Paris: The Memoir(7)
On the way to a tiny airstrip outside Las Vegas, I kept telling myself: Don’t be lame, don’t be lame, don’t be lame. I knew that if I vomited or cried or backed out, some of the people I was hanging out with would not keep that to themselves. Someone would be taking pictures and selling them. Some of these people were trusted friends, but others I didn’t know that well or trust at all, and the hangover had sapped my energy to differentiate, so I defaulted to my trust no one mode and tried to pretend I was super excited.
“I’m really tired,” I said. “I’m just gonna . . . yeah.”
I covered my head with my jacket and trembled like a little wet dog.
We got to the private airstrip in the wide, dry nothing somewhere outside the city. I was so dehydrated and wrung out, I couldn’t even comprehend all this information the guy was giving me. Something about “blah blah tandem instructor—blah blah jumping at thirteen thousand feet—blah blah freefalling for the first mile on the way down.” And I’m sitting there like What the fuck have I gotten myself into? And then they strapped the whole apparatus on me, and shit got real. I was 100 percent sober, and I was scared.
Going up in this tiny, rattlecrap airplane, everyone else was laughing and talking—yelling because the engine was so loud. The happy yappy voices felt like scissors in my ears. I just sat there. Quiet. I always get quiet when I’m scared. Like a little rabbit going purely on instinct, huddled in a silent ball, ready to take evasive maneuvers. It’s humbling to be reminded that no matter how big your life is, you are still a speck of dust that can be swept off the earth in half a second.
The goggles were tight on my face. That would leave a mark, I was positive. Ugh. I was sitting on the lap of this guy, a stranger, whose body was literally strapped to my body—our bodies spooned together—so that was weird, and my life was in the hands of this man, and the whole thing was so stupidly terrifying, I wanted to hurl.
Then they opened the door. A blast of freezing cold air roared in.
Now, above this door is the same sign you see above every door of every airplane. Red letters. All caps.
THIS DOOR MUST REMAIN CLOSED
There’s a reason! When that door opens, the world ends. Your head gets sucked inside out. Your heart shrivels like a forgotten mushroom.
THIS DOOR MUST REMAIN CLOSED
But now this door is open.
I’m on this bench behind some other people, and every time someone jumps, everyone else scoots forward. Someone jumps. We all scoot forward.
Jump. Scoot.
Jump. Scoot.
My spoon-mate keeps pushing me closer to that door, yelling, “Doing great, Paris. This is gonna be awesome, Paris. Almost there, Paris. Doing great.”
And then we’re at the door. I feel the edge under my feet. The wind is so fast and loud, it whips away the sound of my screaming, like pulling a loose thread.
“On three!” says the guy, but if he ever said “three,” I didn’t hear it. It was like, “One,” and then—
Nothing.
Everything.
Air.
Light.
Unbearable brightness.
A blessed rush of adrenaline.
I expected to feel like I was falling. Like the ground was flying up at my face. It’s not like that. You start out at thirteen thousand feet—literally miles above the earth—so even though you’re falling at 120 miles per hour, the space around you is so vast, the distance so great, your perspective is that of a slow-moving cloud.
There was nothing to hang on to. Nothing to let go.
I opened my arms and felt unpolluted joy.
Freedom.
Ecstasy.
Everything you want but will never get from drugs or money or even love.
All the constant cravings of my adrenaline-junkie brain.
Conrad Hilton was a religious man. He wrote a lot about God. Feared God. Wanted to know God. Craved God. He should have gone skydiving.
The tandem instructor released the chute, and I was caught up in a slow, quiet ride, suspended above the desert like a diamond on a delicate silver chain. I stopped thinking, stopped trying, stopped wondering.
The sky was crystal-blue perfection. The distant mountains were wrinkled yellow and ocher, iced with midwinter snow. The wide-open desert gave up a thousand shades of gray, sliced with highways, dotted with boxy little structures.
The insignificance of anyone who’d ever loved or hurt me.
The insignificance of myself.
There was no audience to play for.
Only profound peace.
A state of grace.
We descended, riding the wind, borne on soaring updrafts.
Gratitude.
Elation.
Triumph.
I’m here.
I survived.
I’m not afraid.
I love my life.
Marilyn Monroe said, “Fear is stupid. So is regret.” In general, I’ve found this to be true. Many times, throughout my life, the most terrifying moments have led to the most fulfilling. Freefalling over the Nevada desert is just one example. I want to tell you about a few others, even though I know not everyone is going to like what I have to say.
We all have that jump door inside us, and for a long time, I marked mine with red letters. All caps.
THIS DOOR MUST REMAIN CLOSED
Brace yourselves, bitches. We’re about to pry it open.