a series of moments. episode 2.

Shit.

The weather was clear. So clear, that yesterday’s bluster had blown the clouds and the howling winds out and had allowed for the contrast of the bright blue skies and orange-red rock that Moab was so known for, to stand king.

Crap.

That means I have no choice.

When I moved west I’d made myself a pact. A pact so real and so in your face that it felt a little like it was pointing at me, laughing hysterically, as I mulled over my escape from this particular situation.

You see. This pact I’d made myself (to myself and only myself…over one glass of cheap red wine too many…) went something like this…

“Never say NO”.

Welp with that in mind and with my hyper-confidence of the weather’s likely overblown conditions to take control of this big, fat, mistakenly uttered, “YES”, I’d somehow agreed to jump out of an airplane with only a parachute attached to my back.

No. Not at the normal altitude of 4000′ above the ground. Nope. That was for lameos. I had agreed to a jump that was something like 12000′ feet above the ground. Because what’s another 8000’?

Shit.

The wind had completely blown my grand plan of avoiding this bravado declaration of YES, out of the ballpark.

I truly had no choice. And this morning? This morning I was jumping out of an airplane. Above the arches and deep canyons of two of the USA’s most celebrated National Parks.

I mean. There had to be worse places to recognize that your grand scheme of “never say no” had failed you and that you were about to jump out of a tiny airplane that featured a pair of cheesy orange flames flanking its sides.

As my mind raced about all of the possible vomit-inducing scenarios that all seemed to bring my happy little life to a painful splat-like death, our chariot pulled up. A tiny man in a jumpsuit rolled up the side door and greeted us with a grin as he wildly waved us on to the plane.

I slid my straddled posture down the bench that spanned the craft from stern to bow until I was nestled, somewhat uncomfortably close, in between my jump partner’s legs.

As we roared down the runway, my body leaning deep into my jump partner, Keith, he whispered into my ear,

“Get ready for the craziest thrill of your life.”

And with that, we were airborne.

I was breathless with the shock of the altitude. Breathless with the cloudless morning and the sight of the sun winking off of the swiftly moving Colorado River below us.

Within what seemed like seconds, I was jerked abruptly from my breathless daydream with the bellow of the jump door being rolled up and a gust of cold air filling the small cabin.

Crap.

Here goes nothing.

Without warning, Keith started to scoot me along the length of our perch towards the roaring exit of our plane as it soared 12000′ above the hard, dusty, red desert floor.

Before I knew it, there I was.

Legs dangling out of the side of the airplane; the desert landscape and mighty Colorado River suspended below my sneakered feet.

And with that, in the time it takes to take a breath, we were airborne. Free-falling back to the Earth that cradles us. The Earth that nurtures us and provides us with life-giving resources and memories.

It was so loud; it was almost like I was rushing through a tunnel of silence. I couldn’t hear anything but the roar of the wind as it whipped by my ears, pulling my cheeks back with the velocity of the speed at which we were falling.

Gravity took its toll and we flipped and flopped and tumbled back towards solid ground and with a single, sudden jerk, we stopped. And we floated, suspended high above life as we knew it.

And as we floated, drifting back to Earth, I giggled to myself. Giggling that for better or for worse, somehow after the craziest, most thrilling moment of my life, never saying no still hadn’t failed me.

a series of moments. episode 1.

I’d been waiting on this moment for a year.

Since the day she had made her grand entrance into this big, beautiful world; full of spunk and stubbornness and life.

She wasn’t mine. She wasn’t even blood; but she was the daughter of someone I had always considered to be my soul sister, so in some ways she was mine.

Mine to love and to spoil. Because what is life without a whole lotta love; love for those around you and of course, love for yourself.

And mine to teach.

To teach that playing outside is best done when you can wear pink and get dirty all at the same time. To teach that sometimes a good curse word and a hearty cry are the best cures for a bad day. And mine to teach that feeling is important. So important. Because without all the feels you would never be able to discern the good from the bad, the truly scary from the scary-thrilling, or the happy from the sad.

So there we were.

Me, waiting on this moment for a full year. A year since she burst onto the scene, ready to take on the world, head-on.

And her, unknowing of the ride that she was about to embark on.

We studied each other for moment, me standing in the doorway of her home and her, from across the foyer. And as I knelt down to my knees she grinned, her dimples deep and joyful. Then she shrieked and toddled my direction ready to be swooped up and smothered in smooches.