Jumping (15 page)

The first step, it seemed to me, was to trust that I could find my own way with this. I had taken the pain, the disappointment, the boredom, and my lack of a life into the Void with me, and I came out without those things. The jumping—the falling—healed me. It brought me an internal peace I couldn't deny. I needed to look at what I had now in place of all those things cleansed away by the Void. But really, I began to integrate my experience in the Void because it feels like the most true thing that's ever happened to me. I trust it, and I want to build on it, live it. I know that life, like a story, has a beginning, middle and end. My experience with the Void has changed the middle; it's loaded the end with possibilities it never had before—it's no longer predictable.

Much of my time was spent alone, in contemplation. I can give snippets, like the afternoon I met an elderly woman on her back step, who fed me and read my future in egg whites, from eggs she cultivated for just this purpose. She looked up at me with an open, wondering face and told me I must be a mystic, because the future she saw for me was beyond this planet. She said her mother, who had taught her the skill, had seen a future like that once in a man, and the man was named Edgar Cayce. He had come to town with his photography equipment one summer. She didn't remember meeting him, but her mother never forgot.

I met another woman who is the keeper of an ancient crystal skull, one of the original thirteen skulls, to be brought together at the end of the Mayan calendar, she said. It speaks to her and will speak to anyone else willing to listen. I listened to it, and it carries messages of immense change for the world. I thought that was pretty far out, but in a way I expected it—I knew I was different now, so the people I was meeting would be different. These people are out there, if you're looking for them, and meeting them showed me where I fit now.

I met an old man who is a beekeeper working to save the environment with his hives. He told me that they had found honey in Tutankhamen's tomb, and it was still edible, after 2,000 years. Aristotle kept bees, he said. Bees argue and then reach consensus through dance. He loved that. And they die to protect their mother. Darwin said their death, when they sting us, serves evolution because they've died so that their mother, the queen, can live and keep the hive going. The old man also said 3.5 grams of bee pollen a day contains all the nutrients needed to sustain life.

I didn't want to hold onto the past any more, to have more past than room for present in my awareness. Lingering in the past inhibits creativity, and life and progress depend on our creativity.

My life now is devoted to maintaining the truth I have gained. I know I can't act outside of this with immunity now; it would cost me in ways I might never know the full extent of. I'm part of a Team, a cohort, and I won't forget that. It makes me think of the words to that old Walter Hyatt song, “When I remember your life, I remember mine.”

I'm no longer checking to see what anybody else is doing. I'm no longer wondering or caring what they think of what I'm doing.

Right now, I have a dog and I need to get back to check on him, feed him. I'm still doing odd jobs and some healing work, in partnership with some like-minded people. And I'll be in touch. That's important for all of us now, because I've taken you two on, as part of my Team here. None of us know what that means at this point, but I'm not worried. I know we'll figure it out. We figured out today, didn't we?”

Duncan Robert gets up to leave, looking around as if he might have left something, though he brought nothing in with him. He tells us to stay as long as we'd like. The room is paid for, for the night. We hug. We all have tears in our eyes. “A bond stronger than life,” he says, with a smile, and then he's gone. We watch from the window as he walks out of the hotel, around the corner, and out of our sight. It's hard to let him go. Everything in me says not to. I turn to Miles and wrap my arms around his waist, burying my head in his chest. And then I just cry. He holds on tight, too, and I feel him cry with me.

W
E ORDER FROM ROOM
service again, as the sun is beginning to set. We've been here since the morning, and we're exhausted from it all. You'd think we'd been doing heavy lifting. We're too tired and confused to talk, but we can't help but talk.

All of a sudden, we hear some loud thumping coming from outside, and we go to the window. A fireworks display has begun, down by the river, and I remember that it's Labor Day. A celebration must be going on, and it seems very appropriate. I have to smile. So does Miles. We watch for a while, as the colorful light blossoms explode into the twilight sky above the trees on the square, disappearing almost immediately, leaving little puffs of smoke behind.

I look over at Miles and think of how comfortable I have become with him. We've been through some really unsettling, and even deeply disturbing, stuff together, but we've never lost our ease of interacting, our respectful way of waiting for each other and helping each other to whatever understanding seems possible. I'm grateful for that. I can't imagine going through this alone, which makes me think of what Uche said to Duncan Robert. None of us is supposed to go through any of this alone.

We go back to the couch and settle in again.

As he leans his head back on the couch, I ask Miles if I can look at the notes he's made in his notebook, because I did see him writing from time to time, as Duncan Robert talked, and I'm thinking he may have caught some things I didn't. He doesn't open his eyes, but he hesitates and then says, “Sure, but they're my notes, based on the questions I came in with and the answers I think I got. They're not based on what he said, but what I heard, if that makes any sense.”

“It makes sense,” I say.

He opens one eye to look over at me, raising one eyebrow, too. Then he closes it again.

I sit on the couch, my legs tucked under me, reading his list of questions and answers aloud, as I sip my still-warm cup of tea. I realize the questions went unasked—we just listened. The answers are his, too, which is kind of eerie. He writes them in first person, as if it is his own jump he's writing about. They're kind of based in Duncan Robert's words and kind of not.

“Questions,” he's written at the top of the page. A list follows, not numbered. There are answers, indented, after each question, just a few lines each.

Tell us why you jumped.

In good part because it was there. And nothing else really was.

Tell us where you've been.

Right here.

Tell us about the jump.

Exhilarating. First it was dark and I was afraid—afraid I'd made the wrong choice, like they all said. Then my heart lifted like a sail. All feeling left all other areas of my body and gathered in my heart. My heart swelled, and at the same time it felt light. Then I felt my heart burst. It's an incredible feeling, being turned inside out, made vulnerable to the world.

I felt more aligned with the Void than I ever had with life. With life, I always felt out of sync—behind, out of step, anxious, frantic sometimes, not feeling enough of anything—smart, quick, tall, aggressive, handsome, good. With the Void, I felt perfect.

Were you scared?

Paralyzed. Unable to breathe. Not sure I could respond. But when I realized it was happening, I let go. I laughed, I cried, I was moved by my own actions. I couldn't believe what I had done. It was the most authentic act of my life—done by me, for me, and for no other reason.

Did you feel alone?

Honestly? I never felt alone. I felt completely surrounded by presences. They laughed with me, screamed with me, held onto me.

Are you glad you did it?

More than I can say. And I'm grateful to the Void, for its constancy, its inspiration, and its enlightenment. It has never left us. It is always there, waiting for the next one to jump.

I closed his notebook in my lap. Miles has been watching me read, and as I look over at him, his eyes meet mine. We look at each other for a moment. We have to pack up and go back to our lives, to our jobs, to our friends and families. I'll be sitting at a computer screen, trying to fit this story into a manageable, publishable form, probably forced to squeeze half the life out of it to satisfy Henry. Miles will be preparing for school to start, to teach some inhumane number of classes to an uninterested flock of freshmen. He would describe them more charitably, I know, because he really does love his students. We'll both be trying to hold onto and sort out all that we've just heard. And waiting for more contact with Duncan Robert, the leader of our Team down here.

We continue to look at each other, knowing the biggest question without saying it, feeling it filling the air between us.

Are we the next ones to jump?

T
HE MORNING SUN SLANTS
through the trees and disappears into the dark hole that is the Void. A group of raucous crows gathers around the edge, squawking to each other the way they do, pecking at invisible things in the grass and in the air. The sun picks up the iridescence of their feathers, edging the black with purple and green. I wind my long hair into a loose bun, securing it with a stick, and think about how my Granny Noreha would call them a storytelling of crows, rather than a flock or a muster. In her tradition, they are the keepers of spiritual law through the telling of stories. I love their sounds and consider their presence a good omen. I stand at the edge of the woods that stop short of the Void. There is a little meadow in between, carpeted in dense, knee-high grass that grows right up to the Void, almost hiding it. Even from this distance, I can see the path of two sets of footprints crossing the damp grass, up to the edge of the Void. Crossing, but not returning.

I saw them jump, both of them. They didn't see me, but I saw them. They stood a few feet back from the edge. Holding hands, they looked at each other, calm as ice. Then they ran the few steps to the edge and jumped, clearing the sides of the Void and disappearing. I held my breath, as if expecting them to reappear, peeking over the edge, telling me it was all a joke. I had been pretty sure they were going to do it, because I'd been called here, but still, seeing it left me breathless. I thought my heart had stopped with my breath. It was just so final. They existed in my world one moment and then they
didn't
. No sound, no panic, no hesitation, no leader and no follower.

Should I have tried to stop them? Not that I could have. They walked into the clearing with purpose, and they hurtled themselves forward into the Void with the same purposefulness. It felt natural, easy. As it happened, I was mesmerized by it, as if into a trance. To be honest, intervening hadn't even occurred to me.

I wondered what would happen to them now. I stood quietly for a while, not ready to abandon them yet. I'd known someone else who had jumped, and I hadn't been there to witness it. It helped to be here for this jump. So I stood and watched for a while, as the sun began to warm the clearing, and the crows continued holding court.

I was so engrossed in my secret watching, I could not have noticed that someone else watched me.

I
CLIMB OUT OF
the little Cessna 172, tie the ropes to the lift struts and tail, slide the rudder lock in place, securely tethering her to her spot near the frozen dirt runway, between the runway and the hangar. I chock her tires and begin wiping off all the signs of flight on her—the bug juice, the dirt, the oil—as I was taught fifteen years ago by my first trainer. I automatically check for any signs of wear and tear as I do so. I feel the late afternoon cold in my hands as I work, and the multi-colors of the fall leaves are so bright they argue for my attention.

This isn't my plane—I rent it occasionally, for $35 an hour—but I've been taught to treat every plane I fly as if it was, leaving it in good shape for the next guy. I have to pay for fuel, too, and any runway costs, but I still consider it a good deal, for what you get. I was bitten by the flying bug years ago, when I first read a battered copy of
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
, by Richard Bach, that someone had left on the Greyhound I was taking to see a girl, the name of whom I can't now remember. I'd been young and ‘high on life,’ as they used to say, excited about collecting experiences of all kinds, ensuring I'd have all kinds of stuff to write about, because writing was what I thought I wanted to do. It was a romantic notion, and flying was part of it, as were outdoor adventures, travel, and girls. I dabbled in all four, while getting my education, working odd jobs to support myself, and writing on the side, as I found time.

The one real reason for flying, Bach said, “is the finding of life itself, and the living of it in the present.” Just as you get a broader view of the world from up there, you get a broader view of your own situation. I agree with that, and since life itself has provided much to stir me lately, I've taken to the sky again to settle my thoughts. After coming back from seeing Duncan Robert with Babe, I'd been overwhelmed, emotionally and intellectually. The aloneness and the silence in the plane had stitched my thoughts and feelings back together again, just as Bach said they would—leaving me feeling like singing, as I did on my best days up in that cockpit, knowing no one could hear. I was glad to be singing again, having wondered if I would.

As I walked away from the plane towards my old pickup, I knew, first, I needed to talk with Silvia. I had just spent more time with her son than she had in over a year. Second, I needed to begin to get my affairs in order, so I could make the jump with as little on my mind as possible. I knew Babe was doing the same, and it wouldn't take either of us much, since both of us live fairly simply. We plan to jump in May, over spring break. It is mid-October now, which allows us both plenty of time to do what we need to do. We won't have the holidays with our families, since we don't usually spend them with family. Babe doesn't, because of work, and Silvia hasn't made much of any of the holidays since Duncan Robert left last year. Besides, her work as church secretary keeps her pretty busy during most holidays, so I'm usually on my own.