Let The Right One In
I’m not going to the movies. I haven’t been to cinema lately and this has a reason. I lost my faith in movies. You might think I’m a deceiver, because I give up on something that brought us together, something that mostly means your life. I feel the same. I don’t understand how I ended up here. I’m crying for the urge to go and see a film. I’m crying for the joy of distracting my attention for at least 90 minutes. Those hours watching movies with you are carved into my memory as the happiest times of my life. And now it’s over.
The recognition came out of the blue, exactly the same way as my fear of flying. I already lost counting how many times I travelled by plane - as you lost counting your marathons. Each time I enjoyed flying: I loved the heavenly view from the small window and I watched with amazment the sharp wings as they cut the clouds gently into halves. It was only a second when everything changed: the plane seemed to be out of balance for a moment. That was the moment when I lost my faith in flying regardless how much time I had spent in the sky before. The fear overcame my courage. It conquered so simply as if it had been always like that.
Since then every flight is a struggle. After the plane leaves the ground, I cannot stop thinking about falling. I try to convince myself that the chance of falling is so slight, but I know that I repeat this only for my own deception. This is the only thing I can think about. I hold my pen strong hoping I have words that save me from this fear. The truth is that it’s not the falling itself I’m afraid of. It’s not the fear from the unexpected, the chaos, the pain. What I’m afraid of is that before we start falling someone reveals my secret: I use the plane without believing in flying. The passengers in their seats around me remind me of cinema: the sacred place where I can only enter as an atheist.
This tiresome and unreasonable fear abandons me only when I feel the ground under my feet again. I’m so excited that I would like to kneel down and kiss the concrete of the airport. Such triumph of gravity is frightening, though. How is it possible that this heavy vehicle is able to elevate me, carry me along even if I don’t believe in it? If it had been according to my faith, we should have already fallen. Does that mean it’s completely indifferent what I believe in? You could say that if I understood how the plane functions, I would believe in flying again. I know that I wouldn’t find relief even among the smallest parts of the plane. If there is magic, that magic lies in other dimensions.
I take some steps ahead. Each step involves direct contact with the Earth. My soles absorb the energy from the welcoming ground. I cannot wait to devote a long prayer to this hard material in my running shoes. The planes which appear in the sky while I run in the park seem to be natural accessories of the scenery: my reality. Standing on the ground, I feel safe and I feel free as a bird. This is the place where I understand: what allows me to fly again and again is not my fear of flying, but my fierce, unquestionable trust in earth. When I sit on the plane, it’s gravity I believe in. When I’m in the cinema, it’s reality I praise. I love my down-to-earth reality beyond all. I only let the right ones in.
The recognition came out of the blue, exactly the same way as my fear of flying. I already lost counting how many times I travelled by plane - as you lost counting your marathons. Each time I enjoyed flying: I loved the heavenly view from the small window and I watched with amazment the sharp wings as they cut the clouds gently into halves. It was only a second when everything changed: the plane seemed to be out of balance for a moment. That was the moment when I lost my faith in flying regardless how much time I had spent in the sky before. The fear overcame my courage. It conquered so simply as if it had been always like that.
Since then every flight is a struggle. After the plane leaves the ground, I cannot stop thinking about falling. I try to convince myself that the chance of falling is so slight, but I know that I repeat this only for my own deception. This is the only thing I can think about. I hold my pen strong hoping I have words that save me from this fear. The truth is that it’s not the falling itself I’m afraid of. It’s not the fear from the unexpected, the chaos, the pain. What I’m afraid of is that before we start falling someone reveals my secret: I use the plane without believing in flying. The passengers in their seats around me remind me of cinema: the sacred place where I can only enter as an atheist.
This tiresome and unreasonable fear abandons me only when I feel the ground under my feet again. I’m so excited that I would like to kneel down and kiss the concrete of the airport. Such triumph of gravity is frightening, though. How is it possible that this heavy vehicle is able to elevate me, carry me along even if I don’t believe in it? If it had been according to my faith, we should have already fallen. Does that mean it’s completely indifferent what I believe in? You could say that if I understood how the plane functions, I would believe in flying again. I know that I wouldn’t find relief even among the smallest parts of the plane. If there is magic, that magic lies in other dimensions.
I take some steps ahead. Each step involves direct contact with the Earth. My soles absorb the energy from the welcoming ground. I cannot wait to devote a long prayer to this hard material in my running shoes. The planes which appear in the sky while I run in the park seem to be natural accessories of the scenery: my reality. Standing on the ground, I feel safe and I feel free as a bird. This is the place where I understand: what allows me to fly again and again is not my fear of flying, but my fierce, unquestionable trust in earth. When I sit on the plane, it’s gravity I believe in. When I’m in the cinema, it’s reality I praise. I love my down-to-earth reality beyond all. I only let the right ones in.
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