Tag Archives: adventure

Let’s Go Krug-ering

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I blame Jay-Z and my childhood friend Mollie Battenhouse for this story…

This afternoon, I stood in a daze before the fancy champagne case at Kroger.  The wine guy walked past me and asked, “Are you finding what you’re looking for?”  I, pushing a cart filled with sugar cookie mix, green sprinkles, macaroni, ground beef and–gasp–watermelon flavored toothpaste, felt like a total fraud.

“Oh,” I giggled, “I’m just daydreaming.”  He must have been bored because he came over to stand beside me even though I couldn’t have been putting out the “I’m looking for a $300 bottle of champagne” vibe.  He nodded toward the carefully locked case and asked, “Which one are you thinking about?”

I pointed to the bright gold label on the Veuve-Clicquot.  “My sister and I drank several bottles of that in Chicago a few years back.  I didn’t know I was pregnant with my daughter.”  He laughed.  “When she was born, I bought that one–I pointed to the Billecart-Salmon rose with the subtle pink label–to celebrate the day we brought her home from the hospital.”   Next I waved to the elegant dark blue Pommery.  “I drank a bottle of that one year on New Year’s Eve, in Paris–all by myself.”  His eyebrows climbed higher and he laughed, “That sounds like a good night!”  It wasn’t, but that had nothing to do with the champagne.  I didn’t tell him how sad I had been that night, how I had cried at a table for one.  Instead, I asked–

krugomot“Do you carry Krug?”

He started with a little flutter, “A vintage?  I, uh, I can get that for you.”

It was my turn to flutter.  “Oh, I probably won’t do it, but having a bottle of champagne like that is on my bucket list.”  And thanks to Mollie and Jay-Z, I had woken up that Saturday dreaming about fine champagne.  Mollie is a wine expert in New York and her birthday was this week.  She mentioned on Facebook that she enjoyed Krug champagne with her birthday lunch.  Ahhhhhh.  And my friend, Saralyn has tickets to see Jay-Z coming up.  All that–plus the Nyquil and humidifier–cooked in my brain last night and morphed into a dream.

In the dream I was at a small venue Jay-Z concert, like a hotel ballroom.  I was wandering around before the show started when Jay-Z pulled up his gunmetal gray pickup truck right in front of me and parked it by the stage.  Pickup truck, you ask?  Well, OF COURSE–he had amps and stuff in the back.  I helped him tote a couple of cables and told him that I was looking forward to the show.  He said, “Hey, thanks for helping–drink Kansas City Royals v New York Yankeessome of this with me.”  He took out a giant bottle of Krug and poured me a plastic cup full to the rim.  Delightful! I remember looking down at the golden glow and watching the small bubbles dance.  I remember the cool feel of the cup in my hand, just the right temperature.  I took a sip and it was the best thing I had ever tasted.  I thanked Jay and made my way back to my seat.  I remember thinking in the dream how lucky I was to have something so rare, right there in my hand.  Just another Friday night in my head.

So….what WAS I doing looking for Krug in Kroger?

I really do want to plop down hard-earned money on a world class bottle of champagne one day.  It won’t become a habit, but it’s just something I’d like to experience.  Some people dream of blowing money on a Chanel bag or taking a cruise–I’d rather sit down in a pleasant spot with a pleasant friend and treat ourselves to a bottle of something magical.  Like a 1928 Krug.

In the year between Richard’s passing and when I started to date again, I discovered the mystery of fine wine.  My sister took me to dinner at Gramercy Tavern in New York about a month after Richard died.  The restaurant and the people in it were all so beautiful that I fought feelings of guilt when we were first seated.  It felt odd to be so carefree, on a lark.  I’ll never forget the first dish–pate de foie gras on toast points with a side of ramps soaked in vinegar, paired with a chilly Sauternes.  I didn’t even know what a ramp was then, and I thought Sauternes was supposed to be for dessert, but I dove in.  The combination proved sublime.  I almost cried at the table because I felt such sudden joy–that some chef decided to make this, that my sister had brought me here, that I was alive to enjoy it.  Goose liver and bread and tiny spring onions, vinegar and sugar twirled together on my palate to remind me just how much fun it is to experience the world through my senses.

Inspired by that meal, I spent a few Tuesday nights at the local wine shop for tastings.  Wine excited me because there was so much to know about it that I could never learn it all and it was a relief to me–at that late sad point in my life–to discover that there was something so new out there to explore.

alvear-pedro-ximenez-1927-e1367699508617I once invested in a half case of Pedro Ximenes Alvear Solera 1927 because I was so intrigued by the vintage.  This dessert wine is created by blending a little bit of each vintage–all the way back to 1927.  The blending gives the wine a richness and depth that you can’t get from just one year.  When the first grapes for that Solera were picked, my grandfather was 25 years old.  No one knew about World War II.

My grandfather died that spring, a year after Richard did.  He lived to be 103.  Richard made it to 38.  When I sipped that sweet wine in 2006, I was tasting the sunlight and the rain from all those years, all swirling together into this moment, this day.  The beauty of wine for me is that every bottle captures a moment and in that moment, a world.

I guess that’s what I was daydreaming about, there in the Kroger wine aisle.  I haven’t had much time or money to explore wine since the kids came along, but I still like the idea of it.  Those days will come again and one day, maybe Gay and I will take Vivi to France.  It’s all one life.  The macaroni days and the champagne days.

A Red Marble Sink

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My sister said that yesterday’s story about San Francisco reminded her that business trips can be fun.  And since she happens to be on one right now, I thought I would entertain her with another story about a time when I tagged along with her and we had us a fine time in the great big city.

fairmont lobbyThe first time Gay invited me along on a business trip was right after Fartbuster and I divorced.  After 10 boring years, I yearned for some adventure.  The American College of Surgeons held their conference in New Orleans that year…boy, did I luck out!   We stayed at the Fairmont Hotel–which is sadly no more.  They chose not to reopen after Katrina.  I’m lucky to have walked this Moorish style hallway for those few days back in 2001.

My sister is a world-class foodie.  Girl love to EAT.  We travel well together because she books the hotel and makes the dinner reservations and I research the fun little activities to do.  We also both believe in the sanctity of naps.

The first night we were at the Fairmont, I told her we had to go down to the lobby bar and try the namesake drink, the Sazerac.  Never heard of a Sazerac?  Me either, apart from in the guidebook.  It predates the Civil War and is arguably the first American cocktail:  “The defining feature of the Sazerac is the preparation using Peychaud’s Bitters and two chilled old-fashioned glasses, one swirled with a light wash of absinthe for the slight taste and strong scent. The second chilled glass is used to mix the other ingredients, then the contents of that are poured or strained into the first. Various anisettes such as Pastis, Pernod, Ricard, and Herbsaint are common substitutes for absinthe when it is not available; in New Orleans Herbsaint is most commonly used.”  Well, there you go.

I’ll be honest…a Sazerac is more distinctive than it is delicious.  I’m glad I tried it.  So glad, in fact, that after I gagged down the last drop of the concoction, I wiped out the glass with a cocktail napkin and slipped it into my purse.  Then I left a $20 tip to assuage my guilt.  My sister was MORTIFIED.  She hissed, “What are you DOING?  Put that back!  What if we get caught?”  I rolled my eyes and said, “This is New Orleans.  Do you really think this crime wave is going to make the news?”  She giggled but gave me The Look.  The big sister look, like she was going to tell on me.  I clutched my purse tighter.   Ten years of boredom and now I was on the loose in New Orleans.

The night got even sillier after that when we asked the doorman to get us a taxi.  We clambered in the back seat and Gay said, “Take us to the French Quarter, please.”  The driver turned his head and said, “You IN the French Quarter.”  We started giggling harder and I said, “Well, take us to the nasty part.”  He drove two blocks to Bourbon Street and let us out on the curb.  Five bucks to go 2 blocks.  At least it was sprinkling so we could pretend that was why we got a cab.

Like I said, I love traveling with my sister.

red marble sinkThe next night, she got us a table at Broussard’s.  While we were getting ready, the two of us ended up in the bathroom at the same time, brushing our teeth.  Probably to get rid of the taste of Sazerac.   I spat.  She spat.  I looked her in the eye and said, “When we were growing up in that trailer, did you ever in your life think that one day we’d be spitting toothpaste into a red marble sink at the Fairmont Hotel in New Orleans?”  

She spat again and considered for a second.  

“Yes.”  

And then we laughed and laughed and laughed.  

That’s the thing about my sister.  She works HARD for the privileges that she enjoys in life (and shares so generously).  If you asked her what she wanted to be when she was in second grade, she said, “A doctor.”  By about fourth grade, she had settled on being a surgeon.  She never lost focus.  She watched Daddy operate on cats and dogs, and sometimes scrubbed in to assist.  She sailed through college with a double major in Chemistry and Biology.  Finished Vanderbilt Medical School with zero loan debt.  Worked her internship and residency as an Army surgeon.  She scaled every rung on the ladder to get to spit into that red marble sink.  

When Gay was still in high school, she met with the guidance counselor about applying for colleges.  She told the counselor that she planned to go to medical school.  That dingbat said, “Oh, being a doctor is hard.  Why don’t you be a nurse and marry a doctor?”  

Oh.  Hell. No.  

You better believe that lady got a talking to.  I guess my sister did take a little bit of the counselor’s advice–she did marry a doctor.  Eventually.  

God Says “Duh” To Me

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Half a year after Richard died, I visited San Francisco for the first time with my sister, Gay, and our sister-in-law, Beth.  Gay was there for a conference.  Beth and I were there to stay at the Palace Hotel on someone else’s expense account.  Man, they have plush robes at that hotel. Nicest robe I ever almost stole.  Also a sauna, town cars at your disposal, a brunch buffet with everything from sushi to crepes, a concierge every 20 feet.  We were living high on the hog that week.  I don’t know how I’ll ever come back down to the Sleep Inn between the interstate and Sonic.

One morning, Gay had meetings to attend so Beth and I were on our own to navigate the city.  We decided to do some sight seeing up on Nob Hill (because you can’t get lost if you keep going uphill!).  My friend, Gleam, had a thing for labyrinths and had told me much about the labyrinths at Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill.  

haringNow….I’m not normally one for church.  At least Grace is an Episcopal church–they don’t make me itch and twitch quite as severely.  I’m a church tourist, at best.  Grace, however, quickly became one of my most favorite spaces I’ve ever had the privilege of visiting.  I found real sanctuary there.  It’s a welcoming congregation.  The first chapel I stepped into remembered thousands of lives lost to AIDS.  The “Life of Christ” altar by Keith Haring is surrounded by symbols of many faiths and a simple circle for people like me.  This was Haring’s last piece of art.  He died two weeks later from complications of AIDS, in 1990.  

grace-2005

When we were there that October of 2005, the main aisle had been decorated with a genuinely soul-lifting art installation.  This tiny thumbnail is the only record of it that I could find (because 2005 is like the Jurassic Period of the Internet).  Translucent ribbons swooped from the ceiling, suspended by invisible wires.  Hues transformed from deepest red toward the altar to pale sunshine yellow down the aisle.   The floating fabric sculpture reminded me of a fiery spirit, 100 feet long.  The motion of it, the color, the space inside it–all took my breath away.  While Beth explored the side aisles, I slipped into a pew and sat quietly, just so I could share the same space with the fiery spirit.  That’s when I began to cry.  I missed Richard so deeply.  He and I had spent many an hour exploring the cathedrals of Europe.  Now I was learning to adventure on my own.  

Beth had been giving me my space, but we eventually came back together and talked about what to do next.  I felt like I was holding her back, but there was one thing left to do at Grace.  I trusted her enough to risk making a fool of myself.  As we stepped out into the afternoon light, I turned to her and confessed, “I want to walk the labyrinth.”  

She was game.  Beth’s not usually one for any kind of mumbo-jumbo–she was totally humoring me.  “You’re going to need to explain it to me.  I don’t want to screw it up.”  I told her what I knew of them from Gleam, who had made a pilgrimage to Chartres with the last of her strength.  Cancer took her the next year.   

Here are the instructions for the Grace Labyrinth:

The labyrinth has only one path so there are no tricks to it and no dead ends. The path winds throughout and becomes a mirror for where we are in our lives. It touches our sorrows and releases our joys. Walk it with an open mind and an open heart.

Three stages of the walk

  • Purgation (Releasing) ~ A releasing, a letting go of the details of your life. This is the act of shedding thoughts and distractions. A time to open the heart and quiet the mind.
  • Illumination (Receiving) ~ When you reach the center, stay there as long as you like. It is a place of meditation and prayer. Receive what is there for you to receive.
  • Union (Returning) ~ As you leave, following the same path out of the center as you came in, you enter the third stage, which is joining God, your Higher Power, or the healing forces at work in the world. Each time you walk the labyrinth you become more empowered to find and do the work for which you feel your soul is reaching.

Labyrinth-HorizBeth and I chose different starting points and began our walk.  We had the place to ourselves, which let me let go of some of my inhibitions about doing something so mystical in public.  I focused on the soles of my feet and the contact they shared with the ground, just like in Buddhist walking meditation.  I felt safe in the maze.  Not rushing, just doing.  The rhythm of my steps did help me let go of the details of my life.  I felt the grief slip away, the anxiety abate.  My quieting mind sloughed away the months of grief, the months of worry, winnowing it all down to the real question that weighed down my heart.  The question I wanted to ask of God when I got to the center of the labyrinth:

“Is Richard OK?”

I know he can’t be here.  I know he’s not here.  I know I can’t know where he is.  But…is he OK?  

That’s when God said DUH to me.  Not in a mean way, more in an “of course, sweetie, bless your heart” way.  It wasn’t a thunder thump of a DUH.  I was open to what was there for me to receive and the gift that I received was a simple, quiet knowledge that Richard was beyond all the hurt.  I was the one who was hurting, but I could set down my worry about him.  That’s the burden I left in the center of the labyrinth.  

On my exit journey, I did experience Union.  I felt empowered to do the work for which my soul was reaching.  Healing myself.  I smiled a lot on the way out.  

The story of the labyrinth came back to me this week because every time I’ve tried to write a word about anything, my mouth is filled with ashes and grief for my friend, Chris.  Last week, Chris’ beloved daughter died suddenly, leaving two beautiful and bright children whose hearts could be broken forever by this.  I worry for Chris because no parent should have to lose a child and Chris has had this happen to her twice.  Both of her daughters have gone before her and that’s not fair.  There are no words for what it is.  

In the autumn of 2005, when I was sunk in grief and learning to live in the world again, I got back from San Francisco and began to plan my solo trip to Paris.  Chris, Gleam, and the rest of our writer bunch cheered me on.  The week before my trip, we gathered together for my bon voyage dinner.  Chris presented me with a soft blue beret and scarf to keep me warm in Paris.  She had knitted it from the leftover yarn from her grandson’s blanket.  The son of the mother who is gone now.  The blanket, the beret, the boy–they’re here.  The beloved is gone.  

I hope that grief, even a grief this abysmal, can be like the labyrinth.  A path we all walk, in our way, that teaches us to receive what we need to receive and empowers us to continue the work for which our souls reach.  

If you pray, pray for Chris and Wayne and Amy and Charlie and Emma.  May they find some peace on this journey.  

Petanque

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Today’s writing prompt was “If you had a time machine and you could return to one point in your life, where would you go and why?”

My first reaction to this game is always, “What’s the POINT?”  It’s silly to think that I could go back and change a major event in my life.  The whole skein unravels if I tug on one thread and I like where I am now.  Even with sadness that I’ve known, how could I push it away without pushing away the gladness?  Would I go back to that day in grad school when I first laid eyes on Fartbuster?  Or to the day I found out he was cheating?  Why?  If I weren’t that broken-hearted person I became because of loving him, I wouldn’t have been on the side of the highway that morning that I met Richard.  And he wouldn’t have had me beside him when he died.  I can’t have one without the other.  It’s all one life.

Maybe I could revisit a time in my life when I had a clean house and nine hours of sleep a night, but I would undo the tired joys of having two people who light up when they say “Mama!”

As I was pondering this, my friend Robin sent me a Wendell Berry poem:

No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over the grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.

~ Wendell Berry ~

(The Sabbath Poems, 1993, I)

“Every day you have less reason not to give yourself away.”  So where would I go in my time machine?  I don’t want to undo anything, but there is one time I wish I had said Yes instead of No.  When I held myself close instead of being open.  A small sadness but one that has stuck with me.  Here’s when I would go now that I have less reason not to give myself away:

Paris.  December 28, 2005.  A chilly gray morning in a small park by the Eiffel Tower.  It was the third day of my solo trip to Paris and I had my feet under me.  I’d seen the view from the top of the Tour back when I was 21 and in Paris for the first time.  So that morning, as a widow waking up to the world again, I avoided the crowds and barkers near the base of the attraction and walked farther away.  To get some perspective.

My hands were jammed into the pockets of my black cashmere coat, the one I bought just for that trip so I could look more French and less American.  A red and yellow crushed velvet scarf warmed my throat.  Just a woman, walking in Paris.  On her own.

Boule.kugelI stopped to watch a group of elderly men playing petanque.  It’s like bocce or lawn bowling, but French.  There’s one small ball in the middle of the sandy court and each player throws larger metal balls at it in the hopes of tapping the “jack.”

They chided each other after bad throws.  Their laughter billowed in clouds in the frozen air.  Their heads were covered with black wool berets.  They rubbed their hands together to keep them warm and blew hot air into them while they waited turns.  They whooped like little boys and clapped at a masterful toss.  They argued among themselves over the close calls.  

They were busy enjoying each other and didn’t seem to mind that I was watching them.  I watched them for several minutes as my still feet grew colder and colder.  It was time to get back to walking before I froze in place.  I pulled my camera from my messenger bag and took a few snapshots of their game.

Then, in the way of French men who love all kinds of women, even the sad and dark, one of them signaled to me to come over.  I smiled broadly but didn’t come any closer.  Another grandpere turned to me with a friendly wave and invited me to join the game.  I laughed out a “Non, merci!”  

Then I continued my walk.  

That’s the moment I would return to.  I would say “Oui, s’il vous plait!  Merci!”  I would let myself be welcomed.  I would let myself be awkward and silly.  

I would give myself away.  Un petit cadeau.  

Here’s a gift for you to share with someone today.  

wendell berry tree with poem

 If you’d like to read other “time travel” stories, check them out over at My So-Called Glamorous Life.

The Swinging Bridge

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I saw my baby do something today that threw me right back to a tense conversation I had with Fartbuster a dozen years ago.  Then I saw my other baby do something that catapulted me right back to this life and the joys that I have found.

The kids and I went out in the backyard to play today.  I know, I know, we should do it more often, but there is dog poo and mosquitoes and a river and some nails in that thing that rotted and all.  Carlos is too young for me to cut him loose out there without supervision, so he is still unfamiliar with the massive playscape that we have in the corner of the backyard (courtesy of my brother, Joe, who built it for his children a decade ago then passed it along to us when time rolled on).  Chanting “Climb!” in his chirpy little voice, Carlos scaled the ramp up to the first platform, which Vivi had accessed via the climbing wall.  He looked out over his kingdom with delight.  There were leaves to crunch, a ship’s wheel to spin, sticks for poking stuff–everything a boy could wish for was up there on that platform.  But there was more.

On the other platform, his sister was sliding down a fire pole and slinging pine cones down the yellow slide.  Huh.  The only thing standing between him and the pleasures of the second platform was a swinging bridge.

swinging bridge

Awfully wobbly, it is.

He hooched down as low as he could and stuck one foot out onto the bridge.  I was standing on the ground beside the bridge, cheering him on, reassuring him that it was safe.  But his foot told him otherwise.  He tried a couple of tentative forays, but the bridge kept wiggling.

That’s when I thought of Fartbuster, and a conversation that we had in a marriage counselor’s office during that year when we were trying to put things back together.  Fartbuster said, “I think our problem is that you don’t trust me.”  Well, duh, dipshit.  You had an affair.  You lost your job.  You lied to me over and over and over again.  Some crying woman calls my house at night.  Why should I trust you?  But what I said in that room that day was, “Trust between us is like a bridge.  I want to walk across it, but every time I’ve stepped on it, it’s lurched and swayed and dropped me on my head, so why would I step out on it again?  I think it’s up to you to rebuild the bridge.”

We all know how that one turned out.

Back to today.  I recognized that look on Carlos’ face–that concern that he was placing his faith in something wobbly.  And even though his mother told him it was OK, and his sister had proved that it was sturdy…all he felt was the wobble.   Then this happened:

carlos gets a pep talk

A pep talk

Vivi put down her pirate cutlass and spyglass long enough to give Carlos a pep talk.  That look on his face.  You can’t hear their laughter through these words, but you can probably imagine it if you look at his face.  I told him it was OK, but she took the time to show him.  She used herself to demonstrate that it was perfectly safe to trust the bridge.

So he did this:

Steady as she goes, mate.

Steady as she goes, mate.

Look at the concentration, the daring, on that tiny face.  Trust.  One foot in front of the other.  

I hope all of his bridges lead to greater adventures.  And that even if they sway, they are held up by steel cables his family built, way before he was born.  

One Fine Morning

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Well, I went to bed the other night with my speech for the next day unwritten, and–wouldn’t you know it–as soon as I turned off the light and put my head on the pillow it came to me.  I grabbed the pen next to my gratitude journal and scrawled on the back of my left hand:

8000
NRT
Auburn
Paula
Pioneers 
Honey, Please

Then I went to sleep.

Here’s what I ended up saying to the class of 2014 at the official beginning of their senior year…

Hello, everyone.  I am Ashley Garrett and I serve as the President of the Wesleyan College Alumnae Association.  I bring you greetings on behalf of the over 8000 women who have gone before you into the wider world after Wesleyan.  I am excited to be here today because I love love love Fall Convocation–it’s the start of a great adventure, a journey.

We are Pioneers and just like the pioneer women a couple of hundred years ago, we have packed up the things we can’t live without and thrown them in our wagons and made our way to Macon, the first stop on that journey.  And like those pioneer women, we might be looking ahead at all the ground we have to cover to get from here to there and feeling overwhelmed.  I imagine that many of those pioneers said, “Hold on.  You mean to tell me that I have to WALK across an ocean of prairie grass just to get to a mile-high WALL of Rocky Mountains and once I get over THAT, I can start my life?  Honey, please.”

It IS overwhelming, when we look out at the start of journey and see all that lies ahead of us.  So here’s my advice to you:  Just do the next right thing.  Do the next right thing.  You don’t have to do all the things and you don’t have to do them today.  You only have to do the next right thing.

This is the advice I would give my friend, Auburn, who is a member of the first-year Pirate class.  This week, Auburn was elected the chair of her class STUNT committee.  She’s looking ahead to February and thinking, “HOW am I going to make this happen?”  Auburn, just do the next right thing.

Where’s my friend, Paula?  Paula is a member of the senior Purple Knight class.  She’s juggling Orientation leadership, a role in the theater production, backstage work on another production, and her course work.  And Paula is already thinking about how to get her Actor’s Equity card after she graduates.  Paula, do the next right thing.

I tell you this today because I am a Pioneer and I am also a Purple Knight.  And I’ve walked across some oceans and climbed some mountains and I’m back here today to tell you that I know you can do it.  You will get there if you do the next right thing.  For you have courage in your purpose and strength to see it through.  Class of 2014, all hail to you.

There was clapping and cheering and crying and it was everything I had hoped to say.

Wesleyan College convocation

That’s Paula on the far left with her friends. Look at those smiles! These women will change the world.

I got to hug Paula afterwards and meet her mama.  Paula hugged my neck and whispered, “I needed to hear that today.”  There was no better outcome I could have asked for when I went to bed without knowing what I was going to say.

I got a hug from Auburn, too.  She’s only been at Wesleyan for a few weeks and is still settling in, even though she’s a third generation Wesleyanne.  While we were talking, President Ruth Knox came over to say hello and I had the honor of introducing Auburn to her.  As luck would have it, Auburn is at Wesleyan on the Mary Knox McNeill scholarship for faith and service.  That scholarship was established in memory of President Knox’s sister.  It was pure magic, watching the two of them connect there on the steps.  Ruth said, “I’ll be keeping my eye on you.”  A light came on inside Auburn and I got to see it, that moment when a girl stood up taller, prouder.  She messaged me later and we giggled over the delights of the day.  The last thing she said was, “I feel at home here now.”  Well, you can get to know her on her blog “Tales of a Wesleyanne!”

Wesleyan college convocation

That’s Auburn in the middle with her mama’s classmates. Y’all might remember Virginia from that story “The Teacher and the Professor.”

When I went to sleep with those random words scrawled on my hand, I couldn’t have dreamed of where they would take me.  What a fine morning.

Terminal Velocity

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This post is my response to the writing prompt “What’s the scariest thing you ever did and why did you do it?  Here goes…

“So…what if something goes wrong?”

My skydiving instructor tugged the four hooks on my harness and said, “Each ONE of these is capable of holding both of us.  It’s fine.”  His name was Bruce and he was a retired Marine and he had jumped 2000+ times.  “It’s fine.”

“What if you bang your head on something and pass out and I don’t know how to pull the thing to open the chute?”

“It’s got an automatic trigger set to a certain altitude and if I haven’t pulled it by then it will deploy itself.  It’s fine.”  Bruce left me standing in my harness and strolled over to the other side of the hangar to get that magic parachute he was soooo sure about.

sky diving

That’s Dan in the blue do-rag. I believe my facial expression says it all. Bruce is the fellow on the left in black and red. He was totally cool.

By that time on that sunny Saturday morning back in May 2001, I had already sat through a class about tandem skydiving, watched the safety video, signed a LOT of releases, practiced my landing tuck, paid $200 and punched my friend, Dan, for talking me into this.  Dan is a parachuting fiend–stopping on his way home 2-3 a week to go up in the sky and dive.  He evangelized for it as a way of taking life by the horns and reclaiming my sense of adventure after that boring and claustrophobic decade with my ex-husband.  (You know, Fartbuster?  Perhaps I’ve mentioned him before…)

So there I was, with Dan and two other friends from work–Emily, who was celebrating her 40th, and Jennifer, who at 24 had just finished cancer treatments.  Oh, and Richard, who came along for the show.  We had been dating for about three weeks.  In his first career, Richard had been an aerospace engineer doing research for the Army, so he had jumped a time or two but had never been high enough to experience freefall.  He wanted to dive, but tandem was the only option.  He told me out of the side of his mouth, “I don’t want to be strapped to a guy.”  As luck would have it, at that moment a six foot blonde Amazon of an instructor walked by and said, “You can ride with me, Sugar!”  I’ve never seen a man whip out a credit card and pay $200 that fast.  He was like SIGN.  ME.  UP.  So there was all 5′ 4″ of Richard dangling from that woman like a baby in a Snugli.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of that.

Our adventure weekend was special because Skydive Monroe had a big plane available with an open deck on the back, like a cargo plane.  Instead of having to waddle out a little door in a small plane, we would be able to leap, flip, sail and plummet right off the deck into nothingness.   Sweeeeet.  Right.

I cut my eyes at Richard and said, “Just how fast will I be going?”

“Oh, I’d say about 100 miles per hour, maybe 120 in freefall.  Much slower under canopy.”

“He said we would freefall for a full minute.  Don’t we pick up speed as we fall farther?”

“No, you’ll reach your terminal velocity pretty quickly.”

“I’m sorry….WHAT?”  Nobody wants to hear the word “terminal” stuck right up against “velocity” when she’s standing there in line to get into a plane with no back wall.

“A falling body can only go so fast.  You can calculate an object’s terminal velocity–its highest possible speed–by taking into consideration the drag of the air, the pull of gravity and the weight of you and Bruce strapped together.”

I gave him my best English major blank stare.

He planted a little peck on my pale, clammy cheek.  “It’s fine.”

That was a long ride up to 16,000 feet (that’s about as high as you can go without needing oxygen).  My camera guy (oh yes, I had paid extra for the camera guy) interviewed me on the way up and let’s just say I was looking a little twitterpated.  We were THREE MILES up in the air, y’all.

Bruce told me it was time to hook up.  I had to stand.  My legs were water.  Water vapor.  I mean seriously…THREE MILES UP, no back door on this plane, a dude filming me, and my new boyfriend tied to Xena the Warrior Princess.  We were third in line, inching toward that gaping hole at the back of the plane.  Nothing but blue past it because I sure as hell wasn’t looking down.

Because the deck made stunts easier, Bruce wanted to try a back flip for our exit.  Who was I to express any doubt?  Is there a safer, more practical way to hurtle out of a plane?  He pretty much dragged me to the big red line on the floor by the entrance to oblivion.  I crossed my arms over my chest and tucked my chin like we had practiced.  He gripped a long silver horizontal bar for balance and we shuffled out into the wind.  “Wind.”  HAH.  There is no word for that feeling.

Bruce screamed by my right ear, “OK on three.  3, 2, 1…….”
Look at that smile. Going 100mph really makes my cheekbones pronounced.

Look at that smile. Going 100mph really makes my cheekbones pronounced.

And he let go.  As we fell backwards, I blacked out for a second.  The force of the wind, our increasing velocity, flipped us around a couple of times then Bruce got us into flat position.  The nothingness of air pressed so hard against my chest, my face, my cheeks that I couldn’t have screamed if I had wanted to.  And oh, I WANTED TO.  Bruce tapped my right hand to signal that it was time to spread out like an X.  He deployed a drag chute and even with that little brake on, we flew downward at well over 100mph for a solid minute.  When I finally caught my breath, it all came back out as giggles.  The rush and roar.  I have never felt so alive.

Then, holy HELL, I bumped into something.  In the air–I bumped into something.  That crazy Dan had jumped right before us.  His terminal velocity must have been less than ours because we all ended up near each other and that fool SNUCK UP ON ME and grabbed my hand!  I’m falling at 100mph, tied to a Marine and yelling, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING???”  I thought we were all going to bang heads.  But those guys knew what they were doing.  Dan posed for the picture then sailed off.  Leave it to me to jump out of a plane and still run into someone I know.

Dan swooping in to grab me.

Dan swooping in to grab me.  Not smiling anymore.  I believe I was snarling, “GET OFF ME!”

At the end of the minute, when I thought my heart would explode with the giggling and the adrenaline, Bruce tapped me again to let me know that he was about to pull our chute.  WHAM!  It looked like we shot up through the air in comparison to the other solo divers around us but really their terminal velocity remained much higher while ours slowed with the greater drag coefficient of the chute in relation to the constant of gravity.  (BOO YA!)
After the rush and the roar, there was silence.  We didn’t talk.  Just floated.  Bruce let me pull the steering handles a couple of times to twirl us around.  I could see the curve of the Earth at the horizon.  A 360 degree view of Georgia countryside on a sunny Saturday morning.  I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

There’s one word you don’t want to hear your jumpmaster say when you’re about 150 feet above the ground on your first skydive and about to land.  That word is “SHIT.”  Bruce had us all lined up for a solid landing, but another dude came sailing in hard and fast directly opposite us.  Bruce adjusted quickly, but my brain clicked off at “SHIT” and I forgot to pull my knees up out of his way.  We hit the ground running (literally!) and my feet tangled with his.  I landed hard on my knees and got the wind knocked out of me for the first time in my adult life, but I staggered up with the biggest grin on my face and a new-found respect for gravity, wind and silence.

I stayed giddy for days!

I stayed giddy for days!

I stayed high for three days.  It’s been 12 years since that jump and I can still make my stomach lurch by remembering the 3-2-1…letting go.

Richard and I went back to my house and ate strawberries, drank champagne and fell in love.  That skydiving adventure was the first of our adventures together.  I pulled out my bucket list and wrote that day’s date next to “#2.  Skydive.”

Reaching my terminal velocity from three miles up was pretty scary.  But that skydive was not the scariest thing I’ve ever done.  It created the most adrenaline, but it wasn’t the scariest.

When Richard was diagnosed with leukemia three years later–that was the scariest thing I’ve ever lived through.  It, too, had a rush and a roar and confusion and panic at the beginning.  So much effort to get him BETTER.  To get him cured.  Then he reached his terminal velocity and there was the slow fall, the silence, the hard landing.  Having the wind knocked out of me.  Staggering up again after he died.  THAT was the scariest thing I ever did. 

 

To read more of the scary stories generated from this prompt, click on over to Mommy Loves Martinis where we’re all linked up!  Her tale of being a broke ass teen mother in Spanish Harlem is not to be missed.