Several years ago, I went skydiving.<\/p>\n
One morning I woke up early and went to this rural airport.<\/p>\n
And in the equivalent of a hanger which was basically just a barn, paid some dude a few hundred dollars for a day of lessons and one jump from an airplane.<\/p>\n
I really didn’t have a good reason to jump from a plane … other than the idea of doing it excited me and it had been on my life to-do list for about 15 years by that point …<\/p>\n
So I was going to take advantage of the opportunity I had to cross it off.<\/p>\n
I spent that morning learning skydiving basics …<\/p>\n
Jumping, falling, landing …<\/p>\n
Controlling the chute.<\/p>\n
Learning the chute.<\/p>\n
Contingencies … contingencies … contingencies.<\/p>\n
And 5 or so hours later …<\/p>\n
There I was …
\n
\nCrammed in this tiny little plane that barely looked airworthy thinking …<\/p>\n
I’m damn glad I’ve got a parachute.<\/i> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
The plane kept rising.<\/p>\n
I really should have told Mom, Dad or Bro I was doing this.<\/i><\/p>\n
The plane kept rising.<\/p>\n
At least Singer and Shaft know what I’m doing.<\/i><\/p>\n
The plane kept rising.<\/p>\n
It seemed to take forever.<\/p>\n
But at that point I had removed myself from conscious participation in what was transpiring … things were in motion … and I was just along for the ride.<\/p>\n
Finally the plane leveled out and the instructor yelled for me to crawl over near him and by the plane door.<\/p>\n
Which I did.<\/p>\n
I was doing an assisted jump. Meaning that I was going to have someone strapped to my back in case I screwed anything up. This approach allowed me to free fall … something I could not do with a static line jump (where your rip cord is attached to the plane in some way and your chute is automatically deployed shortly after jumping).<\/p>\n
“Are you ready?<\/i>“, he yelled over the plane’s engine.<\/p>\n
Now I’m sure there was more than a subtle look of fear in my eyes, but without hesitation, I smile and answered …<\/p>\n
“Sure, you bet.<\/i>”<\/p>\n
That’s code for “Yes, you bastard.<\/i>”<\/p>\n
He connected our cables, manuevered himself behind me and opened the plane’s door.<\/p>\n
“Gasp<\/i>”<\/p>\n
Holy krap was it ever cold up there … freezing cold.<\/p>\n
Mentally I registered how that made sense, and chastised myself for not expecting it.<\/p>\n
I swung my legs out the plane door, grabbed this bar protruding from the wing and attaching to the fuselage,<\/p>\n
Took a breath …<\/p>\n
And stepped out of the plane onto a ledge attached to the plane’s right wheel.<\/p>\n
The instructor moved in unison and had his legs hanging out of the plane as he sat in the plane’s doorwell.<\/p>\n
“Whenever you’re ready, I’m just along for the ride,<\/i>” he yelled.<\/p>\n
I could barely hear him.<\/p>\n
About a mile up in the air … standing outside a rickety plane … holding on for dear life … in the freezing temperatures … wind howling … there I was …<\/p>\n
Having had preparation, but not feeling fully prepared.<\/p>\n
Being anxious, but never once thinking of stepping back in the plane.<\/p>\n
Not knowing what would happen, but not bothered by that.<\/p>\n
So loud enough for probably only myself to hear …<\/p>\n
I laughed and said … “What the phuck !<\/i>”<\/p>\n
And rolled out of the plane into the first of three sommersaults leading into me arching my back and freefalling.<\/p>\n
Once again, it’s almost time for me to laugh and say … “What the phuck !<\/i>”<\/p>\n
And not because I’m going skydiving. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Several years ago, I went skydiving. One morning I woke up early and went to this rural airport. And in the equivalent of a hanger which was basically just a barn, paid some dude a few hundred dollars for a day of lessons and one jump from an airplane. I really didn’t have a good…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":139,"label":"General"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Amy","author_link":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/author\/amy\/"},"comment_info":6,"category_info":[{"term_id":139,"name":"General","slug":"general","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":143,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":775,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":139,"category_count":775,"category_description":"","cat_name":"General","category_nicename":"general","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amynews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}