September 20th, 2005 - 3:45 pm
» adventuress
I survived.
I had a blast, actually. It’s still sinking in, I think. I keep catching myself remembering it at odd moments with a sort of detached wonder.
I jumped out of a plane. I knelt at the edge of a gigantic opening in a plane and I plunged straight forward into open air. And I fell. And I fell.
It was exhilarating. Disorienting. Mind-spinning. The first five or ten seconds I was somewhere just outside of thought. I was plummeting with the sudden knowledge that I’d just jumped out of a plane with nothing to hold onto and nothing to do but fall and fall, which isn’t something the body generally approves of — for reasons of its own survival, so you can hardly blame it.
The fall reaches speeds around 120mph. The wind pressure is insane, choking, eye-watering. The sky is huge. I don’t remember seeing the ground, really, during the freefall. I saw the plane, getting smaller and smaller as we fell away from it, and the clouds spinning around us.
It was thirty to forty seconds, we guessed, though there’s really no telling. Time wasn’t foremost in my mind. And then with a jerk everything is much slower and beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. We drifted down over the long groomed fields of western Wisconsin and I laughed and kicked my legs and helped steer us in loops that were first lazy and broad and then tighter, spinning us with building roller-coaster force before we eased up and drifted again. I could have stayed there forever.
Afterwards we stopped at Punch Neapolitan Pizza in St. Paul and I was thrown back to Italy. As though I needed more goading to want to travel again Now, more force behind the ever-present knot of longing in my gut. We had a pizza with eggplant and red peppers and pepperoncini. It was fantastic, delicious. I wanted to hug the waiter for bringing it.
Yesterday we spent a productive day at the Mall. For dinner we decided to try Kokomo’s Island Cafe and walked out grinning and agreeing it was probably some of the best food we’ve ever had. Tilapia with peppers and mango over yellow rice, baked in banana leaves, with a side of the most extraordinary black beans I’ve ever tasted. It was astounding. That waiter, too, I wanted to hug, for having recommended it.
The plans for the rest of the week include Indian and sushi, and I only hope they are half as good as what we’ve had so far.
Katie said: September 20th, 2005 at 4:16 pm
I am in awe of you.
kyaaa! said: September 20th, 2005 at 10:08 pm
Pssht. The crazy things you have to do to tilapia to get people to eat it.
Did someone take pictures/video? Of the skydiving, not the fish. ;)
rachel! said: September 21st, 2005 at 8:14 am
::giggle:: I eat tilapia other ways too! Or…other way, I guess, as the only other place I’ve ever had it is Applebee’s. Much less fancy there (and probably a whole lot less oil/badness/whatever). Now that you mention it, I wish we *had* taken pictures of the fish. It was beautiful.
No pictures or video of the skydiving either, unfortunately. It was nearly half again as much as jumping in the first place, and there was enough to worry about falling out of a plane without adding on trying to not look incredibly stupid while doing it. Which I’m sure I would have — I could feel the force yanking back on my face, and I’m certain I was making the most peculiar expressions. Next time, perhaps? I don’t know if you need a special sort of camera to survive the plunge in altitude, or if I could just bring any sort up to at least snap some photos during the drifting part.