knowing that someone had once wire-walked between the Twin Towers, but I do not remember knowing any other details.  In 2009, my daughter and I watched a documentary called "Man on Wire," and both of us were enthralled.  Philippe Petit's story is amazing, and in 2015, a movie about his historic feat, entitled "The Walk," was released in theaters. I watched this movie for the first time a couple of days ago.  While I enjoyed the documentary a bit more, this movie was beautiful to view. 

Philippe Petit experienced something with those towers that no other human, before or after, ever came close to experiencing. While never touched on directly in the movie or the documentary, the pain Philippe went through on 9-11 must have been excruciating. The actions of others destroyed the giants he had danced with, and destroyed so many other humans in the process. There always seems to be humans who love to destroy.

To me, the art of that moment in '74 is as powerful as Picasso's Guernica, or Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Philippe's ability to find trust for the towers, the steel cable, and himself, in order to perform such a dance, is beyond my imagination. I think that the reason humans continue to exist is because, while many attempts to accomplish difficult tasks fail, sometimes a human does achieve the impossible.

I find something oddly comforting in knowing that at a moment when I was 8-years-old, another human was briefly dancing with giants.