Jump

This one time I allowed myself to be talked into jumping off a cliff.

 I was with family visiting their cabin on a lake and we took a boat to these cliffs people climbed before jumping into the water.

 Upon reflection, it may be that they all jumped to their death but I can’t be sure.  It just maybe felt like that to me.  Me, a (now former) non-jumper.

 But, death or no, there I was, swimming to the shore, climbing up the cliff, urged on by two cousins (spoiler alert, one of them climbed down after I jumped.  It’s not the first time I’ve gone first and my partners in crime have backed down – I’m looking at you Kevin and Alan and the tattoo shop!).

 So there we were, pushed onward with bravado and a sense that this was the time to prove something. 

I walked up to the cliff. 

And I jumped.

I did not like it one bit.  I did not like falling through the air.  I did not like hitting the water with a smack.  I did not like going under the water, so far that I couldn’t tell which way was up.  I did not like how long I was under water and I did not like water going up my nose.  I did not like sputtering when I finally come up through the surface and I did not like the feeling of regret I had when I finally was able to reflect on the experience.  I’m still not glad I did it.

 I wonder what would have happened, what it would have felt like, what my experience would have been, had I been the one who fully chose to jump.  No outside expectation, just choice.  Leading with excitement, not fear.  Would the water have been as cold, as deep?  Would the falling have felt like preparation, like possibility?  Would I have felt that water up my nose? And was not seeing the sun through the murk a price I willingly paid to see what I could do with my, as Mary Oliver says, “one wild and precious life”?

 As I’ve gotten older and taken more of a look around, I’ve seen that there is deep water, surface clear as glass, inviting, terrifying, everywhere.  A new grade, a new school, a new family, a new friend.  An apology, a relationship, a child, a death.  A new job.

Jumps, all.

There are so many more, and your jumping has not exactly been like mine.  We’ve jumped because of and into different situations.

 But, maybe what ties us together, what helps us understand one another – if we try and care to – is a feeling.

 Sometimes it is the feeling of fear as the fall lasts forever.  That we will never reach the water and we will never survive the cut through the surface.  Of regret, of wishing we had never climbed that damn cliff. 

 But sometimes, every once in a while, it is that feeling of weightlessness after we take the first and great step, the feeling of excitement as we race to the unknown, the feeling of hope – that we will surface, yes.  But also that we will emerge changed.  The feeling of disorientation that always comes when we jump, that lasts as long as it lasts.  The feeling of being buyout as we somehow pop back up to the surface with somthing to tell.

 Maybe what ties us together, what helps us understand each other, is the shared experience.  The story to be told.  The tears to weep and the laughter to share.  Maybe it is what we have in common in the jumping that can actually save us.

Maybe it is that we jumped at all. 

The world is in such despair.  We are broken and hopeless.  We cannot see how we are going to survive. 

I suppose, when we find ourselves in this place, the only thing to do is choose to jump.

I’ll wait behind you on the cliff and, I promise, I’ll go next.