Compadre

Flying trapeze AND Nick Cave? As if those sequences weren’t enough to win a lifetime slot on my favorite film list, Wim Wenders’ 1987 cult classic Wings of Desire stokes so much more than just these twin obsessions. There could be no better inspiration to “take part” than this story of the angel Damiel (Bruno Ganz), who grows weary of observing rather than living life. Damiel renounces immortality to become a human participant in the world of risk, suffering and love. He abandons eternal sanctuary to be see and be seen, to feel and be felt. Shedding his wings, he enters the physical world -- colors appear, he bleeds and experiences coffee… imagine the ecstasy of tasting for the first time and you will know heaven has a place on earth.
Damiel finds he isn’t the first angel to become mortal. Peter Falk, cast as himself, is a fellow traveler. Another angel Cassiel (Otto Sander) wavers but chooses self-preservation over the dangers of an uncertain human condition. As invisible witnesses, angels are under no illusions about the pain that life has to offer. They are eyes wide open. But Damiel wants to be moved and he wants to move another, the lonely circus performer Marion (Solveig Dommartin), come what may.

How often do we consider what it is to be moved? How often do we let an instinct for self-defense suppress the urge to move another? This is the season of giving. Give yourself the gift of risk, fear, taste, feeling. Commit an act of daring that makes you feel alive. Declare your love in bold colors and coin wild friendships. Make your presence felt. In the film, only some children can see the angels. Make sure you’re one of them.

Song of Childhood
By Peter Handke
When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.
When the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one.
When the child was a child,
it had no opinion about anything,
had no habits,
it often sat cross-legged,
took off running,
had a cowlick in its hair,
and made no faces when photographed.
When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people.
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn’t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?
When the child was a child,
It choked on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding,
and on steamed cauliflower,
and eats all of those now, and not just because it has to.
When the child was a child,
it awoke once in a strange bed,
and now does so again and again.
Many people, then, seemed beautiful,
and now only a few do, by sheer luck.
It had visualized a clear image of Paradise,
and now can at most guess,
could not conceive of nothingness,
and shudders today at the thought.
When the child was a child,
It played with enthusiasm,
and, now, has just as much excitement as then,
but only when it concerns its work.
When the child was a child,
It was enough for it to eat an apple, … bread,
And so it is even now.
When the child was a child,
Berries filled its hand as only berries do,
and do even now,
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw,
and do even now,
it had, on every mountaintop,
the longing for a higher mountain yet,
and in every city,
the longing for an even greater city,
and that is still so,
It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees
with an elation it still has today,
has a shyness in front of strangers,
and has that even now.
It awaited the first snow,
And waits that way even now.
When the child was a child,
It threw a stick like a lance against a tree,
And it quivers there still today.

(Photo: That's me flying on a trapeze!)