At the Exploratorium today, I was selected as one of the 3 “lucky volunteers” to help destroy the exhibit aptly named On the Edge of Falling.

That is, they were handing out popsicle sticks and only three of them had a red dot.

I nervously walked in, thinking that I should have given the reins to a younger kid, but no I wanted to destroy the sphere made out of wooden blocks all carefully held together by geometry and physics. No fasteners, no glue, nothing. Like a sphere made out of jenga pieces. I wanted to run into the sphere to make it fall apart, but of course, I would have blocks hit my head.

It had already survived a 3.1 earthquake and the artist said it was time to…fall. Especially since it’s in a place like the exploratorium where things are moving, completed, experimented, not to be looked at.

I felt slightly silly as I stood there, the oldest over the threshold. A staff member asked for our name and introduced us to the crowd. She gave each of us a rope which was attached to a wooden block. She then had everyone count with her…3…2…1! And we watched it fall apart into pieces, making a loud clatter as it settled into large piles of wood. She said that everyone could take as many pieces as we wanted. So I got one for Shipra, one for Braden and the block that held my piece of rope. I climbed over the threshold…feeling oddly accomplished.

I am in red standing to the left.

I would just like to add how Chris was very jealous that he wasn’t there. And most of all, he wasn’t there to pull the rope. Too bad his mom was visiting this labor day weekend and she wanted to do family stuff around the bay!