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| Paraglider off Lookout Mountain in Golden, Colorado. June 2023. |
The above photo isn't a skydive photo, it isn't me, and it isn't from 10 years ago. But I did take the photo.
The skydive story happened more than 10 years ago, and it happened when I was still rooted.
However, I did share the story on my blog 10 years ago.
With disclaimers proclaimed, here ya go:
Starting with an Important Birthday Milestone years ago, I decided to
create an adventure for each of my future birthdays. The criterion for
choosing the adventure was that it had to challenge me emotionally,
mentally or physically.
One year, I was pondering on what my birthday adventure should be. In
this particular year, three choices came to mind, all of them very
challenging. One was to go out dancing. Another was to participate in a
gestalt therapy exercise, which entailed the exploration and release of
great emotion, culminating perhaps in that proverbial primal scream of
pent-up feelings. The third option was to jump out of a plane at 10,000
feet. After considering these options over a number of weeks, I decided
that of all three choices, jumping out of a plane was the least
frightening.
I didn’t really want to do this by myself, so I invited family members
and friends to join me. Many said, yeah, that sounds cool! Maybe I'll do
it! As the time for the jump loomed closer, however, those who’d
expressed interest dropped out, until at the end, no one intended to go
with me - not even to watch.
One of the things I've learned about life is that if I really want to do
something, I’ve got to be willing to do it alone. Otherwise, I may
never get to do it.
I decided to do a tandem jump, where I’d jump while connected to an experienced skydiver.
I drove alone to the airport and upon my arrival, started a series of
bathroom trips every five minutes. I also watched a short video that
provided a bare-bones review of what it would be like to jump and that
I’d need to pull up my knees upon landing so the instructor with whom
I’d be connected by a strap could hit the ground first, as he’d be
immediately behind me. The video also noted how dangerous the sport was,
that I could die or become paralyzed or suffer any myriad number of
other bad things. After watching the video, it was time for me to read
and sign the consent form,which again told me in HUGE PRINT that I could
die or suffer serious injury and I waived all liability from the jump
school, the airport, the instructor, the airplane, the fuel supplier,
the road construction crew, and the guy who mowed the lawn. If I were
going to die through this exercise, it was going to be by my own free
will. I signed the papers.
The next step was a five-minute “training” in which someone had a small
group of us show him that we could jump off a picnic table bench while
bending our knees and holding on to them. I passed this with flying
colors.
The next step was to get into a jump suit. Now, at this point I was
feeling no fear. Some nervousness, certainly, as evidenced by my
frequent bathroom trips. But I was feeling no fear because my brain had
checked out. It was waiting in the parking lot in my car, refusing to
have anything to do with this ridiculous enterprise.
So anyway, it was now time for the jumpsuit. Let me tell you about this
suit. It was bright pink and it was Spandex. You know how Spandex is,
right? It fits you like a second skin. It shows everything. It reveals
every flaw. I was not a svelte woman.
I put the suit on. I was so relieved that it fit! I was feeling OK. I walked around a bit, getting the feel of it.
I walked in front of a full-length mirror.
I gasped. The sight of myself in this Spandex suit was so preposterously
preposterous I had no other words to describe it. I JUMPED out of the
view of the mirror.
From then on, I stayed out of range of any mirrors, and convinced myself
that if I could not see myself then no one else could either, like a
toddler who believes that she's invisible when she covers her head with a
cloth.
The next step was to get me into a harness. This was a leather
contraption with wide straps that went between my legs and around my
thighs, with a brace up my back, and then straps that went around my
shoulders and upper arms. It was pulled VERY tight. The result was that
it affected my ability to walk with my legs together or lift my legs,
and my back was pulled so straight with the brace, I could hardly bend
over. Therefore, that entire five-minute exercise of jumping off the
picnic bench in a tuck was utterly pointless. I could barely walk.
Ah, but too late. It was time to board the plane. I walked to the plane
just like one of those science-fiction robots from cheesy sci-fi movies
in the 1950s.
And then I saw I’d have to climb two or three steps to get into the
plane. Oh my God. Carefully and awkwardly I somehow managed to do this.
The next challenge was to bend over as I moved to the front end of the
plane because the ceiling, of course, was low. The plane was outfitted
with two benches along each side of the plane, and everyone straddled a
bench, one person tucked in front of the other, like a roll of
Lifesavers. My instructor went in before me, straddled the bench, and I
straddled the bench in front of him. It was REALLY hard to be bent into a
sitting position with the harness on. I was like a stuffed animal with
legs that are permanently outstretched, and when you try to sit it on
its butt, it keeps tipping over onto its back. My body kept wanting to
fall backward, into the instructor, and I grasped for something to hold
to keep my balance. I found the tiniest ridge above the window to
clutch, but the instructor yelped a little bit and said not to hold onto
that, as it could pop the window out.
Somehow I negotiated an uneasy balance until it was time for me and the
instructor to get up in preparation for the jump. We would be the last
ones to go. As I walked toward the plane door, I concentrated on bending
over sufficiently so the instructor - much taller than I – could use
some of the space over my head to bend over himself so he wouldn’t hit
his head on the ceiling. I focused completely on taking one robot step
after another while trying to bend down.
I arrived at the open door and I could see down into the depths of sky
and land so many feet below me, and I was suddenly appalled. Not because
I was about to hurl myself from this tiny plane into the empty sky.
(Remember, my brain had washed its hands of the whole affair.)
No, I was appalled because between the airplane floor and the open
doorway was the tiniest little lip of a ridge. Maybe a half an inch
tall. And I knew that somehow I would have to lift my foot that
infinitesimal height, while bent over in this harness, and stand on the
lip before I could jump. I didn’t know if I could do it.
Somehow I did and thus FELL out of the plane.
They don’t really tell you how to land until you’re in the air and
falling. Therefore, as we plummeted to the earth, the instructor told
me, “OK, now we’re going to practice how to land. What you’ll need to do
is practice pulling your knees up and grasping them so my feet can hit
the ground first.” Now remember, I had lost most of my flexibility due
to the harness. So here was the instructor asking me not only to pull my
knees up, but to bend over to grasp my knees – and to do this all the
while I’m plunging to the earth.
But it seemed pretty important, so I tried it. I pulled my knees up, or
thought I did, but there was barely any discernible movement. The
instructor observed this, and said, “Well, we’ve still got plenty of
time to practice this, so let’s try it again.”
I did, and again there was only the tiniest of movements. And the
instructor said, “Well, we’ve got some time still, but that’s not quite
going to do it. Let’s try another way. Why don’t you do this: Stretch
your legs straight out in front of you and hold them up straight.”
So I tried it, and asked, “Is that enough?”
“Well, no, but let’s just try it again. Next time, hold your legs out
straight and hold onto the seams of your jumpsuit to help keep them up. ”
I tried it, and asked, “Is this enough?”
“Uh, no .......... but we’ll figure something out by the time we get to the ground. Just try to do the best you can.”
And I said, “OK!”
In the end, I basically landed on my stomach. It didn’t hurt. It worked
out OK. As a matter of fact, I laughed. Relief. Embarrassment. The
absurdity of it all. Or all of the above, I don't know.
Here's what I do know: In order to jump out of that plane, I had to give
up control and trust that it was going to be alright. If I was going to
practice living my life to the fullest, I had to be willing to do
something I wanted to do by myself, without waiting for someone to do it
with me. I had to be willing to look really stupid. I had to risk
embarrassment.
Something I'll always remember is that the instructor never treated me
with anything other than the greatest respect and kindness. He was
professional and calm at all times, and he played a big part in the
positiveness of my experience.
It took weeks before I fully appreciated what I did – before my brain
was willing to talk to me about it, so to speak. One night in bed, just
as I was about to fall asleep, I relived my experience of falling out of
the plane – no! - VOLUNTARILY jumping out of this plane 10,000 feet in
the air – and it was only THEN that I felt fear. WHAT HAD I BEEN THINKING!?!?!?
