La Voz de Galicia – June 6, 2025 →
Every time I walk by there, I think about how hard it would be for me to do what they do: leap into the void on a flying trapeze. They’re outdoors, on the roof of Pier 40 on the Hudson River, and every afternoon, during my walk along the river, I see them flying through the air, and I watch them from below like a little girl, amazed by something that seems impossible. The people up there belong to the Circus Academy of New York, which offers flying trapeze classes to beginners of all ages. And even though I’m aware I could never even imagine myself up there, sometimes I dream that I jump, that I fly from one bar to another—until suddenly I wake up in my bed with my arms raised, gripping an invisible trapeze, with the feeling of gliding lightly above the things we know to be heavy.
Lately, I dream about it a lot, and even though I’ve never found myself in a situation like that, during the dream I feel a kind of freedom that I imagine is similar to what those who actually dare to launch themselves on the flying trapeze must feel… And it’s curious to think about it, because for me, the very idea of doing it (outside the inexplicable world of dreams) fills me with fear, and probably, if I were in that situation, I’d freeze completely. But here and now, in the middle of a political moment that constantly feeds a culture of fear (and that no one knows where it will lead us), I suddenly feel the inner urge to swing on a flying trapeze… And then I think about the kinds of fears we all live with—the ones we impose on ourselves, and the ones imposed on us—and I return to the image of the trapeze, and to the hope that, whatever happens, if we fall into the void, may there be a net to help us not completely fall apart.
