Jumping (24 page)

“Yes,” Kelly says, and I hear the tears in her voice.

“Yes,” echoes Marla somberly.

“But you both know you can and you will?”

“Of course,” says Marla. Kelly says nothing.

“You'll have to turn to each other.”

They look at each other, and Marla reaches out to Kelly. They take each other's hand, across me, in the middle.

“We do have each other,” she says. And Kelly nods.

“And I'm not going anywhere!” I remind them and laugh. They laugh, too.

I look down at the Void, seeing its dark edge. At ground level, it's masked by the knee-high grass that surrounds it. From here, its edge reveals the breadth and depth of it. It seems more its real self from this angle—a dark place that waits. A place deep in me waits, too.

Marla and Kelly are set to leave the next day. They have lives they have to get back to. Before they go, we decide to get matching tattoos—the wildest thing we've ever done together. Kelly and I already have some, but it will be Marla's first. She must really believe I might not come back from this jump and is taken in by the sentimentality. As long as she can put it in some really inconspicuous place—and keep it small—she's willing. Kelly decides we'll get a small black snake, with red and turquoise and white designs. She makes the drawing herself. It looks New Mexican to me, but she says it represents the ancient Kundalini energy in each of us, coiled at the base of our spines, ready to be called to rise up and set us free to be ourselves.

I remember seeing a snake come down from the porch roof of a cabin I was staying in with friends. As we watched, it extended half of its length down through space as if the space had substance to support it, leaving its other half anchored on the porch roof. It lowered that front half right into a fir tree leaning against the porch, into the nest of a small mourning dove, a nest clearly visible to our group on the porch, a nest with two small eggs in it. The dove had left the nest, probably because we had scared her off by coming out onto the porch, and the snake had seen its chance. It moved into the nest, with half its body still on the porch roof, and swallowed both eggs, so quickly, so effortlessly, I could almost believe it hadn't happened. I didn't want to believe it had. Then it withdrew itself back up onto the roof, again as if suspended by invisible wires, and disappeared from sight. We stood there, silenced by the finality of its act. Why were we meant to witness that?

Later, I found a snakeskin tucked into the fold of the bottom step of the back porch. It was beautiful, elegant, like a woman's elbow length opera glove, dropped unheedingly, while she was on her way to somewhere else. The power of that snake, moving in its own world, taking care of business, meaning no harm, just following its instinct to survive, stayed with me, and I liked the idea of having it, symbolically, on my body, especially as I contemplated my jump. I'm doing what the snake did—my jump causing me to shed one skin because, unbeknownst to me, I've been growing another, the one that allows me to jump, taking care of business because I'm driven, like the snake, to do it, to jump, following my instinct to survive. The snake didn't have to articulate why, and neither do I. Feeling the truth of it is enough.

I made provisions with Marla and Kelly that if I don't come back after six months, or they haven't heard from me, they're to come and collect my stuff, such as it is, and do what they want with it. They're the only people in the world it might mean anything to. I just don't want it left for my landlord to deal with. Kelly can have my music and books and anything else she wants. With that taken care of, my affairs are settled.

As I watch them drive off in their rental car, I feel a little melancholy. I wonder if that's what makes me also feel apprehensive, as if the good luck the Void has brought into my life, which I think it has, has to be followed by bad luck. Why do we want the gods not to notice our good fortune? Why do we think the other shoe has to fall? What about the Law of Attraction? Good calls good. Can I get that through my head? We're more afraid of good luck than bad luck. We're unaccustomed to good—it makes us feel prickly in our own skin. We're used to bad. I shake my head.

But, even though I worry, I just can't feel bad about the Void. I think my apprehension is really because I so seldom choose, really choose, to act on my own behalf. It can't possibly feel comfortable to me. And when I'm choosing to do something so far outside the usual range of choices, well, I'm probably feeling in better shape than I have a right to!

I'm glad Marla and Kelly came. It has been great—like a ceremony of preparation for my trip to the Void. I can't deny that I'm hoping the Void will connect me to something more—as it did Duncan Robert—and it feels right to have gotten to embrace these earthly connections before I go.

I go in to call Miles. I pause a minute at the door. That doesn't mean he's my boyfriend.

W
E ARE JUMPING IN
the early morning, like Duncan Robert did. It's May, and the temperatures are New England moderate. We're taking nothing with us. I've got a pocket notebook and pen, but I always have those with me. We've kept who we told to a small circle of family, to avoid creating a sensation with the people we work with or with any of our friends. We didn't want to be delayed or stopped, and we didn't want to generate unnecessary worry. All preparations have been made—and after all, we believe we'll only be gone one day in Earth time.

I've been visiting the Void in the daytime, when no one is likely to be there. It was a kind of rehearsal—I wanted to feel easier around it, not just show up the day we jump. I wanted it to feel more everyday than that. Sometimes I took my lunch or a book and stretched out there in the sunlight next to the Void, listening to the forest noises, of which there are many once you get quiet. Chirpings, rustlings, scratchings, whistlings, cawing, wind in the trees, something dropping from a tree. I saw the occasional small animal—meditating rabbits, once a black fox that was startled to see me and ran right up a tree, little curious chipmunks who venture close, once a couple of hesitant deer. None of them seemed afraid of the Void in the slightest. They hardly seemed to notice it. They were more afraid of me, even as still as I tried to be. The Void was part of the whole scene, not something separate and malevolent at all. I couldn't help but take comfort in the natural instincts of animals.

When I told Miles, he laughed. He said, “Maybe that's part of the Void's lure. It can seem normal, like the big bad wolf in Granny's clothing.”

“That's not what Duncan Robert would say,” I scolded him, shaking a finger at him. “He knows better, and so do you. Stop trying to scare me.”

He grabbed my finger and held it. “I hardly think of you as someone who can be scared so easily.”

I wondered how I had given him that impression, but I wasn't going to disavow him of it. “Why'd you try, then?”

“I guess I still miss Duncan Robert, my old sparring partner,” he said. “We helped each other keep our fears at bay.”

“Let's just both admit we're afraid. Is there something so wrong in that? When we're about to jump into a Void?”

“Only if you plan on not coming back.”

Whatever his fears, he is going to do this. He's known that longer than I have. He says he feels as if he's been preparing for it since long before Duncan Robert's jump even. Part of him still feels he should have jumped first. Duncan Robert's jump was so hard on him, much harder than he had expected. He hurt—ached—for a long time after. I think he lived outside of himself for a while, until he could manage the compressed pain of living inside. He knew he loved the boy, but he hadn't known how deep that love ran. He had taken it all for granted. And then the jump measured the depth and breadth of it for him.

I know he's glad to know me. He thinks I'm interesting and I make him laugh. Not that he tells me that, but I know it in the ways he seeks me out, asks my opinion, and watches my face as I speak. I know he values our friendship, as I do, and wouldn't want to lose it. What we're doing feels bigger than both of us, and we can use a friend more than a lover to get us through it, even if my heart is occasionally unruly in his presence. We're both glad to not be jumping alone.

So the time is here, and soon we'll be walking through that clearing. The horizon is light and I can hear a few solitary bird chirps. We spent the night at his place—in separate rooms—and neither of us slept much. I got up to make a cup of chamomile tea around two and saw the light under his door. We were up before our alarms went off and are having more tea, sitting out on his porch, watching the shift from dark to impending light. Our stomachs are empty, to be on the safe side. I watch him in the opposite corner of the swing, cradling his mug, staring into the trees. I feel as close to him as I have to just about anybody. Sharing this life-changing purpose has made our relationship into something I can't define, only feel.

We've said our good byes, our final preparations are long done, and I think we've arrived at yet another new point of readiness. We exchange hardly a word. We've achieved a kind of self-aware peace, coupled with only a little apprehension for the jump, not for anything else. We think only of the jump. Silvia pulls up out front in her old Subaru Forester, and we take our mugs inside and rinse them at the sink. I follow him out the front door, waiting as he locks it. We walk down the porch steps, and I almost laugh out loud. Everything feels so significant, on the way to this significant act!

“Morning,” Silvia says quietly. She doesn't look directly at us, but I think she has tears in her eyes. I'm in the back seat, and I reach to touch her shoulder.

“Tough duty,” Miles says to her.

“It is,” she says honestly, looking at him, and a tear slides down her cheek. “But it beats sitting at home thinking about it, like last time.” She wipes her cheek and turns the car back into the street. “And, damn it, it's exciting!” She laughs. “Watch me end up jumping next time!”

We're the only car on the road, and the Void is only a few minutes away. At the edge of the clearing, Silvia pulls to the side of the road and turns off the engine.

“I'm so proud of you two!” she says. “But I still don't think I can stay to watch. I don't have that much courage. I'm going to go pick up a paper and some coffee and then come back here to wait for you.” She smiles. “We'll see if I can manage that.”

She doesn't get out to hug us. We get out and start to cross the clearing. I stop to turn and blow her a kiss. Miles and I smile at each other, and he takes my hand. I look at him and feel as if I've known him forever.

We stand at the edge of the Void a moment before we turn and take some steps back, to give ourselves a little running start, as we've rehearsed. We turn to each other, wordless, and then just do it. It's the most peaceful thing. We run a few steps through the damp grass and then make a little jump. I feel more excitement than actual fear. We're synchronized, and it feels like one jump, not two. Having seen into his eyes the moment before the jump sustains me. Holding his hand helps, too.

We have no moments of panic, as Duncan Robert had at the beginning of his fall, maybe because we're together, maybe because Duncan Robert prepared us for those first disorienting, stomach-swallowing moments. After the first catch of our breath, we just let ourselves fall, without resisting. We expect to be falling for a while, as he did.

Then we begin to separate. The force of the fall pulls us apart, pulls our hands apart. He falls first, ahead of me. I feel panic.
Wait! This shouldn't be happening
! We should fall and land at the same rate, according to the laws of gravity. I researched it! There must be something different at work here. How different?

I see him moving away from me, down. I'm feeling as if I'm being pulled out of myself, down, with him—it's as if I'm looking into his eyes, but from outside my own body. I wrench my eyes away, knowing I have to keep hold of myself, or I might really panic, in addition to losing him. I know he is below me, but I can no longer see him. He is leading the way, I tell myself, and that's a small comfort.

The sensations of the fall are taking my attention, anyway. Now it becomes my fall.
Your fall is your fall
, just as Duncan Robert said.

I
WANT TO SAVOR IT
, compartmentalize it, treasure all the details. I'm a writer at heart, so I have to capture it to sort for understanding later. I can't help watching myself have this experience. But part of me wants to just let go and fall. How else does the truth happen? How can it happen if I'm always on guard against it?

For some of the time, despite my vigilance, I do lose track of myself and time, just closing my eyes and going mindless. I feel myself lose size and shape and substance and morph into a nameless, faceless falling. I'm falling with the air around me, one with it. I have no more being than that. Yet my own presence, my own awareness, never leaves me, remaining undiminished, strong, purposeful. This is beyond understanding, because I feel miniscule at the same time, tinier than tiny. I laugh. Then I laugh at my laughing. How can I be laughing? I'm still falling. I'm giddy. I haven't even stopped to notice my surroundings. I'm not much of an Alice in Wonderland.

This situation calls for my awareness to be at the forefront. I'm falling pretty fast, but I can see there are some sort of hieroglyphics on the walls. Pictographs, sort of, some maybe of people. I try to study them but can only hold onto glimpses. I might be able to reproduce some of them later on paper. I close my eyes and can't be sure I don't doze or even dream.

I feel a bump and instantly open my eyes. I have landed, right side up, almost sitting. I feel all in one piece, not bruised or broken. Quite the opposite—I couldn't be more excited. I know from Duncan Robert that this is how his adventure in the Void began. I stand up and look around. I see that I have landed on a flat rocky surface, a few feet back from the reach of the Void, and I can't help going to the edge to look over. To see the Void from this angle is mind blowing. I'm in it! Finally. I hold on to the rocky wall to my right as I look up and then down. It's dark, and a little windy. There is a dim glow, as if light emanates from the rocks themselves. When I look up again, I don't see even a pinprick of light to mark the opening where Miles and I jumped. I wonder how many miles I have fallen. I look down again, glad to have something to hold on to, and feel the bottomlessness, a vast openness that goes on and on. I don't want to stand here too long because, crazily, I can feel the urge to jump rising in me. It's stronger down here than at the edge of the meadow. I'm not ready for another jump! I have to see where I've landed first. I look around my rocky room. I've been buffeted into a side cave that's bigger than my whole studio apartment. Higher ceilings, too.