July 24, 2008
Man on Wire
Two years before I was born Phillipe Petit walked a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center. My father looked up from his coffee through his kitchen window to see the silhouette of a man suspended between the towers. In New York tonight is the premiere of the movie, Man on Wire, about Phillipe Petit and his unbelievable 45 minutes spent in the void.
Well, yes and no. Of course the very first step, as you can imagine, was a giant first step. But a few moments during those crossings I remember perfectly. But that first step was a giant moment for me: I was finally stepping in to my dream. So I remember that vividly. And at some point I stopped on the wire and I sat down, and I looked down all the way – a 1/4 mile to the empty plaza below – and I stopped and saw the crowd gathering around that plaza. Yes, I remember very well many, many moments in those 45 minutes.
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6 Responses to “Man on Wire”
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Mordicai Gerstein wrote and illustrated a kids’ book about it: The Man Who Walked Between the Towers.
Sean, that’s a wonderful recollection from your father.
Sean, not to detract from Sheila’s comment of the beauty of your father’s recollection. I can’t imagine having that story in repertoire, what a fabulous tale to be able to share first person.
Further, I can’t imagine being able to stand anywhere near the edge of this precipice, let alone stepping over onto a wire to balance for 45 minutes. Let alone in those pants. I imagine the wind whipping the sails of those bell-bottoms until he could scarce tell whether he’d find his next footfall or be tossed and tumble the quarter-mile down before he’d surely find solid footing again.
I’ll have to see this film, though I’m sure I’ll squeal and cover my eyes for most of it.
The first step is the hardest.
I’ve not done as much climbing as I’d like, and it’s altogether because I have an altitude ceiling (like early airplanes). But I remember one of my first climbs, a fourteener out in Colorado. And I had to walk a tumbled tree over a rushing body of water. And I guess it wasn’t a dinky thing; one of my companions, who’d done some serious Himalayan and Andean climbs, was going all funny about it.
But I took that first step and didn’t pause and damn if I didn’t make it across.
Walking a wire between the two towers, now . . .
that makes the souls of my feet burn
are they separately ontologically inhabited?