For all my life—till about two years ago—I’ve had vertigo. It would be most noticeable when at height*—whether in a building, on a ladder, or most memorably on mountain precipices. Typically, I felt the dizzyness and nausea could only be dispelled by leaping into the void—a bit like Yves Klein. This prompted a specific fantasy about plunging to my death from the north face of one of the western fells in the English Lake District.
Typical of fantasies, this one is beset with impracticalities. One irony is that my descent would only take place in old age when life had otherwise become intolerable, and therefore likely that I wouldn’t be fit enough to scale the cliff—at least not unaided. The other irony is that the particular cliff I have in mind probably isn’t sufficiently vertical to allow much ‘flight’. Nevertheless, I want to keep it.
My photograph is currently in the planning stage, and will hopefully be completed in 2021.
*In the years preceding what now seems like a cure, I would also find myself nervous about cornering and going downhill on my bicycle, thus making it seem unequivocally vertigo, rather than the alternative diagnosis a phobia of heights.
My photograph is currently in the planning stage, and will hopefully be completed in 2021.
*In the years preceding what now seems like a cure, I would also find myself nervous about cornering and going downhill on my bicycle, thus making it seem unequivocally vertigo, rather than the alternative diagnosis a phobia of heights.