Today I jumped out of a plane at 6000ft.
Before, I wasn't scarred about this tandem skydive as I'd attempted it months ago and it had been cancelled because of cloud cover, but this time it was a clear blue March morning with zero wind and zero chance of bad weather being my escape route.
We arrived with four monster sandwiches in the boot and in good spirits to find people already falling out of the sky. Suddenly it seemed that inevitability had folded in time to a moment where I was looking at my friend from the corner of my eye at the height of Mexico city, half smiles whilst strapped to my tandem instructor. The drone of the engines dimmed and we looked at the door where 6 others had left before us until we were the last alone in our fears. I shuffled on my ass towards this exit, which turned out to be an entrance, and quick handshake with friend before I found myself tucking my feet under the fuselage of an aircraft and my thoughts cut like a shard of glass to my brother.
On route to the airfield in the middle of a Peterborough farmland I thought I was unfazed about this charity jump until I found myself saying that I've been meaning to write a will, where my brother gets all the crap I own if something did go wrong. Ridiculous that you rationalize everything like this before you sign up for jumping out of a plane, you think: will the chute open, will the instructor not fasten us together, will they find me holding onto the tail of the plane, and finally if something did go wrong: did I do enough with my time?
Too late, no backing out now I thought as I craned my head back to the sky of this abyss, instructor shouting in my ear, "okay, you ready Tim"? and cruelly, without even a countdown to one, the horizon tumbled before me like a red sock within the whites of a washing machine.
Silence.
Absolutely nothing.
Only the sight of the World leveling out like a quart of opium after some bad hash, and then, spread out below me in all it's splendor, the World seemed to glow. Fields and trees and little puffs of cloud seemed to gently go about their business unaware that I was plummeting towards them at 120 miles an hour. As instructed I lifted my arms to my sides and seemed to feel very little wind only remembering that I said:
"Wow, it's all so beautiful".
As though if this was it, that if something was to go wrong, it didn't matter. I wasn't screaming, I didn't have my eyes closed I was just so transfixed with the beauty of the Earth that nothing mattered for the 35 seconds of freefall. It was an overwhelming experience cut short with the yyyyyyyyyyyank of parachute and a reconnection with sound and unfortunately the gravity inside my stomach.
The last 3000ft was awash with the sick feeling of regret. Not that I hadn't done enough with my life but that I wished we hadn't had that breakfast, that can of coke, as well as two of the brick sandwiches, that pack of refreshers and a cup of tea with a nice Danish pastry. Ooooh, I felt ill, and when I finally put my feet on the ground my body told me it no longer wanted to talk to my arms and my blood had abandoned my face.
Lying on the green grass bathed in the yellow sunlight the colour slowly returned to our cheeks while I reconnected with my love of solid ground by digging my nails into the soil whilst trying to comprehend the enormity what had actually happened. Yet, even after texting my brother to say we he wasn't about to inherit my material crap, the only thing to occur to me after such a profound experience was: "are two remaining sandwiches in the car? It would be a shame to let them goto waste".
http://www.timothyfoster.co.uk
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