(no subject)
So. Last Saturday?
I went sky diving.
That's right. Sky diving. And I'll have you know it was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.
Sometime last week Evan mentioned that his dad was bringing him up to the airport he works at (he's a professional sky diving staff member on the weekends-I believe his jump count is somewhere around 800 jumps) to do his very first sky diving jump and he asked me if I wanted to. :o And I realized that I really, really did. So I asked him how much it was. He figured it was $100, which made me :(. He said he'd ask his dad and even see if there was a possibility for a discount.
Ended up being $240. :( After settling all those college student loans, I figured that was the last amount I needed to be blowing, even if I did get much more than I expected at my family graduation party. I told him that I'd have to wait until next time, when I had more money. :( But I still wanted to be there when he jumped, so I said I'd be at his house the next morning by quarter of nine and drive up with him, his siblings, and friend, Anthony.
That night was the night of my birthday party-a triple birthday bash between three girls-and I didn't get much sleep, needless to say. My dad wouldn't let me spend the night with them that night because I had spent the night at Rose's the night before for our huge youth council sleepover thing, but I did manage to stay pretty late (thank god for being able to drive after nine! It's good to be eighteen. :D). And then I ended up talking on the phone to Kaitlynn for a few hours (my best friend who moved down to Florida a little over a month ago) because she was going through a pretty rough moment. :/ Next thing I know, I'm getting a wake-up call from Evan the next morning at 9:20, asking me if I'm coming.
D:
I felt so terrible. He was already late (we were supposed to leave at nine) so I told him to go up without me and not to worry about it. He kept offering to just come pick me up, but I figured there was no way to get ready in the amount of time it would take for him to get to my house (I still reeked of campfire), so as much as I wanted to go, I told him not to wait. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of deliberating, he said, "screw it, I'm already late, so you're coming anyway, I'll be at your house to pick you up!" I threw on the cleanest clothes I could find, sprinkled some baby powder over my hair (who knew that actually worked?), and slapped some flip-flops on my feet before running out the door to meet him.
It was about an hour-long ride to the airport (out in the middle of nearly nowhere). The entire time everyone kept asking, "are you sure you're not going to jump too?" I kept telling them no. I didn't have enough money to do it. :( We met Evan's dad there (it was just a tiny little house in a large, open field on top of a mountain between Lake Ontario and Seneca Lake), where he started prepping Evan for the jump. We watched this ten minute-long movie with a guy who had a gray beard all the way down to his chest (apparently, he was the inventor of the parachutes that the airport used, but it was still so difficult to take him seriously), which told us about all the things that could go wrong in the air and how no one could sue the airport or parachute manufacturer, not us, not our family, not our heirs, etc.
We ran outside to watch a couple of people land-it was so crazy to see their expressions and hear their reactions. One guy could only repeat, "that was fucking nuts" over and over. When we went back inside, Evan's dad brought out packets of paperwork to sign. They asked me one more time if I wanted to do it. Finally, I said fuck it and asked for some paperwork to sign. I was going to jump, $240, be damned.
I figured-$240 for the use of my rig, the help of my tandem partner, the payment of my tandem partner's decision not to let me die, the cost of fuel for the plane, and the profit for the airport, itself, so it could continue to stay open? I figured I could survive.
Since I had already watched the movie, I was on the same page as Evan. We went through and read and signed literally ten pages, twenty signature each, promising not to blame anybody for anything that could happen to me by myself. I certainly learned the definition of "indemnify" that day. Since I hadn't actually been prepared to jump until that point, I had to borrow Evan's sister's sneakers.
Next, we learned the basic rules of sky diving. They always stressed, "ARCH ARCH ARCH" and "never touch your tandem guide's hands." We practiced arching on this handy little cushioned table while they found us suits to wear. They had a small carpet on the floor that matched the floor plan of the plane to explain how we were to sit in the plane and how we were to exit it.
Pretend that my tandem partner is strapped to my back in the drawing. This is how we were to launch off the plane. Evan's dad had us practice a few times before we even suited up. We were to keep our knees soft and pliant to keep us aerodynamic and make it easier for our guides to direct us and as we were launching and we had to keep our heads as far back into the guides' shoulders as possible, always keeping our arms crossed over our chests.
Using one of those wooden artist model things to teach us proper arch positions.
Proper "superman" positions.
Briefing us about exiting the plane.
Proper arching technique.
Ahaha, the sort of hats that we had to wear in the air.
Suiting up.
Haaaa.
Heading out to the plane.
I told you it was crowded.
Since seating was arranged by weight, I was Jumper #2. Evan was to sit next to the pilot, right by the door and Brett, his tandem partner sat right in front of him. My back was right against the pilot's seat and I had to half-straddle my guide, Peter. It was much smaller than I expected and so cramped-we were in the plane for twenty minutes-my knees were shoved into my chest under my chin. I did get to look out the window though. :)
I'd never seen clouds like that before. I mean, it's one thing when you're in a plane going tens of thousands of feet above them, but to actually be on their level for so long? There was basically an entire other level of the earth suspended 8,000 feet above the ground, there were so many and they looked so solid.
And my tandem partner? Oh god, Peter, was he hilarious. Evan's dad told me that he would have gladly have taken me up, but said that he was resting for a week or two-he'd dislocated his finger trying to open the plane door on one of his last jumps and had to still go through with the tandem jump injured-so he was taking it easy, but trusted Peter not to kill me. :D Peter is an immigrant (not so sure he's entirely legal) from England who spent fifteen years as a psychologist (he said that that all you had to do to be a therapist there is slap a sign on your do though, so he said he wasn't what you thought of in the typical idea of the profession). He told me, "I spent nearly twenty years trying to convince people not to make suicidal jumps and what's the first thing I do after I retire? I make a living off of it."
I loved him. If I had been scared at any point, he would have alleviated my anxieties instantly.
But anyway, what being Jumper #2 meant was that I had a harder job of getting out of the plane. We had odometers strapped to our harnesses to let us know how high up we were. We were to launch at 10,000 feet (that's right, I jumped out of a plane 10,000 feet in the freaking air) and the parachute was to open roughly around 5,500 feet.
The plane ride was lovely, besides the cramped-ness. I got to see the door handle-the one that killed Evan's dad's fingers-and I tell you, it certainly looked dangerously old. Peter and I had a lot to talk about (I'm going to dual major in Psychology and Education at Northeastern) as far as career stories went and then all about his sky diving experiences. I asked him what it was like to go through a cloud. And I enjoyed the view so much.
A little after we reached 9,000 feet, the guides went over a brief review of what we talked about with Evan's dad back on the ground. It was sort of hard to hear him, but we didn't have to strain our ears completely. Then they told us to put on our hats (I totally felt-and looked-like a penis, I kid you not) and put our goggles over our foreheads. We were going to leave in just a minute or so. Evan, Brett, and I all had to turn ourselves around in place (very difficult, considering the lack of space) to strap up. Peter went through and announced when each hook was being set in place as he did it (top right, top left, bottom right, bottom left) and pulled the ropes/cords/straps tight.
I didn't see the door open, but I certainly felt it. Brett had just been saying that the sky had been so cold that last few days and I knew what he meant as soon as the gust of cold air came rushing in. I didn't see Evan actually exit-just a sliver of Brett's back tumbling through the air-and then before I knew it, it was my turn.
Peter had warned me beforehand that he'd need to yell so I could hear him once the door was open-it was so loud. So he shouted for me to put on my goggles, to angle myself towards the door, and to move, "forward, forward, forward!" all the way past it.
There you have the one moment where my nervousness rivaled my excitement. Suddenly, all of my primal survival instincts and my self-preservation mentality kicked in. Just scooting myself past that open door-a wide gaping hole in the less than sturdy structure I had loaded myself onto that led thousands of miles to tiny, indistinct shapes of doom on the ground-was unbelievable. I had the urge to grab onto the sides of almost everything, anything that would steady me, but settled for the handle above the door. Just feeling that wind and looking down to all the clouds, right below me, nothing blocking them from me, gave me the single most rush of adrenaline ever.
It was fucking great.
The area which we launched off of is nothing more than a foot and half-long plastic platform suspended a foot or so away from the plane by a metal bar attached to the bottom. Peter put his right foot to the far right of the platform. I was to put my right foot up against his and immediately follow that with my left, so he could place his left down on the other side of mine. But it was difficult shifting my body to face the outside of the plane from the front without having much to support myself with-I almost think it was stranger when the door was next to me, rather than in front of me... I felt more secure when I was actually facing towards the open air. Weird.
And the gust of wind threw me off when I put my foot down-they warned us that, well, since our plane was traveling at a good hundred miles per hour or so, the wind would want to shake us off the platform before we were ready, which is another reason why the soft knees were so important. My foot almost slipped , but I managed to get my left foot out and on the platform before I got too distracted by the wind.
And so I sad on the edge of the plane in the door, my feet resting on this flimsy step 10,000 feet (over a lake/ground/ I wasn't really sure what we were flying over at that point from that angle).
Just sitting.
And before I could register what was happening, Peter grabbed onto a handle on the outside of the plane and moved away from the door, positioning me into a squat. I was holding onto absolutely nothing by my shoulders and had nothing supporting me but that little platform and Peter's hand on the side of the plane.
SA:Lkjfa;slkjfd;salfjksa;dfjlsa;fdjsadf.
With a pat on the shoulder (I could barely hear anything so all communications until the parachute opened were through taps on the shoulder or thigh), he leaned forward, he moved back-the back of my head dug into this shoulder-he leaned forward again and let go.
Instantly, I did as I was told earlier, pushing my hips out as far as I could make them and arching my back-so much that I wished I had done some hyper extension exercises at the gym earlier-just like Peter had reminded me in the plane, making sure to position my legs between his and "kick his butt" to make me as virtually nonexistent as possible. He tapped my shoulder again, and I moved my arms from across my chest outward into a "superman" pose, ninety degrees at the shoulder and ninety degrees at the elbow.
And then I saw the ground below me.
And then the sky-below me?
And then the ground.
And then the sky.
And then a great, big, hulking, bulbous cloud.
And that's when I started to scream.
"OH MY GOD, THERE'S A CLOUD. IT'S A CLOUD."
That was one of the single greatest moments of my young life. :D I so wish I had a better vocabulary to describe it-but all I can think of is the word Peter gave me, "hazy." It was already so freezing cold in the air, but Peter told me that it tends to be just the tiniest bit cooler inside. I couldn't really tell the difference temperature-wise because I was so distracted by how suddenly I had lost all sense of vision to this fuzzy, thick fog of whiteness. I was reminded of Stephen King's novel, The Mist, and figured that it was the best comparison. The smallest droplets of moisture collected on my goggles for less than a second and then ran off. Like I said... Everything just became "hazy."
Peter told me later that we were in the cloud for about seven seconds. We still had twenty more seconds of free fall and dear god, was it incredible. We had leveled out by that point, and it was really as if I were flying. And the superman pose certainly added to the mindset. It was so cold and my teeth were starting to hurt from the wind (I couldn't stop smiling and screaming) and I kept feeling as if my hat was going to break itself away from my head, protective strap or no strap, but I couldn't care. I was freaking flying, dammit. You can feel the wind pushing and pulling at you (know when you stick your hand out the window of a car going 60 mph? Double that), but it doesn't really feel like you're moving. The only way you realize that you're actually in motion is the odometer strapped to your chest and the objects under you getting marginally closer and closer-but you spend so much time looking out in front of you that you don't really pay attention to what's below you, so it doesn't even matter.
And then the parachute blew open. It took me a moment to realize that's what had happened-I'd been expecting to be jarred from the impact, but it wasn't anything more than the feeling you got as a kid when you were on a tire swing and one of the grown-ups suddenly came over to bring it to a halt and tell you that the food was ready to eat. That sort of thing.
As soon as the parachute was up, everything became absolutely silent. To go from the constant, in-your-face-in-your-ears-in-your-brain "whooshing" noise to positively nothing... it took a moment to register.
And then we were just gliding along. I looked up to Peter. "That was it?"
"That was it," he laughed at me. "Did you feel those 360 spins we did as we exited?"
"That's what that was?"
"That's what it was, all right. I only ever do those when I feel that we have a really solid exit and ours was pretty solid, indeed."
"PETER, WE WENT THROUGH A CLOUD."
"Ahaha, I told you that was what it was like, didn't I? Just hazy."
"I WENT THROUGH A CLOUD."
He started shifting and adjusting the straps on my back, untying a few, loosening some others, pulled my goggles up to the top of my head, and then pulled my hands up through two yellow handles. "Here, want to steer the parachute for awhile?"
Alkjfasl;fjas;lfdjas;fjkas;fdjas;fsakdfas;fdsafds. So great.
After awhile I couldn't really feel my right hand-it was starting to fall asleep, so he let me take my hands away and just sort of dangle from the parachute. I let my arms drift out to the sides and it was flying all over again, only completely different from the free fall. This one wasn't necessarily any less intense, but it was ultimately very relaxing. We were only drifting at about twenty miles per hour now and whereas we had traveled roughly 4,500 feet in thirty seconds, it was going to take us around seven to to travel the remaining 5,000 or so.
Which reminds me. It was about this time that I realized how badly my ears were hurting from the pressure. For those of you who have traveled in planes before, you know what it's like to change altitude so quickly. The typical yawning, chewing of gum, and swallowing a ridiculous number of times doesn't always help. So imagine changing 5,000 feet in altitude in less than a minute, and 10,000 ultimately in less than ten. I couldn't hear properly for four hours afterwards and my ears kept popping and unpopping every ten minutes or so for almost two hours after that.
But I certainly didn't mind during (or even after, for that matter) our descent. Everything was so much more beautiful from that height. I could see all the way across Lake Ontario. I could see all the Amish farms in sight. I could see all the little moo cows thousands of feet away. It was so much warmer after the parachute was opened and it really was one of the most relaxing experiences I've ever undergone.
"Want to do a few quick spins?"
"Yes, please!"
And so I started screaming again. Kiersten (Evan's sister), Connor (Kiersten's twin), and Anthony later told me that they could hear me all the way from down there. Haaaa. But really! It was like being on a roller-coaster, only better. My organs were being pressed against the side of my insides as we made a sharp turn and my stomach flipped as we made a quick dip (like during airplane turbulence or a drop on a ride), but it was so much crazier because there was nothing directing the pattern of movement other than the guy behind me.
Evan landed about five minutes before I did, not just because he jumped first, but also due to the fact that he and Brett were both considerably more heavy than Peter and I (Peter was nearly shorter than I was, imagine that), so it was obviously going to take us longer to reach the ground. Also because of our height and weight differences, Evan was told to expect a "sliding" landing and I, more likely than not, to have a "standing."
When we came to about five hundred feet, we were to start preparing for the landing. I was especially glad for my ab workouts because landing preparation for sliding went as follows:
Really nice ab workout. So I went ahead and did it when he told me to prepare to land. But then all of a sudden, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be doing that, or be getting ready for the standing. So I deliberated for a whole twenty seconds, bringing my legs back just slightly before pushing them out again quickly. Evan's dad said that I looked like I was doing little bicycle kicks. It was also kind of funny because I couldn't actually tell when we were going to hit the ground. I kept having moments where it was like, "okaaaay, heeeere it comes... riiiight... now... right... just about riiiiiiight... right... right now!" I was mid-bicycle kick when we hit but one leg was still straight, so it was an okay landing. :D I couldn't stop smiling for a long time. My cheeks were in pain.
Me!
Trying to get our ears to pop.
Post jump talk!
:D :D :D :D :D
I'm totally taking my certificate, framing it, and hanging it in my dorm room.
:D
ETA: Kiersten posted pictures on facebook! :D
I went sky diving.
That's right. Sky diving. And I'll have you know it was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.
Sometime last week Evan mentioned that his dad was bringing him up to the airport he works at (he's a professional sky diving staff member on the weekends-I believe his jump count is somewhere around 800 jumps) to do his very first sky diving jump and he asked me if I wanted to. :o And I realized that I really, really did. So I asked him how much it was. He figured it was $100, which made me :(. He said he'd ask his dad and even see if there was a possibility for a discount.
Ended up being $240. :( After settling all those college student loans, I figured that was the last amount I needed to be blowing, even if I did get much more than I expected at my family graduation party. I told him that I'd have to wait until next time, when I had more money. :( But I still wanted to be there when he jumped, so I said I'd be at his house the next morning by quarter of nine and drive up with him, his siblings, and friend, Anthony.
That night was the night of my birthday party-a triple birthday bash between three girls-and I didn't get much sleep, needless to say. My dad wouldn't let me spend the night with them that night because I had spent the night at Rose's the night before for our huge youth council sleepover thing, but I did manage to stay pretty late (thank god for being able to drive after nine! It's good to be eighteen. :D). And then I ended up talking on the phone to Kaitlynn for a few hours (my best friend who moved down to Florida a little over a month ago) because she was going through a pretty rough moment. :/ Next thing I know, I'm getting a wake-up call from Evan the next morning at 9:20, asking me if I'm coming.
D:
I felt so terrible. He was already late (we were supposed to leave at nine) so I told him to go up without me and not to worry about it. He kept offering to just come pick me up, but I figured there was no way to get ready in the amount of time it would take for him to get to my house (I still reeked of campfire), so as much as I wanted to go, I told him not to wait. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of deliberating, he said, "screw it, I'm already late, so you're coming anyway, I'll be at your house to pick you up!" I threw on the cleanest clothes I could find, sprinkled some baby powder over my hair (who knew that actually worked?), and slapped some flip-flops on my feet before running out the door to meet him.
It was about an hour-long ride to the airport (out in the middle of nearly nowhere). The entire time everyone kept asking, "are you sure you're not going to jump too?" I kept telling them no. I didn't have enough money to do it. :( We met Evan's dad there (it was just a tiny little house in a large, open field on top of a mountain between Lake Ontario and Seneca Lake), where he started prepping Evan for the jump. We watched this ten minute-long movie with a guy who had a gray beard all the way down to his chest (apparently, he was the inventor of the parachutes that the airport used, but it was still so difficult to take him seriously), which told us about all the things that could go wrong in the air and how no one could sue the airport or parachute manufacturer, not us, not our family, not our heirs, etc.
We ran outside to watch a couple of people land-it was so crazy to see their expressions and hear their reactions. One guy could only repeat, "that was fucking nuts" over and over. When we went back inside, Evan's dad brought out packets of paperwork to sign. They asked me one more time if I wanted to do it. Finally, I said fuck it and asked for some paperwork to sign. I was going to jump, $240, be damned.
I figured-$240 for the use of my rig, the help of my tandem partner, the payment of my tandem partner's decision not to let me die, the cost of fuel for the plane, and the profit for the airport, itself, so it could continue to stay open? I figured I could survive.
Since I had already watched the movie, I was on the same page as Evan. We went through and read and signed literally ten pages, twenty signature each, promising not to blame anybody for anything that could happen to me by myself. I certainly learned the definition of "indemnify" that day. Since I hadn't actually been prepared to jump until that point, I had to borrow Evan's sister's sneakers.
Next, we learned the basic rules of sky diving. They always stressed, "ARCH ARCH ARCH" and "never touch your tandem guide's hands." We practiced arching on this handy little cushioned table while they found us suits to wear. They had a small carpet on the floor that matched the floor plan of the plane to explain how we were to sit in the plane and how we were to exit it.
Pretend that my tandem partner is strapped to my back in the drawing. This is how we were to launch off the plane. Evan's dad had us practice a few times before we even suited up. We were to keep our knees soft and pliant to keep us aerodynamic and make it easier for our guides to direct us and as we were launching and we had to keep our heads as far back into the guides' shoulders as possible, always keeping our arms crossed over our chests.
Using one of those wooden artist model things to teach us proper arch positions.
Proper "superman" positions.
Briefing us about exiting the plane.
Proper arching technique.
Ahaha, the sort of hats that we had to wear in the air.
Suiting up.
Haaaa.
Heading out to the plane.
I told you it was crowded.
Since seating was arranged by weight, I was Jumper #2. Evan was to sit next to the pilot, right by the door and Brett, his tandem partner sat right in front of him. My back was right against the pilot's seat and I had to half-straddle my guide, Peter. It was much smaller than I expected and so cramped-we were in the plane for twenty minutes-my knees were shoved into my chest under my chin. I did get to look out the window though. :)
I'd never seen clouds like that before. I mean, it's one thing when you're in a plane going tens of thousands of feet above them, but to actually be on their level for so long? There was basically an entire other level of the earth suspended 8,000 feet above the ground, there were so many and they looked so solid.
And my tandem partner? Oh god, Peter, was he hilarious. Evan's dad told me that he would have gladly have taken me up, but said that he was resting for a week or two-he'd dislocated his finger trying to open the plane door on one of his last jumps and had to still go through with the tandem jump injured-so he was taking it easy, but trusted Peter not to kill me. :D Peter is an immigrant (not so sure he's entirely legal) from England who spent fifteen years as a psychologist (he said that that all you had to do to be a therapist there is slap a sign on your do though, so he said he wasn't what you thought of in the typical idea of the profession). He told me, "I spent nearly twenty years trying to convince people not to make suicidal jumps and what's the first thing I do after I retire? I make a living off of it."
I loved him. If I had been scared at any point, he would have alleviated my anxieties instantly.
But anyway, what being Jumper #2 meant was that I had a harder job of getting out of the plane. We had odometers strapped to our harnesses to let us know how high up we were. We were to launch at 10,000 feet (that's right, I jumped out of a plane 10,000 feet in the freaking air) and the parachute was to open roughly around 5,500 feet.
The plane ride was lovely, besides the cramped-ness. I got to see the door handle-the one that killed Evan's dad's fingers-and I tell you, it certainly looked dangerously old. Peter and I had a lot to talk about (I'm going to dual major in Psychology and Education at Northeastern) as far as career stories went and then all about his sky diving experiences. I asked him what it was like to go through a cloud. And I enjoyed the view so much.
A little after we reached 9,000 feet, the guides went over a brief review of what we talked about with Evan's dad back on the ground. It was sort of hard to hear him, but we didn't have to strain our ears completely. Then they told us to put on our hats (I totally felt-and looked-like a penis, I kid you not) and put our goggles over our foreheads. We were going to leave in just a minute or so. Evan, Brett, and I all had to turn ourselves around in place (very difficult, considering the lack of space) to strap up. Peter went through and announced when each hook was being set in place as he did it (top right, top left, bottom right, bottom left) and pulled the ropes/cords/straps tight.
I didn't see the door open, but I certainly felt it. Brett had just been saying that the sky had been so cold that last few days and I knew what he meant as soon as the gust of cold air came rushing in. I didn't see Evan actually exit-just a sliver of Brett's back tumbling through the air-and then before I knew it, it was my turn.
Peter had warned me beforehand that he'd need to yell so I could hear him once the door was open-it was so loud. So he shouted for me to put on my goggles, to angle myself towards the door, and to move, "forward, forward, forward!" all the way past it.
There you have the one moment where my nervousness rivaled my excitement. Suddenly, all of my primal survival instincts and my self-preservation mentality kicked in. Just scooting myself past that open door-a wide gaping hole in the less than sturdy structure I had loaded myself onto that led thousands of miles to tiny, indistinct shapes of doom on the ground-was unbelievable. I had the urge to grab onto the sides of almost everything, anything that would steady me, but settled for the handle above the door. Just feeling that wind and looking down to all the clouds, right below me, nothing blocking them from me, gave me the single most rush of adrenaline ever.
It was fucking great.
The area which we launched off of is nothing more than a foot and half-long plastic platform suspended a foot or so away from the plane by a metal bar attached to the bottom. Peter put his right foot to the far right of the platform. I was to put my right foot up against his and immediately follow that with my left, so he could place his left down on the other side of mine. But it was difficult shifting my body to face the outside of the plane from the front without having much to support myself with-I almost think it was stranger when the door was next to me, rather than in front of me... I felt more secure when I was actually facing towards the open air. Weird.
And the gust of wind threw me off when I put my foot down-they warned us that, well, since our plane was traveling at a good hundred miles per hour or so, the wind would want to shake us off the platform before we were ready, which is another reason why the soft knees were so important. My foot almost slipped , but I managed to get my left foot out and on the platform before I got too distracted by the wind.
And so I sad on the edge of the plane in the door, my feet resting on this flimsy step 10,000 feet (over a lake/ground/ I wasn't really sure what we were flying over at that point from that angle).
Just sitting.
And before I could register what was happening, Peter grabbed onto a handle on the outside of the plane and moved away from the door, positioning me into a squat. I was holding onto absolutely nothing by my shoulders and had nothing supporting me but that little platform and Peter's hand on the side of the plane.
SA:Lkjfa;slkjfd;salfjksa;dfjlsa;fdjsadf.
With a pat on the shoulder (I could barely hear anything so all communications until the parachute opened were through taps on the shoulder or thigh), he leaned forward, he moved back-the back of my head dug into this shoulder-he leaned forward again and let go.
Instantly, I did as I was told earlier, pushing my hips out as far as I could make them and arching my back-so much that I wished I had done some hyper extension exercises at the gym earlier-just like Peter had reminded me in the plane, making sure to position my legs between his and "kick his butt" to make me as virtually nonexistent as possible. He tapped my shoulder again, and I moved my arms from across my chest outward into a "superman" pose, ninety degrees at the shoulder and ninety degrees at the elbow.
And then I saw the ground below me.
And then the sky-below me?
And then the ground.
And then the sky.
And then a great, big, hulking, bulbous cloud.
And that's when I started to scream.
"OH MY GOD, THERE'S A CLOUD. IT'S A CLOUD."
That was one of the single greatest moments of my young life. :D I so wish I had a better vocabulary to describe it-but all I can think of is the word Peter gave me, "hazy." It was already so freezing cold in the air, but Peter told me that it tends to be just the tiniest bit cooler inside. I couldn't really tell the difference temperature-wise because I was so distracted by how suddenly I had lost all sense of vision to this fuzzy, thick fog of whiteness. I was reminded of Stephen King's novel, The Mist, and figured that it was the best comparison. The smallest droplets of moisture collected on my goggles for less than a second and then ran off. Like I said... Everything just became "hazy."
Peter told me later that we were in the cloud for about seven seconds. We still had twenty more seconds of free fall and dear god, was it incredible. We had leveled out by that point, and it was really as if I were flying. And the superman pose certainly added to the mindset. It was so cold and my teeth were starting to hurt from the wind (I couldn't stop smiling and screaming) and I kept feeling as if my hat was going to break itself away from my head, protective strap or no strap, but I couldn't care. I was freaking flying, dammit. You can feel the wind pushing and pulling at you (know when you stick your hand out the window of a car going 60 mph? Double that), but it doesn't really feel like you're moving. The only way you realize that you're actually in motion is the odometer strapped to your chest and the objects under you getting marginally closer and closer-but you spend so much time looking out in front of you that you don't really pay attention to what's below you, so it doesn't even matter.
And then the parachute blew open. It took me a moment to realize that's what had happened-I'd been expecting to be jarred from the impact, but it wasn't anything more than the feeling you got as a kid when you were on a tire swing and one of the grown-ups suddenly came over to bring it to a halt and tell you that the food was ready to eat. That sort of thing.
As soon as the parachute was up, everything became absolutely silent. To go from the constant, in-your-face-in-your-ears-in-your-brain "whooshing" noise to positively nothing... it took a moment to register.
And then we were just gliding along. I looked up to Peter. "That was it?"
"That was it," he laughed at me. "Did you feel those 360 spins we did as we exited?"
"That's what that was?"
"That's what it was, all right. I only ever do those when I feel that we have a really solid exit and ours was pretty solid, indeed."
"PETER, WE WENT THROUGH A CLOUD."
"Ahaha, I told you that was what it was like, didn't I? Just hazy."
"I WENT THROUGH A CLOUD."
He started shifting and adjusting the straps on my back, untying a few, loosening some others, pulled my goggles up to the top of my head, and then pulled my hands up through two yellow handles. "Here, want to steer the parachute for awhile?"
Alkjfasl;fjas;lfdjas;fjkas;fdjas;fsakdfas;fdsafds. So great.
After awhile I couldn't really feel my right hand-it was starting to fall asleep, so he let me take my hands away and just sort of dangle from the parachute. I let my arms drift out to the sides and it was flying all over again, only completely different from the free fall. This one wasn't necessarily any less intense, but it was ultimately very relaxing. We were only drifting at about twenty miles per hour now and whereas we had traveled roughly 4,500 feet in thirty seconds, it was going to take us around seven to to travel the remaining 5,000 or so.
Which reminds me. It was about this time that I realized how badly my ears were hurting from the pressure. For those of you who have traveled in planes before, you know what it's like to change altitude so quickly. The typical yawning, chewing of gum, and swallowing a ridiculous number of times doesn't always help. So imagine changing 5,000 feet in altitude in less than a minute, and 10,000 ultimately in less than ten. I couldn't hear properly for four hours afterwards and my ears kept popping and unpopping every ten minutes or so for almost two hours after that.
But I certainly didn't mind during (or even after, for that matter) our descent. Everything was so much more beautiful from that height. I could see all the way across Lake Ontario. I could see all the Amish farms in sight. I could see all the little moo cows thousands of feet away. It was so much warmer after the parachute was opened and it really was one of the most relaxing experiences I've ever undergone.
"Want to do a few quick spins?"
"Yes, please!"
And so I started screaming again. Kiersten (Evan's sister), Connor (Kiersten's twin), and Anthony later told me that they could hear me all the way from down there. Haaaa. But really! It was like being on a roller-coaster, only better. My organs were being pressed against the side of my insides as we made a sharp turn and my stomach flipped as we made a quick dip (like during airplane turbulence or a drop on a ride), but it was so much crazier because there was nothing directing the pattern of movement other than the guy behind me.
Evan landed about five minutes before I did, not just because he jumped first, but also due to the fact that he and Brett were both considerably more heavy than Peter and I (Peter was nearly shorter than I was, imagine that), so it was obviously going to take us longer to reach the ground. Also because of our height and weight differences, Evan was told to expect a "sliding" landing and I, more likely than not, to have a "standing."
When we came to about five hundred feet, we were to start preparing for the landing. I was especially glad for my ab workouts because landing preparation for sliding went as follows:
Really nice ab workout. So I went ahead and did it when he told me to prepare to land. But then all of a sudden, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be doing that, or be getting ready for the standing. So I deliberated for a whole twenty seconds, bringing my legs back just slightly before pushing them out again quickly. Evan's dad said that I looked like I was doing little bicycle kicks. It was also kind of funny because I couldn't actually tell when we were going to hit the ground. I kept having moments where it was like, "okaaaay, heeeere it comes... riiiight... now... right... just about riiiiiiight... right... right now!" I was mid-bicycle kick when we hit but one leg was still straight, so it was an okay landing. :D I couldn't stop smiling for a long time. My cheeks were in pain.
Me!
Trying to get our ears to pop.
Post jump talk!
:D :D :D :D :D
I'm totally taking my certificate, framing it, and hanging it in my dorm room.
:D
ETA: Kiersten posted pictures on facebook! :D