Every morning there seems to be fresh bird feathers on the balcony, which I find a bit weird. I saw one leaf fall from a tree today, it’s the beginning of autumn and I left Australia on the cusp of spring. How do you come to understand subtle seasonal changes when you land in a place from the exact opposite side of the world? I opened an exhibition in Melbourne just as I was leaving. While making it I was thinking alot about falling, actually two things that have a tendency to fall from the sky; feathers and leaves. I haven’t really thought much about falling until this year. Today was my birthday I turned 33. I took a walk along the river with a vague plan of following a trail to a waterfall. As I was walking under a bridge along the river, someone above me on a footbridge began to throw single sheets of newspaper over the edge. They floated down and landed in the river one by one.
Earlier last week I watched someone in a car drop tiny bits of ripped up paper out of their car window. The bits scattered on to the road.
Climate change is increasing air/wind activity in the upper atmosphere (article
here). Planes have statistically become more likely to encounter turbulence during long haul flights. Turbulence feels like uncontrollable falling, I had it for most of the flight over here. My anxiety purrs along with the engines. I remember a bit in a Wim Wenders film I watched maybe 13 years ago... while scaling a tall billboard, a character in the film said
I'm not afraid of heights, I’m afraid of falling.
