I remember where I was, who I was with, what I was wearing. I remember the weather. We all remember. The tragedy of September 11, 2001 was, for my generation, the first pivotal day in our brief history to united, the day akin to what the Kennedy assassination was for our parents. Before that, I fear my generation’s unifying event was the season finale of Seinfeld.

NEVER FORGET, we say. And we never will. I, who have difficulty recalling what I did this morning, remember each detail of 9-11-01 in complete chronological order. The day is branded in my head, in your head… The banal decisions of that day became somehow significant, as if we think that by poaching instead of scrambling our breakfast eggs, or by showering the night before, the whole horrific attack could have been circumvented.

But I’m not going to talk about that today. I could tell my story, and my story would be important or interesting only in that it would remind you of your story, which you would tell to another, continuing the cycle. And that should be done. The events of two years ago should be commemorated.

But I’m not going to do commemorate them today. A part of me fears that the events of September 11, 2001, will be hashed, rehashed, and over-hashed until the tragedy becomes a piece of pop knowledge as meaningless as knowing who shot JR Ewing.

I don’t mean to be irresponsible, insensitive, flip, or offensive. I was lucky not to have lost a loved one in the tragedy, and I mourn along with those of you who did. I remember the very real panic I felt when faced with the possibility that some of my friends had been caught in the inferno, and I wept with relief each time I heard from one of them, until I knew they were all safe and accounted for. I can’t imagine the pain one must feel when hoping for a relief that never comes.

Again, that is not my focus right now.

I believe that humor is integral to sustaining hope. The night that Bush officially declared war on Iraq, I was in my old apartment, glued to the news with my friend, Shawn. We sat on our blue velvet couch and tried to make sense of what we were watching for about an hour before resorting to some sort of desensitizing buffer. Shawn coped by puffing on a one-hitter, I by sipping JD from the bottle, both of us by cracking inappropriate jokes at innocent Mr. Peter Jennings’s expense. After 3 hours of being hypnotized by the repetitive cycle of “late-breaking-news,” it became apparent that neither of us were doing any good for the world or ourselves. We were not going to learn anything new that night, and were turning into hysterical, mush-brained zombies.

I popped up, dashed from the couch, and put “The Three Amigos” into the DVD player. Shawn and I fell asleep in the living room with the sound of Martin Short in the background, enthusing “Sew, very old one! Sew like the WIND!” Strange dreams ensued for us while the nations of the world turned on a common axis.

Today’s topic is perhaps inappropriate considering the specificities of the 2001 tragedy. There is no intentional association, and I don’t mean to make light of 9-11 events. That being said, let’s talk about:

Skydiving.

You must go skydiving.

Last August, as a gift to my sister who had just graduated from law school, I paid for the two of us jump out of a plane over Western Massachusetts. We took Route 2 past cow pastures, defunct mills, and various 7-11 stores to a clearing-turned-landing strip in the town of Orange, in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowheresville. The company was named “Jumptown, USA.”

OK, OK, I realize that skydiving is not for everyone. Vertigo is a very understandable obstacle in the act of skydiving, but if you can overcome the phobia for a very prolonged plummet, it’s so worth it. But, to be fair, let’s weigh this out.

First, the cons:

1) The weather might be really crappy. It only takes a bit of planning to avoid this, and I, personally, think it would be kind of cool to plummet alongside raindrops while being buffeted by the wind, but I admit that if actually faced with that situation, I might bail.

2) It’s pricey, especially for your first jump. The first time is close to $200. After that, it’s about $75, which is as affordable as a day of skiing, but all in all, the whole act of skydiving only lasts about an hour, which is a “con” in itself. You have a simulated lesson on the ground, suit up, board the plane, ascend, leap, descend, yank the rip chord, descend some more, land, and go home.

3) The obvious deterrent: something just might go wrong with your parachute, and you just might end up a chunky sac of pudding in your own personalized crater in the turf. Honestly, though, the chances of that happening are very slim. That’s what they tell you at the registration office, anyway.

But, the pros … Oh, the pros:

1) It might be a BEAUTIFUL day! And believe me, there is no day more beautiful than the one you own from thousand of feet in the air. The sky, usually a canopy, becomes part of the blanket of landscape spread out like a multi-textured net to catch you. I’ve never felt so responsible for the weather, or for the land, than when I saw it from the middle of the sky, and I felt such love and exhilleration. It’s like being on top of a snow globe.

2) First-timers jump in tandem with professional skydiver, all of whom, from what I can tell, are gruff-but-tender, wiry, muscular, sweet outdoorsy boys. My fucking ideal. (I don’t mean my fucking ideal, but … no, yeah, I do. My FUCKING ideal. Or among them, at any rate.)

Those boys I know from rural New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Western Massachusetts …

You country boys, you know who you are.

Your scruffiness, your easy smiles, your puppy-dog playfulness that is so fun to be around, your unexpected gentleness and chivalry that make me feel like a beautiful goddamned buttercup, your surprising sensitivity, all charmingly contrasted by your mechanical mastery over the PVC-Pipe Potato Gun and the Empty Milk Gallon Bong … I love you and your awful junkmobiles and your Winston cigarettes and your incredible taste in music. I miss you, my country boys.

Anywho, so this “pro” is obviously geared mainly towards those of us who like cock, but as a virgin skydiver, you jump with one of those sweet, hunky daredevils harnessed to your diving suit like a turtle shell, and you have no choice but to trust him implicitly. Oh, it’s wonderful. My gorgeous human backpack had actually met his girlfriend on a skydiving jump … Romantic possibilities abound. Not for me at that particular juncture, but they’re out there.

3) It is just an absolutely incredible thing to do. You feel at once invincible and completely vulnerable, and you finally experience what it’s like to fly. I think the experience itself outweighs the risk factor… but even if it didn’t, what an awesome way to die.

So, there are the pros. I think they win.

After your lesson and your suit-up, you meet your tandem jumper, who gives you the choice of giving him the ripchord to pull, or pulling it yourself and taking your life into your own hands. I chose responsibility over my own ripchord, thankyouverymuch, while my sister (whose tandem expert was a completely dazzling maniac … you could see it in his eyes) gave hers to her pro. Then, everyone boards the teeny little puddle-jumper plane. The plane has no seats. All the participants scooch in, virgins directly in front of their pros, and sit horizontally lined up ass-to-crotch-to-ass-to-crotch on the floor of the puddle-jumper.

When the plane has reached the pinnacle of its ascent, one of the attendants opens the door, and the pros attach themselves to the virgins. Each suit, you see, has a harness with a series of loops and hooks on the back, and the pros, who are wearing the parachutes, fasten heavy-duty C-clamps through the loops until the two people are securely fastened together; virgin on the bottom, parachute-clad pro directly behind. (Don’t think I’m missing the kinky sexual implications of this description. And don’t think that they stop here.)

One by one, the tandem partners prepare to tumble out of the open door.

After inching up to the gaping mouth of the plane, Pro gives Virgin one final chance to bail, yelling over the rush of air,

“You sure you wanna jump?”

“Yeah.”

The couple then inches closer, closer, closer to the edge, and prompted by the pro, they rock back and forth, to and from the outdoors, counting “ONE! TWO! THRRRRRREEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!” and finally somersault out of the door of the plane. After their exit, the rest of the line of jumpers inside the plane does a collective, millipedal scooch closer to the front.

The couple falls.

The first part of the jump is the free fall. Virgin is face down with Pro still securely attached to her back, yelling “Arch! Arch! Arch!” to the Virgin. The two of them fly together like dragonflies mating in flight over water. It is your decision, yours alone, whether or not to enjoy it; because that is the only thing within your control. You, the Virgin, have no choice but to plummet, limbs flexed backward and back completely arched according to your Pro’s instructions, staring at the slowly waxing blanket of countryside below you. Closing your mouth is impossible due to both speed and excitement; you laugh, you scream, you whoop, and you soon find your face completely coated in a sheet of your own saliva. If you want to, you do a few flips steered by your instructor (which I highly recommend) before he gives you the command to pull the ripchord (if it was your decision to do so).

He hands you the flimsy rope laced into the of the parachute. “ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! FIVE,” he yells into your ear, and you pull the rope and can’t help but notice how much it looks like a scrap of clothesline. The parachute billows out of the pack, and Virgin and Pro swing roughly forward like babies caught under the arms and dangled playfully by rambunctious uncles. The swift upward tug of the parachute on the harness, combined with the sudden interruption in what was an increasingly powerful gravitational pull towards land, leaves you breathless, quickly yanks you into a new perspective of the sky, and gives you a huge wedgie.

The parachute has handles which dangle in front of you, used to steer you and your partner during the fall. Pro will ask you if you want to “do tricks,” and will let you steer if you want to. My Pro and I did spirals, we swung back and forth, and yes, I took the reins for a few stunts. I couldn’t stop smiling, and I kept emitting stupid interjections like, “Wow! Wooooowwww! Yeah! Oh, my God! OH, my GOD!”

I do believe I'm aroused right now.

The parachute fall is long and intoxicatingly beautiful, especially over rural New England. I’d love to do it again when the leaves are changing.

So the flight comes to an end, and you must land. It is only then that you realize the speed at which you’ve been flying … you swoop towards the land with your legs bent and your feet in front of you, leveling out like a seagull scanning the ocean’s surface, and eventually touch ground and come to a clumsy, running stop. It’s surprisingly easy, really. You whoop a little more, detach yourself from your partner, wipe the drool off your face, and go home, hundreds of dollars poorer, but rich with your recent temporary mastery over the air.

You must go skydiving.

I really don’t know what made me think of this today. It would be arrogant and ignorant for me to say it was some kind of “Carpe Diem” bullshit, some testament to the continuing presence of joy in the world despite tragedy and turmoil, as I was spared the pain of losing someone and of seeing the destruction first-hand. I can’t say, with all confidence, that had I been at Ground Zero, I would have been so eager to grab the sky by the balls, and it would be cruel for me to suggest that others do so as some form of exposure therapy. My personal life was not drastically altered after September 11, 2001, and I realize that I’m lucky … I also realize it’s useless to feel guilty about the mercy fate granted my beloveds and me on that day.

Well, lookie here. Thi s has become a crapload of carpe diem, after all.

I just wanted to tell a story, one that might differ from many others you will hear today.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Be well, and peace.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

One-Armed Paper Hanger Earns her Wings - 07.29.05

Sugar & Lemon - 07.28.05

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