Uncovering

Me and Emily

Last night my dreams were strong and varied, although as I sit here beginning this post, I cannot remember them very much at all. I know that before I went to sleep, I had decided to write about skydiving, what it gave me, as well as what it took away from me.

It started with the new year, 2021, and me remembering that there were a few times when I began the year by making my first act one of jumping out of an airplane, along with others who wanted to begin their own new year that way. We had a New Year's Eve with a full (or nearly full) moon and weather in Colorado that was, if not exactly mild, at least clear and free of snow. Remember that we were passionate jumpers who spent our days and all our free time thinking about skydiving, talking about it, and sometimes actually jumping out of airplanes. I managed one year in my career to make over 400 skydives, but mostly it was in the low hundreds, before I finally made my last jump in 2015, with more than 4,000 accumulated over the twenty-five years I was active.

I was already an older person when I began my skydiving career, beginning when I was 48, almost 49, living in Boulder, Colorado, when I decided to make a tandem jump at the Drop Zone in Loveland. Although it was supposed to be a one-time adventure, I was simply hooked by the experience of being in freefall. Before long, I had made three tandem jumps and signed up to take the First Jump Course in October. There were perhaps a half dozen others in the class; I don't remember much about it except that I was assigned two jumpmasters who would hold onto me when we exited the airplane, and that I was to perform some maneuvers, like touching the ripcord three times in succession, and paying attention to the altimeter so that I could pull at the proper time. Then I would be under canopy alone, and had to fly it back to the place where we took off.

The strongest memory I have of it all was when I pulled the ripcord and the canopy opened perfectly. I was crying with gratitude and filled with adrenaline. I passed the jump level and came back the next weekend to take the second of seven levels before I would be allowed to jump out on my own. I started the process in September, and by the end of the year I had made more than thirty jumps and was on my own. By January 1991, I had bought my first gear and was making several skydives every weekend. I had a full-time job that paid for my new passion, and I made the hour-long drive from Boulder to Loveland every single weekend, without fail. Even when the weather wasn't looking promising for jumping, I went anyway, just in case. I grew to know and appreciate all my fellow jumpers and the instructors and was definitely hooked.

All my friends who were not jumpers got tired of hearing about it endlessly, and before long my entire social life revolved around skydiving. I made around 250 jumps my first full year in the sport. I don't actually remember all this very well, but I have all my logbooks, and looking at the first one brings back such memories, and tells me that I went from Jump #35 to #293 from January 26, 1991 to December 7, 1992. By 1994, I had successfully completed the AFF (accelerated freefall) certification course to become an instructor myself and began teaching others and being one of the two jumpmasters holding onto newbies as they made their first jumps.

In that picture, I am smiling along with Emily as she completed her seventh-level skydive and I was able to certify her as a skydiver able to jump on her own. She is wearing gear from the Drop Zone and it obviously didn't fit all that well. Emily went on to become a jumpmaster herself, and went from large chutes all the way down to the tiny little parachute that she was flying when she made a miscalculation and died. She was only 39, and a beautiful person and good friend. When she died, December 18, 2010, I had moved to Bellingham and so I flew back to Colorado to attend her memorial service. That was a decade ago now, hard to believe that it's been that long, but I will never forget her.

She is only one of the many people I've lost over the years, people who have died through natural and unnatural causes. Many of those I loved in Colorado have gone, not just through skydiving, but because more than a quarter of a century of living has passed. That period of time in all lives normally sees the passing of many dear loved ones, whether or not one is involved in a risky sport. That final exit is one we will make, every one of us, whether in this year or the next, it is inevitable. I know I tend to forget that myself, but being reminded of it helps to make me live every day, every moment, that I am alive and relatively healthy with the awareness and respect it deserves.

An explanation of the title of this post: "Uncovering." It is my new year's word, the one I hope to use to find all those places I have covered up in my psyche. I realize that I shy away from writing about some people, like my son Chris, because it's so painful to even contemplate remembering him. He died in 2002, and I have sometimes tried to write a post about him, but it's really hard. But the time has come for me to uncover the reason why that is true. There is shame in there somewhere, but I can't quite figure out why or where it fits. Within the coming year, I will find out. My unconscious and my dreams will help me with it, I'm sure, since I've now begun the process. 

Memories have huge staying power, but like dreams, they thrive in the dark, surviving for decades in the deep waters of our minds like shipwrecks on the sea bed. —J. G. Ballard

And I have made a commitment to stir those dark waters, and hopefully remember some of those who are no longer with me on this side of the grass.  But I cannot end this post without giving some thought to what I have to celebrate right here, right now: first and foremost, my dear life partner, who sleeps next to me as I write, and for my health and vigor, which needs to be appreciated today, as I begin to move into my day, the third day of this brand spanking new year. And of course, for my beloved fellow travelers through life, those I know in person, and those I know through their blogs and words and pictures, like you, dear reader. I am grateful beyond what I can express for it all. I hope that the coming week will bring you love and light. Be well until then, dear friends.