makes falling feel like flying
…. I did it.
So, last Sunday I jumped out of a plane. And I haven’t written anything here since then. Unless you follow me elsewhere, you might be wondering if I died. I guess sort of, in a way, I did die. Part of me anyway. One of those parts that really wasn’t doing me any good. But, in a purely physical sense, no, I’m quite alive.
I’m not really a thrill seeker. For me, sky diving was more about releasing control and enjoying the moment than it was about the adrenaline rush one gets from falling to their death for 60 seconds at 120mph, or floating 5,000ft over North Texas with nothing but some nylon and some rope keeping you stuck in the sky. Of course the adrenaline felt pretty good too.
But back to that death thing. The truth of the matter is, had there not been an experienced person strapped to my back willing to take control of the situation, I would be dead today. I almost entirely untrained. I would more than likely not been able to figure out how to operate my parachute or how to properly steer myself in for a landing or even find the Drop Zone. In addition, I made a mistake within the first second of leaving the plane that would have surely left me disoriented, unable to regain control, and, eventually, dead. But instead I have an entry in my log book that says “Awesome 360″.
So I did. I released control. I left my life and my child’s future in the hands of someone I just met with the only thing even resembling a guarantee of my safety being the unwritten pact between myself and my jump instructor that, he too, would like to come out of the jump alive and ready for the next. And we both did just fine.
The free fall is amazing. Air rushing past your face and yet the ground doesn’t seem to be getting any closer. It’s almost like you’re floating and the wind is blowing really hard at the same time. It doesn’t feel anything like falling. It’s flying. For 60 seconds, I was fucking superman. I even had X-ray vision. If you ever decide to jump with me you might want to think twice about getting in front of me. I’ll look.
I didn’t even notice that our parachute was being pulled. I knew it was about time because I’d been glancing at the altimeter. When it happened it took me a second to even figure out what it was. Suddenly my feet are pointing to the ground, I can feel my own weight resting on the straps at my groin, and the wind has stopped. Then the parachute fully catches, there’s a slight jerk, and that’s it. We’re not flying anymore, it’s more like controlled floating. The parachute works a lot like a hang-glider. You can steer the thing, make it fall faster or slower, turn in one direction, spin, spiral, whatever you want. The view is amazing.
Then we’re 150 feet or so off the ground and discussing our landing. Legs up at 20 feet, and we’re down. Heart pumping, skin tight, lungs taking in oxygen. You breathe. You look around. You have great respect and awe in that moment. You smile, you laugh, you hug your friends. If you’re me, you even ask a few of them to marry you. It’s just that kind of moment.
Within 30 minutes or so, I’m wondering why I’m not jumping out of plane again already.
The strangest and most unexpected part was the “afterglow”. I already run with a very high libido. This made it even more intense. Even if recreational drug use really is only a way to help us cope with what our society is lacking that we as human being require, this was the best damn drug I’ve ever been on.
I left part of me up there. Somewhere between the yellow belly of the plane and the bright green earth we live on a little chunk of me — a hard callous built up from too many pokes and stabs protecting some piece of me from feeling — tore itself free. I feel more capable of love, more ready for life, and less dependent on this silly society we’ve built around us having no idea what we were getting ourselves into at the time.
I’m jumping again in October. I think you should come too. And you really should click on the image in this post and buy yourself a copy. Because the next time I go, I’m bringing better photo gear, and you’re going to want to see those.