Ever since I was a kid I’ve been fascinated with flying and getting to very high places. I dreamed of building airplanes and other magnificent flying machines. I loved to build forts as high as I could in trees. I’d climb way up to the thin branches of the tree and just sit there looking around at the world. I loved mountains as a child and still do today. I remember fondly our family trips to Alabama, driving up Mount Eagle Mountain and how the rapid pressure change would make my ears pop. One of our summer vacations found us at Niagara Falls. Standing on the various outcroppings that overlooked the falls mesmerized me.
Such great memories but somewhere in farthest reaches of my mind was a paralyzing terror and deep in the chasms of my heart there lingers sadness that is akin to dying.
Everything that goes up must inevitably come down. During one of my adolescent attempts to fly I built a wooden airplane of sorts and tied a rope to it and then threw the rope over a tree branch. I’d use the branch as a pulley to hoist my “airplane” into the air. This was great fun but rather quickly my strength would give out or my hands would start to burn from holding too tightly to the rope. Gravity, being the jerk that it is finally bested me and I lost my grip. I fell from about ten feet off the ground flat on my back on top of a protruding root. I lay there for what felt like hours trying to will oxygen back into my lungs so that I could cry out to my mother. The pain was excruciating.
I was more cautious in my altitude addiction after that, but I was still a little dare devil. I knew that any good pilot always has a parachute, so I quickly became fascinated with parachutes. For the record, umbrellas do not make good parachutes. I got dad’s 20 foot ladder out and used it to climb on top of the peak of our house with mom’s best umbrella. It seems that it’s not only gravity but also the laws of aerodynamics that hate me. Sure as the wind, which also hates me, that umbrella flipped inside out at about 18 feet off the ground and left me gasping for air on the ground once again. But the pain was not what scared me this time but rather the fact that mom was going to kill me for breaking her umbrella and consequently knowing that I broke something of hers made me extremely remorseful.
I curbed my affinity for heights and found a new interest in the ground, caves. Caves are much safer however I still loved the mountains and tall buildings, trees and umbrellas… not so much.
But somehow it seems my heart and mind have a vendetta against me. When standing at the edge of a cliff I hear something in my convoluted brain that says, “if you jump it will be like flying… buy a wing suite or a paraglider, or just jump now!” It’s not the thought of jumping from such heights that intimidates me but rather the high velocity impact with the ground. Once you have committed to the jump there is no turning back. No matter what you see in the Wiley E. Coyote cartoons, you cannot shift into reverse in midair. Thanks gravity, you jerk.
In all honesty, I am an impatient woman and I like instant gratification and rapid results. I think this is one of the drivers behind my “Jump now!” nature but jumping so quickly over the years without knowing all the consequences has not been without its hidden blessing. I have been hurt so many times by being hasty that it has tempered my impulses. My heart still says jump, but my mind and body grab it by the left and right ventricles and keep it from doing something devastatingly stupid. At the same time though, I wonder if it has also deprived me of some truly wonderful things. By being too smart to take the plunge have I cheated myself out of falling in love to avoid getting hurt? Have I passed over the million-dollar opportunity because my current job is secure and safe? Have I missed the chance to make someone’s life better because they would probably just spend the money I gave them on drugs? Did I miss a chance to experience a once in a lifetime adventure because I was just too busy?
Here I stand on the precipice of change and chance once again. It’s a long way to the ground but there is a strong updraft blowing out of the chasm and I hear that voice again saying “You have wings of wisdom now. JUMP!” Maybe I will this time. Maybe the wind will carry me beyond the clouds to greater heights than I have ever known. Maybe this time I will finally fly. Maybe I won’t, but this time I have a real parachute to take me safely back to earth. I have to use a real parachute this time. I am not allowed to borrow mom’s umbrella anymore.