Uncreated Conscience

My A license stamp! Ordinarily it would be on my forehead, but I lucked out.

After two long years (with a 10 month hiatus in between), Bear and I have received our A licenses at last. It’s been a long journey, but completely and utterly worth it.

Skydivers are a curious breed. To call us adrenaline junkies would be over-simplification; of course, we are adrenaline junkies. Not many people would willingly throw themselves out of a plane two and a half miles above the earth. Over and over again. But the thrill of falling through the skies, of possibly getting one step closer to death—that fades within two or three jumps. Jumping is only really and truly scary the first time.

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I had completely forgotten how mentally taxing skydiving can be. And I’m not talking about the possibilities of malfunctions or problems on a jump (which should be percolating at the back of the mind, of course), but just what concentration it takes. What focus. The complete and utter awareness of the body and how it feels, as well as how your body feels in relation to the fluid aerodynamics occurring around you.

The only comparison I can really make is yoga, which seems to be the antithesis of skydiving as a sport, yeah? But as someone who does both, there really is a clear connection. The only difference is, I suppose, that you are hurtling through the air at speeds in excess of 120mph (or more, depending on how big you are).

Bear and I gave Saturday, the Fourth of July, a skip at the DZ as his friend Splash claimed to be hosting a Whiffleball with PBR (gross) challenge. It never happened, so Bear and I spent the day watching The Twilight Zone marathon on SciFi SyFy. A good thing too, I suppose, as the DZ never got below a 200+ minimum jump restriction.

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