On a spring day in 1981 I made my first parachute jump under an old military T-10: A big round olive green ‘chute blossoming over my head just seconds after letting go of the strut of a Cessna 205, 2500 feet above a snow covered Colorado wheat field.
Photo courtesy of North London Skydiving Centre
I was 27 years old. My life at that time was proving quite a challenge. I was divorced; a mother, a nursing student. Money was scarce, I was working and going to school, trying to rebuild my life. Jumping out of an airplane was one of the scariest thing I had ever done. So frightening and so exhilarating that I had to do it again. And again. And well over a thousand times more. I became a certified freefall jumpmaster, then a skydiving instructor. I made lifelong friends and I competed in Nationals on a four-way team with Bob Russell, a man who I’ve been married to for nineteen years this November.
Two freefall jumpmasters with a student in the middle. Photo courtesy of North London Skydiving Centre.
For more than a decade, skydiving was my passion. I still dream of it. Some of my best friends are skydivers or former skydivers, and once a skydiver always a skydiver, it’s like a secret society.
Skydive Arizona, in Eloy; a skydiving resort and home of the U.S.P.A. 2011 Nationals
Photo courtesy of North London Skydiving Centre
I haven’t made a skydive in over a decade but I still have my gear. Bob just took his in to have his reserve ‘chute repacked — just in case. We’ve been temporarily living in Tucson, 50 miles from one of the premier drop zones in the world: Skydive Arizona . Home of the United States Parachute Assoication National Skydiving Competition. Which Bob and I competed in twenty years ago this month with our friends Steve and Mike. Yesterday we met Steve at Skydive Arizona and enjoyed a heartwarming reunion. Also at Eloy this year is my first jump course instructor and friend, Ellen Bakke Monsees; a world class competitor on Moxie, a winning all-female team.
Moxie: A world-call, all-female skydiving team. Like them on Facebook
Two of my teammates, twenty years after
I gave up skydiving a decade ago but I still dream about it. I remember how it felt to leave my cares on the ground, to live an entire lifetime in fifty-five seconds of freefall, the earth far away but not forgotten and too quickly approaching.