What's with all the jumping between buildings?

I will try to avoid spoilers for Inception, Kick-Ass, and A Standing Long Jump... or at least keep them cryptic.

I've been kind of down recently. This is I'm sure a great surprise since normally I'm like a hooker in a bathtub: I have hope in my soul-- or however that goes. But it's true, I've been down. And I'm not usually a superstitious person unless I think it's funny for some reason, but I do sometimes get suspicious about the messages the universe is sending me... like when I keep seeing people jumping between buildings. Not really, thankfully, (because that would really depress the hell out of me, but it's been a surprisingly specific theme in the last month or so.

First there was A Standing Long Jump at this year's Fringe, starring a couple people I swear God put on earth to be watched in James Craven and Ali Dachis, and the magical Namir Smallwood. The standing long jump is a metaphor for those moments in life where one has to take the leap with someone, or see them pass out of our world forever. But the metaphor plays out in a couple of literal leaps from the roof of one building to another, knowing that at least somebody's going to fall short and plummet four stories to the alley below.


And then I saw Inception, which features its own leap of faith across an alley. Again, this is a leap that two people must take together, where somebody has chosen the moment and will not relinquish the agenda. This mirrors one of the leaps in A Standing Long Jump, two leapers who believe that something is possible but only once they step off the ledge... over a lover's agonized protests. There's a dream-like quality to the play and obviously to the film, a supernatural state where the impossible may be more real than the physical world... and in both to fall is to drop out of the dream and back into reality.

And then there's Kick-Ass, a mediocre film with a few memorable images. When Kick-Ass is afraid to follow Hit Girl in a leap across roof tops, it confirms what he already knew: he's failed as a superhero. Beyond the obvious, the literal leap of faith, I was struck by one other recurring theme: stepping up wasn't enough. Kick-Ass spends most of the movie posturing as a superhero and while this changes his outlook on himself and probably his life, he's hit the wall hard when he first encounters Hit Girl. I thought back to Ali and Namir in the coffee shop in A Standing Long Jump, when they step up onto the table... but later can't make the leap together.

So all that morbid failure and desire got me thinking back to the leaps I've failed to make. And occasionally those that others failed to make with me. And looking at how far it is to my neighbor's balcony. But really I'm thinking about how odd it is to look back on one's life and be aware of the things that have changed inside. And I'll tell you my love, you won't lose me again, even with a leap across the roof. Of course, you'll have to find me first.