“You’re awful quiet,” Eric the trainer said as I cowered in the back of the vintage Cessna. I didn’t lack for repartee, but I was in full suppression mode: the question would have been, “In your 560 jumps, was there ever a person who froze up and clung to the edges of the hatch, refused to bail out and rode the plane back to the runway?” Not wanting to go there and display my stunning lack of machismo, I remained steadfastly mute. I did promise myself a visit to In-N-Out Burger if I endured this ordeal.

The rumble-rumble of the 50-year-old plane was comforting. Knees scrunched up to my chest, I repeatedly read on the aircraft’s registration that it was airworthy. Also comforting, was to know that the FAA agreed with us being in the air. I gazed out the crackled plastic window wrapped around the rear of the cockpit and sought to forget the latest goblin to seize my imagination: I wondered if anybody had been caught on video giving a thumbs up and then corkscrewing into the earth.

Brandon, my trainer, hooked up to the back straps of my halter as I sat on his lap. He handed me clear plastic goggles. This is one minor detail I would change from the first fictional account of skydiving (“The Christmas Card,” in the Canyon News, December 13-27): there the tandem jumper was hooked at the hip. One. Lousy. Detail. Let’s turn the plane back and go home. . .

The tiny maroon and yellow airship continued climbing the sky over Camarillo and Oxnard. It was breathtaking to see these places from above; the landmark glass office towers of Oxnard were immediately recognizable. Cars crept along 101 like aphids. It was a perfect Sunday afternoon, hardly a cloud in the soft, luminous sky. The goggles went on; the hatch was pushed open; the chill wind blew and filled the cabin. Before I knew it, Evan and Eric stepped out over the stirrup of the wheel and zoomed off into the sky. Brandon and I were next. I placed my feet over the edge of the hatch stepped out, the wind crowded around. In my ears, and on my skin— all misgivings were blizzarded away. We were in full freefall, the wind rumbling and vibrating, hard as quartz, the pixilating sky and panoramic land rushing to my senses. I could look out now and see the silvery reaches of the Pacific Ocean, between the velvety fringes of coastal mountains; the patchwork of brown and green tilled rectangles and white-nylon-covered raspberries and blackberries. The physical texture of the wind was overwhelming; the wind was my friend, an antidote to fear and grim imaginings. In freefall the flesh ripples on the face and a thumbs up is ritually coaxed out of skydivers for the sake of video as they reach a terminal velocity of 120 mph. Freefall lasted hardly a minute, but engulfed in the flapping roar of the wind, it felt like a piece of eternity.

Then the chute popped open and there was sudden softness and silence. I could see the open parachute of Evan, the French teacher, sailing against the green and umber of farmlands below. My trainer handed me the control cords to the parachute and showed me to let up on the cords so we’d turn left or right and get into a little twisting roller-coaster action. All told, the jump lasted three and a half minutes, but seemed much longer. Time dilated as it does during an earthquake. We came down softly in a gravel field by the Baptist church of Somis, legs up, feet pointed skyward and butt into home base. Giddy, laughing, I had done it, could go to In-N-Out Burger now.

Jumpers will tell you about the adrenaline, about the first skydive changing their life. Me: it’s simple. Here’s what I took from this: we are faced every day, in small ways with the opportunity to make the jump whether it’s making a phone call or an illegal turn. Imagined fear was the sole obstacle to ”˜taking the plunge’. The reality was bringing fearlessness back to the ground and applying it a little every day. I see the open hatch, feel the wind scrub my face, and embrace the unknown.

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Grady Miller can be reached at grady.miller@canyon-news.com