TAKING THE PLUNGE

I’ve waited all my life for a 60-second plunge — and it met all my lofty expectations.
After being invited to participate in a tandem skydive — the price was right: telling you about it in this column, a debt that is now paid — I called my sister, who reported she has chills. Then I call my boyfriend to make him jealous, a ploy that worked.
I decide against calling my mother.
I arrive at 11 a.m. Saturday at Raeford Parachute Center which, conveniently enough, is at the Raeford airport. I enter a central hub and the photos and newspaper articles displayed on the wall heighten my anticipation. Put me in that harness, and let me fly.
But the weather isn’t cooperating, so I take a seat, and read “The Screwtape Letters.”
John, who will pilot the plane, sits next to me. His is a voice of reason: “Sometimes you just have to wait these things out — there’s not much else you can do.”
He tells me about his 25 years of piloting and his 29 years of jumping from planes. But my mind races. I want to jump — not sit.
But there will be no flying today. Instead of boarding the PAC 750 that cruises at 195 mph, I board my Volvo 240 that sometimes can’t even reach 70 mph, bummed that Mother Nature is adding another day to my lifelong wait.
On Sunday, I make the same drive, and Tony — the owner of Raeford Parachute Center — greets me.
“This is my friend Gena,” Tony tells assembled divers who are hanging around.
I meet Roy, who will jump with me and video-record my adventure. “What a sweet job,” I think.
I meet another Tony, my tandem partner. Roy returns.
“Don’t tell my mom, but I’m about to jump out of a plane,” I say to his camera. He zooms over to Tony, who’s been jumping out of planes since I was soiling diapers.
“Don’t tell my mom either,” Tony says jokingly.
I put on my blue jumpsuit.
“You ready?” Tony asks.
My goofy grin is my nod yes.
“Say something to the camera,” he says.
The words won’t come, and all I can offer is, “I don’t know what to say” — cleverness that is forever captured on video.
“People of all walks of life come in these doors — doctors, lawyers, plumbers, carpenters, five-star medalists,” he says. “People don’t realize who they are jumping with, because here, you’re not a doctor or a lawyer — that’s the beautiful thing about it.”
Roy, Tony and I walk up to a life-sized model plane to rehearse.
“Head up. Arch your back, and point your toes,” Tony the Instructor tells me.
There’s plenty of room in my empty brain.
Twelve of us pile into a PAC 750, a plane made for sky-diving, and straddle two benches. The plane roars to life — signaling a new adventure.
Tony leans his head down on my shoulder as we wait and wait and wait for the plane to ascend two and a half miles. Two people disappear from the plane.
We inch nearer the door. Two more jump out.
For the first time, I feel fear — and I smile.
“Roy is going to go out first. Wave to the camera, and then when we jump out, do what we practiced,” Tony says.
My stomach gurgles. I wave. We jump. I am tardy arching my back and then I look up at the plane. This feels flippin’ fabulous.
Tony taps me on the shoulder, a signal to look down, relax and enjoy my 120 mph freefall that will last a single minute.
The wind tries to rip the skin from my bones.
The sky is a perfect blue and the ground is a satellite map. My mind is empty again.
“This is awesome,” I yell to the camera, which Roy has positioned an arm’s length from my smiling face.
I mouth to the camera, “I love you mom,” and then look down at the freshness of an Earth that is growing larger. I give the camera two thumbs up.
I am grateful that 60 second feels like forever.
After an 8,000-foot plunge, the canopy deploys, putting on the brakes. The wind stops whacking us. I stand on Tony’s feet and push my harness up to release the tension. My left ear pops. Tony loosens my harness and asks me how I’m doing.
“Great. Absolutely great.”
He gives me control of the parachute. We circle to the left and then to the right.
The five-minute ride ends when my knees catch a little grass. We come to a rest in a seated position — Tony underneath me. The bright purple and pink parachute swishes in overhead.
“You can stand up now.”
Everyone asks me how it was.
“It was all right,” I say kiddingly, and then I tell the truth. “It was freakin’ awesome.”
I can’t wait to show the video to mom.