The title of To the vertigo refers to the vertigo of the summits and love. In both cases, the cliff is very close. The preposition “to” is a homage to the excess and, at the same time, indicates an unrestrainable movement toward the destruction which defines the passion. Despite the risk and its final destructive power, a passionate man, instead of braking, accelerates. As a victim, he is faithful to his addiction. The things he most desires (the mountains, an intimate relationship) will raise him to the skies and provide him sublime moments. Nevertheless, he will dearly pay for it.
« Drug in Russian means ‘friend’, and in English, ‘drug’,” says Irena Besikova.
Christophe Huet: Les Revenants
To the Vertigo (fragments of the chapters “The island thawed” and “White Sky”):“It was the first time that she cursed to be an athlete, that she realized that climbing was a drug that made her much harm, detached her from everybody, made her a strange and obsessive person. Her way of life was abnormal, cruel, misguided. The mountains possess her, they became her blinding temptation. She was ruined by them, she renounced everything for them, gave them her passion robbed from her friends and lovers. It was a criminal vice, sterile; it was always her vertigo that demanded more and more.”
“You’re my drug, my friend. I need you, I’m hooked on you, I am constantly thinking of you, I cannot exist without you.”
Xavier Macià: “The Vertigo” (2013)
You would do well to leave,
you’re still on time.
Then
it’ll be too late.Why
this desire
that’s hurting you,
to dig
deeper and deeper?It won’t work.
Let it be.There are wounds
that cannot be closed,
in a simple way,
and we should learn to love them.Forget.
Your trip
doesn’t lead anywhere.
When you arrive,
you won’t have anything.True, you’ll be another one,
not a better or a worse one.
Just another one.But, at what price?
You can lose everything,
you know.Listen to your heart,
that won’t hurt you and knows
the angles of danger,
the density of crying,
the vast depth of grief.
Listen to your heart.All right,
if that’s what you want,head toward the abyss.