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Flying Free: A Memoir |
| Written by Jessye | |
| Sunday, 15 June 2008 | |
(Note: This story was written as part of a memoir project for my sophomore English class. It isn't perfect, but it documents one of the greatest experiences of my life.)
Standing at the edge of the platform, my knees began to shake. Just a few steps in front of me, the overgrown earth sank to a 300-foot drop, with nothing but the forest canopy to break a careless fall. Leaning forward slightly, I could already feel the ground beneath me leaving, my body plummeting downward and striking every whip-like branch, each one smashing bones and mashing flesh until I crashed to the ground, now nothing but a bloody pulp. The sudden calloused hand against my shoulder snapped me back to the creaky metal platform still beneath my feet, the harness pulled taut around my waist and the thick metal line stretching out across the expansive green abyss. I rocked back and forth like a pendulum, the wooziness in my legs unbearable. Glancing up, my eyes met those of the affable man hooking a metal clip to the wire, masterfully clicking and twisting everything shut. “¿Listos?” he asked in Spanish. Ready? I was hastily trying to translate in my head, but finally I nodded, the blood pounding in my ears as loud as a siren. With his forceful shove my body left the ground quickly, and suddenly I was flying free. The ring of trees around the platform were left behind as I burst forward, soaring above the wondrous stretch of earth tones below me. I could see the platform ahead of me in the distance, so far that the people upon it were nothing but specks of dust, and I could see the scratchy outline of trees against the heavenly sky. The scratching of the clip against the metal rod was fiercely loud, yipping like a pocket-sized poodle. But suddenly, opening my eyes for what felt like the first time, I realized none of that mattered. I was unable to breath; my mind and soul had left my body and were sailing to a higher place. Trying desperately to enjoy the moment, to savor it all and commit it to memory, I opened my eyes and mind wider than I ever had. Below me, the world in the forest was ever changing. Millions of plants had grown and died there, thousands of animals were surviving and passing on. Hundreds of tourists had done exactly what I was doing now, and I wished that each of them had had the epiphany that I had had. And each of those tourists would continue to live on, and they would have their own paths in life. Each of them would laugh and cry and love and die. And each of the animals in the very forest below me would live and thrive. They would eat and sleep and procreate and die, and their bodies would decompose and return to the earth, and I would as well. I began to laugh then, because I knew that I was a part of all of this. “Woohoo!” I cried, stretching my arms out like the wings of an eagle, soaring high above the world that I belonged to. The constant yipping had slowed down greatly, and the people that were once so tiny were now much bigger than myself. Slowly descending upon the platform, I could still feel the rush of cool wind against my cheek as a man unlatched me. Falling forward, I was as fresh and naked as a newborn chick. Everything was new; the sights, the smells, and the people in my life I had known and loved. “How was it? Wasn’t it awesome?” my friend asked excitedly, grabbing my wrists and pulling me up. He was jumping with joy, his face bright and shining with excitement. “It was..incredible,” I murmered, still in awe, “absolutely incredible.” I must have looked euphoric and slightly woozy, because he raised one shaggy eyebrow and looked at me with perplexity and concern. “Uh, yeah. Very cool. Come on, let’s go find everyone else.” He took me by the hand and dragged me with him, blabbering on about some lizard everyone had seen. But I didn’t hear him, and I didn’t care. Now, pulled after my group into the woods to try the next adventure, I felt prepared to start my life anew. I have never experienced anything like that summer in Costa Rica when I joined a group of eleven other kids to do service work. On one of our few days off, we went on the zipline, and that was the most incredible experience of it all. Growing up in a household where my mother always embraced spirituality and the “oneness” of everything, I had always heard of this feeling but had never felt it myself. By soaring high above the rest of the world, I became aware of something much bigger than my own life and the lives of those I knew. I did not only live in this world: I was a part of this world. Suddenly, everything made sense. When I finally reached the other side to greet the friends I was traveling with, I had been reborn. The experience had been more than “awesome” or “wicked sick” or “scary.” It was something that changed my life, and looking back on it now, I view that whole summer as the time that my life really began.
Copyright 2008 Jessye |
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