Apparently I Enjoy Jumping From High Locations

The first time I realized this was back when I was in Talloires in 2006. There was a really cool place that our host families took us where you could go cliff jumping into Lake Annecy. I remember my host brother telling me about the 24 meter (78 ft) jump that none of the locals were insane enough to attempt. This was a challenge if I ever heard one. So after a few shorter jumps, I decided that I was finished with the jumps designed for infants. It was time to jump 78 feet: pretty much the equivalent of 8 stories. I told people that I was going to do this (the first of the Americans to do so; I didn't even witness anybody do it before me. I assumed that my host brother's tales of survived attempts were true enough I guess?). The reaction I got was either "yeah right Sevs, shut up and keep jumping off the baby hills with the rest of the normal human beings," or "you're out of your goddamn mind you lunatic." At this point I started to get the hint that my brain might be broken for even considering this....whatever.

So anyway, I hiked up to the jumping area with a few people who I was able to convince that I wouldn't chicken out. I peered over the edge, and I'm pretty sure at that point every bone in my body turned to jello and even I started to doubt my own insanity levels. However, if I backed down, it would NOT have looked good for my pristine record of doing completely crazy shit for ABSOLUTELY no reason at all. Honestly, I hadn't even seen anybody do this before, how do I know that right below the water level there's not some huge jagged rock with a bunch of French peoples' bones scattered around, or some dinosaur-monster that dines on anybody dumb enough to jump from a high precipice into some unknown depth of water? I was starting to worry that this decision would get me naturally selected. As in most situations where I'm nervous, my stomach started going crazy; it felt like there were a bunch butterflies having sex in there and that I was about to vomit up some disgusting lump of concentrated dignity. YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HIGH 78 FEET REALLY IS. It's nuts you guys.

I snapped back into reality when my friend Rebecca shouted up "are you doing this, or what?" She was on a lower ledge, waiting to take a picture of me in mid-air. I immediately realized that if I backed down from this, I would tarnish my record of being the most awesome/heroic person in the history of her friends. It was here that I had to prove the true depth of craziness that I tend to represent around other people. So with shaking knees and feign of confidence, I counted to 3 and ran off the edge. I can't describe the feeling I had as I was falling for 2 or 3 seconds, because the only thing running through my mind was, "I'm definitely going to die. I really hate when I make stupid, impulsive decisions, because now I'm going to die and there's very little I can do to avoid that in mid-air. I hope my dead body doesn't form an embarrassing pose as I sink..." It felt like an eternity. However, with that much time, my brain wasn't functioning enough to remember the advice I had received earlier: land like a pencil, point your toes down, and clench your ass. Whoopsidaisy. Well, as evidenced by the fact that I'm currently writing this message on the interweb, I DID survive. But my ass hurt like a motherfucker.

After my jump, 3 other heroic/insane Americans also plummeted to their half-deaths. These brave souls, Ani, Justin, Matt, and I, formed a super-elite group for the remainder of the Talloires trip. We would constantly flash the 2-4 sign that we invented, with a nod of understanding that what we had just done would forever define our level of commitment to doing completely insane things for nothing more than a whimsical dare. If you don't believe me, I actually have a video of my jump here.

Rebecca photographed the greatest moment of my life. Thank you for being such a skilled photographer.

This brings me to the reason for this post: I went skydiving today. That's right: I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane at 14,000 ft, hit terminal velocity, and fucking landed on the ground like a god damn champion.

My friend Colleen made all the arrangements, because she was tired of people saying things like "oh yeah, that sounds really cool, count me in!" only to hear back a month later "oh you were serious? No I'm not doing that." I was not one of those people. So I drove down to New York last night, got up early this morning with Colleen, her roomate, and his brother, and we friggn went skydiving. While it lacks a certain terrifying, gut-wrenching feeling of questioning my own sanity (because I've actually heard real accounts of people surviving skydiving jumps), I decided that skydiving isn't TOO touristy, and that it would still be an epic experience. So we all strapped into a harness with some tandem instructor dude, got in a little prop-plane, and flew to 14,000 feet. A bit higher than 78. But anything above 40 feet doesn't really make a difference, because EVERYTHING looks like a suicidal disaster waiting to happen. I was all prepped with my instructions, some signals and whatnot, and put on my hat and goggles (which tend to make people look like a hilarious human-penis), and got ready. Up until this point I was not phased AT ALL for what was about to happen. I don't know why; I just felt safe. I didn't have that "butterflies in my stomach, fucking" sensation, and I don't even think it hit me that I was about to jump out of a moving aircraft. Colleen was the last one off the plane, so after our two comrades somehow disappeared out the door (all of a sudden they were gone, I didn't even notice), it was only me and my instructor, and her with hers. Even walking up to the open door of the plane, I wasn't nervous in the least. I have no idea why I wasn't the least bit scared, but I was a friggn stoic legend: standing at the exit of the plane garbed in my harness and penis-hat, leaning out the door with a huge goofy grin on my face. I was pumped.

The only thing running through my head was "I AM GOING TO ROCK THIS LIKE A HURRICANE." It was a fact. The plane had to make a turn, so I was standing at the door for at least thirty seconds, staring at the curvature of the Earth, the clouds, and ground almost 3 miles below. My instructor was a pretty cool guy and kept half-shoving me in and out of the doorway to give me a scare, but I ate it up with a spoon. I was loving every second of this. My adrenaline was going bananas, and I couldn't wait to jump out of that friggn plane. Before I knew it, the instructor counted to 3 and I was already out. I don't even remember jumping. We actually did a complete front-flip in the air as we jumped out, because the first thing I saw was the bottom of the plane getting smaller with each moment. We had about 40 seconds of free-fall, where my instructor let me do some pretty cool stuff. As all the other beginners were coughing up blood from fright and crapping their pants, I was still completely un-phased by the entire situation when we first met. I think he understood how eerily comfortable I was, so he made the decision that we'd do some cool tricks during the fall. I used my arms to control our rotation in free fall. I was having an awesome time, so I started making us go through some pretty mind-blowing spins. Let me just say that the feeling that you were spinning completely out of control in free fall is AWESOME. Because aside from the first 5 seconds of jumping, you reach terminal velocity and you actually aren't accelerating anymore, so it just feels like a calm, relaxing, floating feeling. Even though you are falling at 125 mph. This was a pretty cool feeling, but since there is something seriously wrong with me, I wanted to mix things up, so I had us do those crazy spins.

At 6,000 ft, the instructor would show you the altitude so you could pull the rip-cord. I saw that we had 6,300 ft, so I opted to wait a little bit. He started waving his hand frantically in front of my face as we reached 5,700 ft, so I GUESS I should pull the cord, lest he be forced to do it instead. There wasn't any crazy jolt like you see in videos, it actually felt alright. The remainder of the fall was a nice, gentle glide down. Well, except when the dude gave me the controls of the chute. I quickly learned that if I pulled really hard to the right or left, we'd spin really fast and hit some G forces. He was having a good time with it, so I was really being a maniac with those controls. Eventually, as all good things, our time had to come to an end, so we flared the chute and had a soft landing. I actually felt like a champ, because instead of all the other tandem couples who land amusingly on their asses, we landed on our feet.

I don't have any pictures of the skydiving jump, but trust me; it was an unforgettable, awesome experience. I think I retrospectively crapped my pants just THINKING about how cool it was. It was over way too soon. I will definitely be doing this again.