You may have seen the images that recently went viral of the couple who climbed to the top of the antenna on the Empire State Building without safety equipment. Once there, the man proposed to his female partner, unfurling a banner that read: ‘When the power of love beats the love of power, the world will know peace.’ It’s a quote widely attributed to Jimi Hendrix, though it echoes an earlier sentiment expressed by former British Prime Minister William Gladstone.
The couple, Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, are Russian-born urban climbers who have spent years engaged in what’s known as rooftopping – scaling some of the world’s tallest buildings and cranes without safety gear, risking not only their lives but also arrest. (They are currently facing multiple charges in New York.)
Curious to understand what drives people to take such extraordinary risks, I watched the 2024 Netflix documentary about them, Skywalkers: A Love Story. I won’t pretend it was an easy watch. I’m scared of heights and felt dizzy just watching them inch their way up skyscrapers on a television screen. Yet my fascination outweighed my fear.
Ivan, also known as Vanya, describes an overwhelming sense of freedom at the top of tall buildings. He says that’s where he can truly breathe.
Angela’s story is different. She grew up in a circus family, learning aerial skills from her parents. After her father left her mother, who then succumbed to depression, she resolved never to depend on anyone else. She became the first female rooftopper, treating her climbs as works of art and refusing to accept what she saw as an ordinary, predictable life.
When Angela and Ivan first met, they were rivals. A joint climb changed everything, beginning a relationship that eventually led to that remarkable proposal high above New York City. In many ways, theirs is a love story built on trust. Rooftopping at this level demands a degree of faith in another person that most of us will never need. For Ivan, Angela’s safety isn’t secondary to the climb; it’s the reason the climb is possible.
But it was one comment from Angela that stayed with me long after the credits rolled. It made me reflect once again on legacy and what we leave behind.
“Mum was super-talented and now she’s wasting away in some little village. Dad became just some sort of animal handler. No one will remember them when they are gone. When somebody is talked about, they live on. I want my work to live on after I’m gone.”
Angela and Ivan have chosen an extraordinary and undeniably dangerous way of pursuing that goal. They risk everything to capture images from impossible perspectives, selling them as artworks and NFTs.
Most of us don’t need to go to such extremes. But I think Angela gives voice to something deeply human: the desire to leave a mark, to make a difference, and to know that something of us will endure after we’ve gone.
We don’t have to climb skyscrapers to achieve that. Sometimes the most lasting legacy isn’t the life we live, but the stories we choose to preserve and the wisdom we leave for those who come after us. And those stories don’t need to be extraordinary – because there’s no such thing as an ordinary life.
- If you’d like to explore the wisdom in your life stories, you can read my book, In Your Own Words, listen to the audiobook on Audible or Spotify, or contact me if you’d like to work on your story or memoir one to one.
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