So, first of all, take a long, hard look at my mug on the left.
Does it look like the mug of an extreme-sports guru? Do I look like a BMX-biking, cliff-diving adventure freak?
Heck no.
I’m a sports guy, not an extreme-sports guy. I like my baseball packaged on satellite television. I like my hockey from the La-Z-Boy — with the leg rest kicked up, please.
And yet I, like many people, have that list. That list of things you want to do, things that break the couch-surfing monotony. At the top of that list was sky diving.
So when Dave Wright — one of the “Bros.” of Wright Bros. Skydiving, which is one of two sky diving companies that operate out of the Creswell Airport — offered me the chance to fall from an airplane at 15,000 feet, I grabbed it like I normally grab the remote.
I wanted to fly. And on Sunday, I did.
When you sky dive, the instructors make you keep a log book of each jump, so I thought I would instead keep a log of one jump — my first.
Here is that running diary.
10:20 a.m. — I arrive at the hangar and begin making preparations to jump. We learn about rip chords and altimeters and chutes and every other thing you could possibly need to know about sky diving. The instructor tells us about jumping out of the plane, saying it’s important not to grab on to the walls of the small exit when it’s your turn to jump — grab your chest straps instead.
Hey, I figure, there is no way I’m going to be grabbing onto those walls. I’ve got it under control. I’m no wall-grabber. Riiiiight.
11 a.m. — I meet Lewie, the founder of Oregon’s club sky diving team and also my tandem partner for the day. Lewie is a big, jovial man and looks like he’s been on maybe one too many sky dives. Later, he will be the only person to dive without a jumpsuit when the instructors go up by themselves. He dives in jeans.
But Lewie is great, obviously loves sky diving and has a reassuring personality. I learn he’s running for Creswell mayor — on a sky diving platform. I’m not even kidding.
Please, if you live in Creswell, elect this man mayor. You will not be disappointed.
11:26 a.m. — I finally get around to signing the release form. Some of the sentences give pause. Words like “risk of personal injury” and such abound.
Of course, I initial everywhere, literally signing my life away on the dotted line.
11:45 a.m. — I start to realize that they shouldn’t call it “sky diving,” they should call it “sky watching.” Every person in the hangar, and there are a lot of people involved with the sky diving process, keeps walking outside, checking the sky, then walking back in, usually muttering things like, “Damn clouds never gonna break up,” or “10,000 feet at the most,” or other such sky diving talk. Very entertaining.
2 p.m. — We’re watching a group of divers from the other sky diving outfit take their jumps when we see a parachute floating in mid-air with no diver attached. This means someone’s initial chute didn’t work and they were forced to land with their reserve chute.
Great. Now I start thinking about what happens if my chute doesn’t work. And then what happens when my backup doesn’t work. This is not very entertaining — this is very worrying. I want my mommy.
4:30 p.m. — Just kidding about my mommy. After hours of waiting for the clouds to break up, a huge patch of blue sky is headed our way, and we mobilize to jump. Lewie starts to play therapist, telling me to relax. Sure, I’ll relax. I’ll relax when I’m sleeping in my queen-sized bed tonight, that’s when I’ll relax.
5:06 p.m. — And we’re boarding the plane. I’m one of two people on the flight who has never sky dived before, and so all the “pros” are ribbing the newbie, telling me where I can puke, all that stuff. Ha ha. No, really funny. Hilarious.
Then they all put their hands in the middle, just before the plane is set to take off. They do a cheer. I realize I’m among good people, and I start to relax. The woman across from me is doing her 100th jump, a feat she will later be “pied” for by the other divers. (They take plates of whipped cream and smother her. Good times.)
So this woman, Amy, is smiling warmly and I smile back, and it’s a moment I’ll never forget, sitting in that plane with the altimeter on my wrist steadily rising, with the sun setting through the tiny windows and a woman doing her 100th sky dive, not preoccupied with it at all.
5:20 p.m. — We hit 15,000 feet. Jumping altitude. This means I have to jump out of the plane now. At 15,000 feet.
We’re sixth in line, after four solo jumpers and one tandem. The solo jumpers disappear instantaneously, it seems. Then the tandem jumpers scoot across the floor of the airplane and fall out. Then we scoot. Sure enough, the experience of sitting on the edge of nothingness is unquestionably different from what I expected.
I’m gripping onto those walls tight. Very tight.
Lewie takes care of that, yelling “arms” into my ear. I remember to grab my straps, and next thing you know, we’re free-falling like Tom Petty.
5:23 p.m. — I see the plane, which is another weird thing for me because I expected for some reason to go right into the typical sky-diver position, facing down. But it’s not scary at all, and here’s Weird Sensation No. 3 — it’s not a roller coaster. My stomach doesn’t jump to my throat at all. It’s just falling.
And it’s flying. For 45 seconds I am a bird, and I can see why people jump out of airplanes like it was their job. There is a reason for the addiction, this feeling — it’s the closest you’ll ever come to perfect bliss.
5:24 p.m. — We break through a small cloud and soon thereafter I pull my rip chord. The parachute down is not as exhilarating as the free-fall, but it’s a serene experience. Eugene and Creswell are smaller than a map, but getting bigger all the time.
5:30 p.m. — And the ground. The sweet, beautiful ground. We land with a thud, sliding across the grass fields on our butts. I realize I’m whiter than a blank sheet of paper, and for a moment my emotions are a blank sheet too.
What did I just do?
I give a few thumbs-up, hug my new best buddy Lewie, help pack up the chute and start making my way back to the hangar. People pat me on the back, throw around a couple “good jobs.”
As we’re walking back, Lewie pauses for a moment, tells me he’s going to get philosophical. And I think that getting philosophical, at that moment, is exactly the thing to do.
Lewie quotes Leonardo da Vinci, a magnificent man to quote in such a magnificent time and a magnificent place.
“For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards,” da Vinci said. “For there you have been and there you will long to return.”