Jump
Amid all of today’s grim news was this ray of hope from a foxnews.com headline: “Alzheimer’s disease preventative nasal vaccine to be tested at Boston hospital.”
Here’s another positive — it’s National Fast Food Day. I’m in!
Here’s an excerpt from the piece I’ve been working on, First and Last Jump, about my skydiving experience, which I’ve included in my Curious Sicilian book file. I wrote it in 1985. It will be whittled down considerably from its original 21 pages but still much longer than I’d expected:
In addition to my fear of malfunction of chute and nerve, I was afraid I’d pass out or suffer a heart attack as I launched. Why then, given such fears, was I doing this? The foremost reason was learning to overcome fear, especially that of death. Exhilaration, maximization of the senses, were also factors. And I wanted to see if I would “have the balls,” as we say in Brooklyn. I also hoped to be appeased for my failures as a writer and lover. I did not want my life to end without trying to live, without accomplishing the unusual. I also wanted to emerge from the shadow of my mother’s influence. If I were to perish in the attempt, at least it would have been in an effort to live to the fullest.
Dick snapped the static line in place and offered it to me to test. I gave it a token yank, certain malfunction wouldn’t occur at that point. Time seemed to have flown. I wanted a few more minutes to think. I was silent as Dick opened the hatch and said: “Get ready.” As he’d warned, it was difficult to get my leg out of the plane, the force of flight at 70 MPH hindering movement. Or was my subconscious rebelling, telling me to stay inside? Dick lifted the leg and placed it outside. The situation did not seem real, nor was it dreamlike. My mind was so engaged my body seemed almost nonexistent, and its focus seemed not immediate but distant as it guided me. Curiously, I did not experience that violent flash in the crotch I’d known looking down from a roof or tall building.
Although I knew the force of the wind would not blow me away before I assumed the ready position, I was not entirely convinced of it until I’d seized the bar. It wasn’t as difficult to maneuver as I’d imagined. Despite my fear, I followed the procedure to the letter, moving my left foot to the edge of the step and locking into the pushup-like position, right leg cocked in mid air. “Go!” Dick shouted. I may have paused, I’m not sure, as time suddenly seemed to be in slow motion. I remembered Dostoevsky saying how long the minutes seemed while he was waiting to be executed.
Infinitely more friendly weather at today’s session of the floating book shop, non-stop sunshine, hardly a breeze. My thanks to the kind folks who donated a wide array of books, and to those who bought. Seven of the ten outgoing items were in Russian, one in Hebrew, one a translation of Muscovite Victor Pelevin’s Omon Ra. The lone work sold in English was a Kevin O’Brien thriller, The Night She Disappeared.
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