Commentary with Heather Riley

This past weekend, I went to the Nantucket Film Festival…I have a dream to someday direct a short film and submit it to the festival circuit. So, my first step in accomplishing this is to check out the festival scene, right? So off I go to the Nantucket Film Festival. Alone. That in and of itself is conquering one of my fears- the whole being alone thing. Lots of Nantuckety people were there, strolling along, laughing with friends, sipping Chardonnay and buying pink and green outfits, and there I was. Alone. It was actually kind of refreshing. I haven’t been anywhere with my arms swinging in a long time. My thoughts were my own and they were uninterrupted. Neat. Since conquering my first fear went so well, I decided to conquer another, more serious fear of mine. Heights. One of the films in the festival was a documentary called “Man On Wire” about a French guy who, in 1974, strung a high wire from one World Trade Center to the other and danced back and forth for almost an hour before being arrested by NYPD. Astonishing, right? He first decided to do it when he was just a kid and he saw an illustration of the plans for the World Trade Center in a magazine. The buildings didn’t even exist yet. He ripped out the page from the magazine and a dream was born. A dozen or so years later he was a quarter mile up in the air with no net, no harness, no tether. Just him and the open sky. It was absolutely breathtaking… I have an insane fear of heights. I have nightmares about people making me or one of my children walk around the perimeter of a skyscraper. My palms sweat just to look out the window of a highrise. And once I freaked out (and I do mean freaked out) while hiking in Oregon after walking along what I would call a ledge with a big drop next to it. (Sidenote: My sister claims an old lady with a walker was also “hiking the ledge” and doing just fine, but it was STEEP man. Real steep. I was crying and hyperventilating- the whole nine yards- until at last my group had to leave me behind with only my husband and our 11-month old baby strapped to his back. I wanted to hike the 25 miles the other way around to avoid going back the same way, but my husband convinced me to go back via the ledge. I clung to him and frantically counted out loud- really loudly- and now I have a reputation as a crazy person in the Northern Oregon region of the United States. Oh, well. Win some, lose some. Nothing like that happened on Nantucket.)

Back to the movie. Please see it. It is truly an extraordinary film. Whether or not you are afraid of heights you will gasp when he talks about the moment he made the decision to shift his weight from the building to the tightrope. Just try that for a moment. Try to visualize being him at the top of the World Trade Center and that moment of leaving the building and going out on the wire. Frightening, incredible, invigorating, other-worldly. It’s all there.

The point? Step out on your own wire today. Or, if you’re not sure what your wire is yet, at least cut out a picture from a magazine to get you started.