Many of the brightest threads in my tapestry of memories are woven from the slender strands of human connection—simple yet precious moments of shared humanity: a genuine smile that tugs my lip into smiling in return, an inside joke that becomes increasingly hilarious only because we're both laughing, or simply recognizing in a stranger a kindred spirit.
~Me
~Me
The story of my adventures at the Girls Only Slackline Festival isn’t complete without writing about Heather Falenski. Usually the posts I write under this heading are about the occasional, fleeting moments of human connection, often about strangers whose names I may never know. In this case, however, I was blessed to have two and a half days full of moments, camaraderie, conversation, and friendship with a person I came to admire very much.
Prior to the festival, I didn’t know Heather personally. We connected a week or two before the festival when she wrote on the event page that she was looking for someone to travel with from Prague. Given the remote and somewhat difficult-to-find location of the event, having a travel buddy was a huge bonus. I responded. From that brief instant message conversation, I was convinced that I would really like this girl. I felt like things were finally falling into place for the trip. Heather seemed to feel the same way: she wrote, "I love how everything just works out when you're following your heart."
For Heather though, not everything would work out the way she’d anticipated or how she would have liked. Her trip to the Czech Republic was complicated by computer glitches, missed flights, and lost luggage—very lost luggage. When I arrived, more than a full day after she had, her checked bag containing gear and clothing was still completely, utterly, distressingly lost.
Heather is an experienced highline rigger—which is very, very cool. A complete highline rig, as well as her personal highline gear, were in that missing bag—which, to a rigger especially, is very, very uncool. Though the suitcase was eventually located, what Heather had imagined for the festival—rigging and walking her own highline—wouldn’t happen. Rather than wait by herself indefinitely in a hostel near the airport for news of her suitcase’s whereabouts, she decided to make the best of it and continue on to the festival, after first picking up a few replacement essentials, of course.
How Heather handled that whole stressful mess tells a lot about her. Vivid in my memory is one particular walk down to camp from the highlines. We were passing through dappled forest sunlight, skirting the base of cliffs whose tops we could only partially see through the trees—a scene worthy of a fairytale. Heather, walking in front of me, commented on how the trip wasn’t turning out at all how she had anticipated, and then she added, with heartfelt sincerity, ‘I really feel like I’m not here for me, like my purpose for being here is to be inspired by these other girls, by their achievements and growth.’
In spite of personal disappointment and added stresses, Heather focused on everyone else, on me, on the other girls. She has a talent for celebrating others’ achievements. I was especially grateful for that on this trip. As odd as it may sound, I was so blindsided by the extraordinary success of my first highline walk that I almost failed to appreciate it. Heather not only served as a mentor providing tips, reminders, and safety checks, she also jostled me out of my shock, applauded my victories, and let me know how impressive it was what I had done. Have you ever had someone say incredibly nice things about you, and you desperately wish you had a tape recorder to capture the words so you could play it back to yourself when you’d had a rough day? That is most definitely how I felt around Heather: wishing for a recording and wishing I could see myself through her eyes.
Heather pushed me to try new things, harder things than I thought I was capable of. After I managed to “send” (successfully walk) the longline, she encouraged me to try the even longer highline, telling me I would be limiting myself to work on the intermediate highline instead of going straight to that most difficult highline. It meant a lot that someone would believe in me that much—believe that there was a chance I could really walk a highline—only my second ever highline—that was three times longer than any line I’d walked on before that day. I wish I’d had as much faith in my ability to conquer that line as she did. Hopefully next time I’m on that kind of big line, with a little more faith, better remounting skills, and a few more tries, I’ll be able to accomplish the miraculous feats that Heather thought I was capable of. I left the festival with the feeling that if someone I look up to as much as Heather thinks I’m inspiring, I must have more potential than I give myself credit for.
While my impressive first highline walk is something to be proud of, some of my favorite memories of the festival are actually of tromping up—or down—the hill to and from the highlines, with Heather ahead of me, both of us chatting the whole way. We definitely had some good geek out conversations—Heather sharing her passion for rigging and rigging physics, me sharing my balance-life analogies, and for both of us all things slackline. We got so caught up in our conversation once that we may have accidentally wandered into Germany before realizing we’d overshot our camp.
I’m grateful for the time I spent with Heather at the festival, for her ability and efforts to inspire those around her to reach their full potential, as she did so selflessly for me. So many of the greatest things in life are based on the experiences we share with others, and she has a gift for forging those moments of human connection. That is an incredible gift to have.
Prior to the festival, I didn’t know Heather personally. We connected a week or two before the festival when she wrote on the event page that she was looking for someone to travel with from Prague. Given the remote and somewhat difficult-to-find location of the event, having a travel buddy was a huge bonus. I responded. From that brief instant message conversation, I was convinced that I would really like this girl. I felt like things were finally falling into place for the trip. Heather seemed to feel the same way: she wrote, "I love how everything just works out when you're following your heart."
For Heather though, not everything would work out the way she’d anticipated or how she would have liked. Her trip to the Czech Republic was complicated by computer glitches, missed flights, and lost luggage—very lost luggage. When I arrived, more than a full day after she had, her checked bag containing gear and clothing was still completely, utterly, distressingly lost.
Heather is an experienced highline rigger—which is very, very cool. A complete highline rig, as well as her personal highline gear, were in that missing bag—which, to a rigger especially, is very, very uncool. Though the suitcase was eventually located, what Heather had imagined for the festival—rigging and walking her own highline—wouldn’t happen. Rather than wait by herself indefinitely in a hostel near the airport for news of her suitcase’s whereabouts, she decided to make the best of it and continue on to the festival, after first picking up a few replacement essentials, of course.
How Heather handled that whole stressful mess tells a lot about her. Vivid in my memory is one particular walk down to camp from the highlines. We were passing through dappled forest sunlight, skirting the base of cliffs whose tops we could only partially see through the trees—a scene worthy of a fairytale. Heather, walking in front of me, commented on how the trip wasn’t turning out at all how she had anticipated, and then she added, with heartfelt sincerity, ‘I really feel like I’m not here for me, like my purpose for being here is to be inspired by these other girls, by their achievements and growth.’
In spite of personal disappointment and added stresses, Heather focused on everyone else, on me, on the other girls. She has a talent for celebrating others’ achievements. I was especially grateful for that on this trip. As odd as it may sound, I was so blindsided by the extraordinary success of my first highline walk that I almost failed to appreciate it. Heather not only served as a mentor providing tips, reminders, and safety checks, she also jostled me out of my shock, applauded my victories, and let me know how impressive it was what I had done. Have you ever had someone say incredibly nice things about you, and you desperately wish you had a tape recorder to capture the words so you could play it back to yourself when you’d had a rough day? That is most definitely how I felt around Heather: wishing for a recording and wishing I could see myself through her eyes. |
| Photo by Noraxy Delgado |
While my impressive first highline walk is something to be proud of, some of my favorite memories of the festival are actually of tromping up—or down—the hill to and from the highlines, with Heather ahead of me, both of us chatting the whole way. We definitely had some good geek out conversations—Heather sharing her passion for rigging and rigging physics, me sharing my balance-life analogies, and for both of us all things slackline. We got so caught up in our conversation once that we may have accidentally wandered into Germany before realizing we’d overshot our camp.
I’m grateful for the time I spent with Heather at the festival, for her ability and efforts to inspire those around her to reach their full potential, as she did so selflessly for me. So many of the greatest things in life are based on the experiences we share with others, and she has a gift for forging those moments of human connection. That is an incredible gift to have.
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