Flying, Falling: Living

Now it was my turn.

By that point, every ounce of my good sense had flown out the big gaping door of the plane. I knew there was no going back, even if the instructor told us otherwise. We reserved the right to make our way back to the ground by riding in that plane.

Nobody had done so. Now it was my turn.

“Okay, Stephanie. You’re next.”

I took a helpless breath and got up from my seat. I crouched my way to the opening in the side of the plane. I snuck a peek at the wooded New Jersey countryside far below. Why did I want to do this?

“When I say ‘go’, you’ll move your feet out onto the wing while holding onto the edge of the plane. Then we’ll count.”

I did what he instructed. As slowly as topography shifts, I moved my body to half outside and half inside, and I held on for everything I loved dearly most of all my existence.

“I’m going to count to three! Are you ready?!”

The instructor shouted all this. The sound outside the plane was a roar for a voice to overcome. I nodded my head.

“I’m ready!!” I shouted from the howling air.

“Alright! Here we go! One! Two! Three! JUMP!!!”

Tigers: paper and real

When I was in college, I worked part-time for a hot air balloon company in Napa Valley California. The bulk of my duty for that job was to ride in the backseat of the company truck sandwiched between burly guys as we followed the equipment truck in constant pursuit of the balloon in flight.

When the balloon would touch down onto the ground periodically, we’d be there. This close monitoring was both necessary and reeked of my young male co-workers’ armpit odor to the most exquisite degree.

California summers are sweaty. I was hardly paid enough.

In addition to the smell of that job, the rest of the scene also made a big impression. People voluntarily paid big money to step inside a basket that was powered by a smallish flame that lifted them into the clouds.

The balloons were beautiful, the days pristine, the air calm and lovely. The fear in my bones over what I was witnessing was dead sticky as a fly trap. Did these people not realize what they were risking?

My fear did not coincide with the statistics, as hot air ballooning is quite safe. But fear doesn’t know statistics. It only knows real tigers and paper tigers, not the stats on tigers.

This was also not five years after I’d jumped out of that plane in New Jersey. A year after I jumped, my friend Terri, who’d jumped with the same ski diving company, called to tell me that the company had been put out of business because their equipment was dangerously faulty. It was only a matter of time before tragedy might hit.

My concern about falling from the sky started to grow skin and bones after that.

Trees to gliders to kids

I didn’t always fear heights, flying, or falling. When I was a girl, I spent a fair amount of time sitting in a tree down the road from our rural home. My Barbies, sister, and I would schlepp up onto branches, with the constant knowledge that in one inattentive moment we could all be dashed to the ground. Yet, I loved it up there. I was careful, not fearful.

Throughout my adulthood I had plenty of experience with height: in gondolas, gliders, parasailing, up tall ladders. I drove skinny roads that hung right off the edge of the world. I climbed to the top of high dive platforms and stood facing the law of the high dive: you’re up there, you jump — no but’s. I jumped.

As we get older, who knows, maybe we grow more cautious — or wise — and we don’t immediately say, “I’m in!” when someone runs up with two tickets for the zipline course. Except, I do. I will go on that zip-line because I assess the risk and decide the company running the zipline must surely have safe equipment. I do that with sky diving companies, too, apparently.

The other thing that happens is we want our kids to be safe — forever, from everything — but it’s hard to say why I so readily believe such a thing is possible. I sure try sometimes though.

Last summer at a gorge in New York state our family went hiking to see a set of thunderous waterfalls. At one point, my college-age son Max walked over to the edge of a big drop-off. I inched closer to look down to see what the situation was and then quickly backed away. My nervous system went to Code Red.

“Max,” I said, my voice shaky, “Don’t stand so close to the edge. Please step back a little. One misstep and — ”

He and my husband did an eye roll.

“Mom, please, it’s fine.”

I was scared and mad. Scared-mad. They thought they knew better, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure who did: them or me? They have about .0001% experience on a trail in the mountains. I have 1000%. But I also don’t like heights. But I also know folks fall off these precipices. But most folks don’t fall off. But that drop-off at the heels of my son was a hidden savage.

But, but, but.

We land just fine

I don’t know why I developed caution around falling. Perhaps I simply developed a caution around life. As a young person, you’re sure your parachute will open or the ground beneath your feet won’t give way and send you free-falling down the side of a towering cliff. Eventually, you come to understand things are more complicated than that. Danger and safety can mimic each other sometimes. More than that, you grow to have more at stake.

Yet, fear or no, it doesn’t matter. We jump from something every day, even if it feels like all we’re doing is laying in a bed of monotony. We jump into the day the moment we awake to it. None of us knows what will happen, how we’ll land, whether we’ll crash. Most every day we land just fine.

To live is to jump.

The instant I jumped from that plane when I was eighteen, the long ripcord that attached my parachute to the belly of the plane snapped tight and yanked my parachute open. In a blink, I was swooped up into the air by the force of the nylon canopy inflating above me. Just as suddenly, I began to drift downward in an odd combination of pure serenity and pure thrill. This was what it was like to fly.

While the drift to the ground seemed gradual, once the ground got close enough it rushed toward me like a massive train coming head-on. With a snap to focus, I got ready to land by executing the parachute landing fall (PLF) I’d learned earlier that morning. You’d get one chance to execute.

In seconds I splatted back into my earth-bound mortal life. My flight was over. I never flew again, but I do believe having done it once helped me understand what jumping, flying, falling, and landing are.

They’re living.