palace of winds

(Sunday, July 2, 2006 — with apologies to Blake and Bryce for my imprecise memory)

“So what did you guys do yesterday?” Blake is sitting the wrong way on the picnic table bench, leaning his elbows back on the tabletop and looking up at us. In the chill dim of the hangar I am leant against Bryce, my arms tight around myself, huddled into my hoodie.

“We did grocery shopping,” I say; we glance at each other and back to Blake. “In the morning. We walked down to the produce market.”

“And World Market,” Bryce adds. “And Target.”

“Oh yeah.” I think about but don’t mention the battery we got at Target; the original plan to carry it in a pocket, and the revision after we found a handful of other things to buy.

“And BevMo, for sake and plum wine.”

“Mmm sake,” I offer.

“We stopped back at the apartment, then walked down to Mountain View to meet Allison for lunch. You know Spice Islands?”

“It was so good,” I say, hugging myself a little at the memory while Blake shakes his head. “It’s Malaysian, right?”

“And something else.”

“Thai?”

“Singaporean, I think? We had the pineapple fried rice served in a pineapple, and this mango dish served in the actual mango.”

“Pineapple rice?” Blake says. “What’s in that?”

“A bunch of stuff. Pineapple,” Bryce says.

“And raisins,” I interject. “And cashews, and mushrooms. Were there carrots? Taaasty. And the mango thing.”

“The mango thing’s okay, but I like the pineapple better.”

“Yeah, the mango was almost too sweet. And we had soup! So good. This red curry soup. And the peanut thing.”

“Yeah, I loved the soup.”

“Oh! And we went out for breakfast,” I say.

“At Country Gourmet.”

“We had the breakfast quesadilla, and oh, the French toast.” I roll my eyes shut. “It has this caramel topping, and bananas.”

“Mmm,” Bryce agrees.

“After lunch we went to the Asian market for more cooking supplies,” I say, back on track.

“And we got something so weird even the cashier didn’t know what it was.”

“Yeah! What was it — some root…”

“Gobo.”

“And the Scientology center. We were going to do their personality test thing, and watch their video, but we didn’t have time. We’re going to try to go back.”

“We brought the test home — we’re going to give it to each other tonight.”

“Aand then we went back to the apartment — and cooked?”

“Did we do something else in there?”

“Pixyland!” We pause to explain Pixyland — poorly, because there’s no real way to convey it in words.

“But what did we originally get on the computer to do?” I ask, frowning.

“I…don’t remember.”

“It was something else. And we looked at Pixyland first. For way too long.”

“Oh! Were we getting the recipes?”

“Oh! That’s right.”

“So then we made dinner.”

“Somen noodles,” I say. “They were so cool. They’re served over this big bowl of ice.”

“And you dip them, in sauce.”

“You flavor the sauce first, with ginger and green onions and sesame seeds.”

“And you know magnets? We were going to get a little spoon for the sesame seeds but we discovered if you get your chopsticks wet and drag them through, the seeds stick to them like magnets. Best part. What else?”

“Um, that broccoli. Broccoli with salted lemon wheels.”

“It was beautiful. You should’ve seen Rachel arrange the lemon wheels ‘around and about’ the broccoli.”

I nod enthusiastically.

“And the eggplant. With…something?”

“Ginger. Ginger-stewed eggplant,” I say.

“I really liked that one. And we tried to make mochi.” We’re off in a brief fit of laughter.

“We made mochi near ice cream,” I say, still giggling.

“It’s like this sea of melted ice cream with these little globs, in a baking dish.”

“It tastes good, though.”

“You’ll have to try some,” Bryce offers, generously.

“And then we slept through Veronica Mars.”

“And stayed up till three giggling.”

“Again.”

There’s a brief pause. I register amusement on Blake’s face; he has previously been listening with every evidence of interest.

“Anything else?” he says.

Bryce and I look at each other. We laugh, shaking our heads.

“Well,” I say. “I woke up early — around six? I think? — and hung out in the hammock for a while. And then I took a shower.”

“And then I got up and took a shower,” Bryce offers.

“And then we put on our shoes.”

“Oh! And after the produce market I changed into shorts.”

“Oh yeah! When we got back it had started warming up, so we both changed into shorts. To walk into town, for lunch.”

“We email like this all day. You were probably looking for ‘We went shopping and had lunch.’ I forget not everyone is interested in what I had for breakfast.”

“And how I ate it.”

The fog is hanging long and low around Monterey Bay, and so we spend all morning and the first part of the afternoon wandering around the hangar waiting for clear skies. I try to keep warm but by the time we are finally getting into harnesses — sometime after one — my teeth are chattering. I’m excited, though, which is a good excuse for a little hopping around. We discuss the finer points of banana’ing; I invent a peel metaphor. We bump shoulders and I do more shimmying and hopping. There aren’t jumpsuits here, which is slightly disappointing; we missed taking pictures of the jumpsuits our first time. But at last we are snug in our harnesses and strolling out to the little plane and ducking inside. We sit on the long low benches, staring down the tail, and off we go.

For a brief time we are climbing almost vertically, and I feel so much more awe at aviation. There is more magic in this light little machine taking off than in any commercial plane, weighty as they are. It seems impossible that we’re just lifting away from the ground. We loop a lazy way toward the bay, affording us a lovely view as we head for 15,000 ft. The colors are a touch drab — maybe the time of year, maybe the last lingering fog, maybe just reality coming up against my Mexican-white-sand-beach fantasy of the ocean, vibrant and ultrablue. It’s beautiful anyway. The sky is big and open and the world feels huge. I can’t stop smiling and breathing deep and thinking of that old video from my Buddhism class, the one on headlessness. Profound world/self interconnection.

My instructor fastens our harnesses together, assuring me that he knows every strap and buckle and bit and they’re all just where he wants them — which is lovely but the thought hasn’t even crossed my mind, the thought that it’s possible to not be buckled in correctly to the person with the parachute. Maybe it should. Maybe I’m naive, but I trust him. It’s my job to spot the plane and put my arms out and banana, and it’s my job to be. The rest is for him, the jumping and riding right in the air and the parachute-pulling, all the not-dying; that’s his job.

The door is a little plastic thing over a hole in the back of the plane, and Blake and his instructor slide it up, inviting in the loud rush of the wind. They are out on the platform for a moment and then vanish into the waiting sky. I am crouched in the aisle, making my way to the rear of the plane. Next Bryce is out, and as soon as he is I step out onto the little platform, my arms crossed over my chest, and my instructor leans me forward into the whipping air so I can watch. Bryce is obligingly wearing a bright yellow t-shirt and it is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. He is still falling back-down, facing the plane, and I watch him for a moment sinking down into all that brilliant turquoise sky. The last tiny shred of my nerves has been whisked away; seeing him I am elated, ready. Confident beyond all bounds.

We leap.

There is the briefest instant that is nothing but a blur of blue and then I see the plane, getting smaller as we fall away. I remember to put my arms up and out, to arch, to lift my legs up and back. Somehow we are turned so we are falling belly-down now. It’s beautiful beyond telling. There is so much air and space and joy. The ground below, stitched through with roads; my instructor moves a little, shifts his hand down, and we turn and there is the bay, the white breaking of waves, the sicle of beachsand. It lasts forever. My first jump was bright and breathless, something I could not quite believe I was doing. This time, though, I am decidedly a person in amongst the clouds, nothing strange about it.

When he pulls the chute we rock upright, our legs dropping down. I exhale a whoop and it’s like I’m glowing. Brand new. He loosens some straps and I shift to make the harness a sling, so I can sit comfortably as we drift down. The wind is brisk so unfortunately our descent is faster than I’d've liked; we spin only a few times, watching everything get closer. (This part is perhaps my favorite memory from the first jump, coming down over the bright Wisconsin farmland, getting to pull us in and out of tight spirals, kicking my dangling feet.) My instructor tells me again how well I did, spotting the plane right away. I am absurdly proud. I saw a plane and it makes me so proud I am giddy.

We land in a tall scrubby patch of grass and weeds, stumbling back a few steps, fighting the parachute away from the wind. I can’t stop grinning, hugely. Drunk-grinning. For the next few hours I can’t keep myself from periodically hopping, spinning in circles, bouncing in my seat. So full up that happy is spilling out every which way.