__________________________________
Free Fall
By Stephanie Kemp
Free Fall
By Stephanie Kemp
You shouldn’t go around saying you want to jump out of a plane if it isn’t true.
Especially if the people you work with (the ones you are going around saying it to) are ass kicking film production people who make shit happen.
Los Angeles, 1995 (maybe).
Sherry and Bryan made it happen.
Amy, Corinna and I were in even though at least one of us, at least partially, thought this was the worst idea ever (even though it was hers).
I told all of this to my civilian friend Fitz, who thought it was crazy, until……
He realized that this plane jumping plan might be just what his wife Em needed, since she had fallen into a bit of a rut after moving to Manhattan Beach a couple of years earlier.
(Los Angeles can do that to you, if you move here for a reason that is not your own.)
Fitz and Em were my friends from real life.
College sweethearts.
Best friends.
Funny.
Smart.
Grounded.
Fun.
Married young, the kind of married we all wanted to be.
(Still intact as the people they always were, only bionic now, together.)
Em didn’t want to jump out of the plane with us...until she realized (or Fitz convinced her) that she did...and then she couldn’t wait.
(Please note: No one died on this day.)
______
It was a crystal blue Fall Saturday. Em would pick me up in her Jeep pre-dawn and I would bring a cooler of beer to celebrate post-jump (God willing - remember I didn’t want to do this?).
I kissed my boyfriend goodbye and told him to make sure to give my family the letters I had written, just in case. (I had obviously not told my family I was jumping from a plane. I wasn’t that stupid.)
We drove out to Perris, CA and arrived just in time for our sky dive training:
• We would all wear special suits (mine would be pink - anything is fine when you are jumping from a plane).
• Goggles.
• We would jump in a tandem, each attached to a professional, who would ride on our backs.
• “It will be cold.”
• We would line up one at a time and then flip out of the plane at 13,500 feet or jump out cannonball style, led by our butts. This would be our choice. (I chose the flip, as I knew I would be doing this exactly once in my lifetime and thought it would be more elegant if this was the end of me, or make for a better story, if it wasn’t.)
• We would free fall for about 60 seconds at roughly 120 mph, before pulling the chute and popping up into the sky, champagne cork style, making our way back to Earth like human kites full of grown up wonder and infant awe. (This Sky to Ground Trip would take 7 minutes, in total.)
• We would land safely on the ground probably in a heap with our professionals (“this is normal and your knees will be wobbly”) and never look at life in the same way again.
• This would be true for all of us.
______
I remember:
My jumpsuit was too small but I had the nicest professional on my back. His suit was perfect fit black and he got to wear a matching skull cap and better goggles. I wish I could remember his name.
The ground below appeared as little patchy squares from the open door, like when you look down from a commercial jet flying home for Christmas when there is no snow and you wonder when exactly you stopped believing in Santa.
Our exit flip (head first, arms criss crossed across the chest, DIVE!) was 3 rotations long. (“The only triple of the day!” and I was told we had good form.)
The Pop Up Post Chute Pull was the happiest moment of my life.
(Until we landed.)
_______
When you land safely on the ground after jumping from a plane on purpose, all you want to do is run around and find your friends, who also landed safely and might also have scraped knees. You are like over caffeinated fire ants who don’t want to hurt anyone. Ever again.
You want to look at each other straight and forever in the eyes but know you will never find proper words for the rest of your lives.
You will smile uncontrollably and show your teeth with or without thinking for several days.
Your cheeks will ache for much longer than that.
I found my friends. There was a picture taken of us in a pile on the ground. We are the happiest people I had ever known. In the most basic way a body knows how to be happy. The kind of happy that only a lucky body knows how to be. Attached to heads that know (at least for the next several hours, if not days or years) that they are not in charge. (You will only ever feel this way again that time you do mushrooms and those times you had your babies.)
Upon finding Em and seeing her face, I knew that the jump had done exactly what her husband had hoped: brought her back to her glorious, unstoppable, gorgeous, fun, hopeful, mischievous, strong badass OG self.
I knew I was witnessing a miracle.
We hugged each other with those batshit mandatory full face smiles and she said:
“Let’s drink those beers and go home. I am going to divorce Fitz.”
_______
We were forever changed,
And there would be no talking.
There would be a divorce and two beautiful new marriages and five amazing children between them.
(I would not marry the boyfriend but there would be two beautiful different marriages and three more amazing children between them.)
There would be a heartbreaking early death for a different reason and we would all be together again one more time -
Still witnessing miracles and showing up for each other, even though (and especially because) life never turns out the way we plan.
It was a(nother) day I will never forget,
On purpose, by accident.
(God willing.)
Especially if the people you work with (the ones you are going around saying it to) are ass kicking film production people who make shit happen.
Los Angeles, 1995 (maybe).
Sherry and Bryan made it happen.
Amy, Corinna and I were in even though at least one of us, at least partially, thought this was the worst idea ever (even though it was hers).
I told all of this to my civilian friend Fitz, who thought it was crazy, until……
He realized that this plane jumping plan might be just what his wife Em needed, since she had fallen into a bit of a rut after moving to Manhattan Beach a couple of years earlier.
(Los Angeles can do that to you, if you move here for a reason that is not your own.)
Fitz and Em were my friends from real life.
College sweethearts.
Best friends.
Funny.
Smart.
Grounded.
Fun.
Married young, the kind of married we all wanted to be.
(Still intact as the people they always were, only bionic now, together.)
Em didn’t want to jump out of the plane with us...until she realized (or Fitz convinced her) that she did...and then she couldn’t wait.
(Please note: No one died on this day.)
______
It was a crystal blue Fall Saturday. Em would pick me up in her Jeep pre-dawn and I would bring a cooler of beer to celebrate post-jump (God willing - remember I didn’t want to do this?).
I kissed my boyfriend goodbye and told him to make sure to give my family the letters I had written, just in case. (I had obviously not told my family I was jumping from a plane. I wasn’t that stupid.)
We drove out to Perris, CA and arrived just in time for our sky dive training:
• We would all wear special suits (mine would be pink - anything is fine when you are jumping from a plane).
• Goggles.
• We would jump in a tandem, each attached to a professional, who would ride on our backs.
• “It will be cold.”
• We would line up one at a time and then flip out of the plane at 13,500 feet or jump out cannonball style, led by our butts. This would be our choice. (I chose the flip, as I knew I would be doing this exactly once in my lifetime and thought it would be more elegant if this was the end of me, or make for a better story, if it wasn’t.)
• We would free fall for about 60 seconds at roughly 120 mph, before pulling the chute and popping up into the sky, champagne cork style, making our way back to Earth like human kites full of grown up wonder and infant awe. (This Sky to Ground Trip would take 7 minutes, in total.)
• We would land safely on the ground probably in a heap with our professionals (“this is normal and your knees will be wobbly”) and never look at life in the same way again.
• This would be true for all of us.
______
I remember:
My jumpsuit was too small but I had the nicest professional on my back. His suit was perfect fit black and he got to wear a matching skull cap and better goggles. I wish I could remember his name.
The ground below appeared as little patchy squares from the open door, like when you look down from a commercial jet flying home for Christmas when there is no snow and you wonder when exactly you stopped believing in Santa.
Our exit flip (head first, arms criss crossed across the chest, DIVE!) was 3 rotations long. (“The only triple of the day!” and I was told we had good form.)
The Pop Up Post Chute Pull was the happiest moment of my life.
(Until we landed.)
_______
When you land safely on the ground after jumping from a plane on purpose, all you want to do is run around and find your friends, who also landed safely and might also have scraped knees. You are like over caffeinated fire ants who don’t want to hurt anyone. Ever again.
You want to look at each other straight and forever in the eyes but know you will never find proper words for the rest of your lives.
You will smile uncontrollably and show your teeth with or without thinking for several days.
Your cheeks will ache for much longer than that.
I found my friends. There was a picture taken of us in a pile on the ground. We are the happiest people I had ever known. In the most basic way a body knows how to be happy. The kind of happy that only a lucky body knows how to be. Attached to heads that know (at least for the next several hours, if not days or years) that they are not in charge. (You will only ever feel this way again that time you do mushrooms and those times you had your babies.)
Upon finding Em and seeing her face, I knew that the jump had done exactly what her husband had hoped: brought her back to her glorious, unstoppable, gorgeous, fun, hopeful, mischievous, strong badass OG self.
I knew I was witnessing a miracle.
We hugged each other with those batshit mandatory full face smiles and she said:
“Let’s drink those beers and go home. I am going to divorce Fitz.”
_______
We were forever changed,
And there would be no talking.
There would be a divorce and two beautiful new marriages and five amazing children between them.
(I would not marry the boyfriend but there would be two beautiful different marriages and three more amazing children between them.)
There would be a heartbreaking early death for a different reason and we would all be together again one more time -
Still witnessing miracles and showing up for each other, even though (and especially because) life never turns out the way we plan.
It was a(nother) day I will never forget,
On purpose, by accident.
(God willing.)