I must be barreling through the air at a speed of at least 90 miles per hour, wind slappin’ the top of my head — this just feels good. Great, actually. And this is only my drive to the skydive site!
My 57th spin around the sun, still in progress, has become one of trying new stuff. From surfing to songwriting to zip-lining to cooking — even coauthoring a book about Israel. So why not take it up a notch and leap out of a plane?
Probably sounds a little “mid-life crisis-ey.” But I already rode that merry-go-round, years ago. Let’s just call it livin.’
It’s about 90 minutes from Phoenix to Eloy, Arizona. Open air and sunshine in the convertible. Live music jacked: Mark Knopfler, Emmylou Harris, John Hiatt and The Goners, early U2, the late Presley, Cobain and Redding. What’s this feeling I’m having? It’s almost like…
Happiness.
It’s not exactly peace or contentment. More a state of elation. Not a feeling that’s sustainable every day. Or even every week. Hello. But it sure is nice when it comes a visiting. And occupies.
I pull into the dusty lot at Skydive Arizona. Change clothes in the car and write the first three paragraphs above. The obsessive writer’s mind.
A woman named Deloria checks me in — the waiver/disclaimer e-form I fill out feels about as long as my Masters thesis.
Alaska!! No, we’re still in Arizona. “Alaska” is the call-sign of my tandem jump pro, whose real name is Michael. Hey! I want a nickname like “Alaska!” “Goldie” is about 45 years old. Whatever. Great guy. I meet Emily too (“Quinn”). She’s gonna do the whole video of me experiencing this insane adventure — most of which she does in the air.
Alaska puts me in the jump rig and goes through the instructions faster than the run-through of side effects you hear in a pharmaceutical ad. I tell him that I won’t remember any of that. “No problem, just remember this one thing: When we fall back out of the plane, flatten out your left leg, and reach your head back scorpion-style like you’re trying to reach touch feet.” Okay. Wait, repeat that…
Ten others on the plane. A few pros. A few people visiting AZ who have jump experience and just want to, well, jump again. No other newbies on this ride but me. Alaska and Quinn put me at ease, joking around — and remind me of the scorpion thing. We’re climbing up to 12,000 feet. At about 8,000, the temperature that was 101 on the ground has now dropped to the 50s. Nice.
Alaska slides the rig on my back and my body tight in toward his groin area to buckle us together. Really tight. It would be awkwardly intimate if not for the circumstance. We’re right next to the pilot, so I can see all of the others going out the plane first. One by one. Don’t want to watch anymore! Get me up to that door…
The jump itself happens fast. My back is to Alaska’s chest, and his back is to…the invisible wall of air butting up against the plane. This is it. We get into the ready position. And now it’s REAL. In seconds, I’ll be flying through the sky with no attachment to anything except a stranger I met 20 minutes ago.
“FUHHHHHHHCK!!!!” I didn’t yell it out loud, but I could sure hear it in my head. The split-second jump itself is the scary part. As my friend Jeff would text me back later: “Uhhh, yeah!”
Full free fall now for about 60 seconds. That means gravity sucking you straight down at what feels like a crazy high speed. All of the atoms that comprise my body are on a pure adrenaline high now. Cold air. No control. And just a few feet away, Quinn is free falling at exactly our level, with a GoPro camera on her head — playing patty cake with me. That full minute of free fall goes by about as fast as a flash of lightning. And zero control. Until…
Alaska deploys the larger parachute into the sky and the rig jolts us back like a car collision jolts you forward. I can feel the metal and straps straight through my skin. The next morning I’ll feel soreness in muscles I forgot I had.
Now Alaska pulls down two bright yellow steering straps in front of me and I grab ‘em. In just seconds, control returns. Well, a little. I’m guiding us through the open blue now, right, left, right. And the A-train is helping to put us in some spins. “Hey, Alaska,” I shout. “Anyone puke up here with you?” “Oh, yeah. It happens.” No shit.
It’s about three minutes of gliding downward at this pace. And now I can feel more of the actual trip. My mind has slowed down just a touch. And what I’m thinking is: “WOW. This is awesome. So beautiful. But… I think I’m ready to land this first voyage.”
I can see the open square of green we’re heading for. The A-man tells me to stretch my feet out and pull them up, so we can do a joint ass-slide onto the grass. And we do. Reminds me of Pony League baseball.
Five second later, Quinn approaches us and acts excited for me the way she already has five other times that day — upon thousands of others. But it seems sincere enough. Fist punches and high fives. Then she asks me to describe what it was like for the camera.
“Fucking amazing! Are you kidding me? You guys are soooo cool.”
Quinn: “So you liked it?”
“Liked it?? Let’s get up there and go again!”
Okay, maybe that was a little dopamine-inspired bravado for the pros. Right now all I want is a glass of water and a sandwich. Maybe a chair… Actually, that’s not true. I’m still jacked. How could you not be.
Within 10 minutes, SkyDive Arizona has the video and pics up on the web for me to download. This whole operation runs like a Breitling watch. I slide gratuities to my two Top Gun kamikazes. On the way out, A-biscuit and I take a final selfie. Just like that, my first skydive is over. And all I can think is: I am SO glad I didn’t put this off for another week or a year — and just jumped.
I’ve written several times about the two darkest episodes in my life. Two fits of depression and anxiety so acute that the thought of checking a bag at the airport and negotiating the security line seemed terrifying. When you have lost most of the control over your mind, returning to a state of near infancy is all too real. It is the strangest, most awful condition imaginable.
So it’s fascinating to know, through this kind of all-too-real experience, that my same brain and body can think and feel the way I felt in Eloy, Arizona on this Friday: In control to the point where I could decide to lose all control — and bask in the sheer immediacy and adventure of a straight drop down through the desert sky.
May have to do it again. Actually, Quinn made me “pinky-swear” on it that I would.
MICHAEL GOLDEN is a national award-winning journalist and the bestselling author of Write or Die and Ethical Tribing. This article will appear in a forthcoming compendium: The Golden Mean, Vol. II.
