Storey

26 May 2010

I don’t like heights very much.

It’s not that I’m terrified of them, and it’s not that I don’t quite enjoy them in some regards, but too much exposure to loftiness and a I get a little nervous. Maybe it’s working for 15 years on the second storey. It’s mundane.

This has got worse as I’ve got older. Admittedly most things have got worse as I’ve got older, including my ability o handle alcohol, my skin tone and my ability to concentrate on one thing for more than two minutes, and all of these things have a greater day to day impact on my life. But it’s still a shame.

A few years ago I was holidaying in New Zealand, on only my second real trip away from the UK. I had fallen in with a group of people – who were mostly much younger than me – and as we got to Lake Taupo on the north island they were determined to Skydive.

Being a bit reticent about elevation, I decided I would give this a miss and await them on the ground.

I hadn’t reckoned, however, on that pesky desire not to be left out of the fun. As I watched them handing over their NZ$300 to the receptionist and get told when their tiny plane would leave I began to feel a little resentful of my own cowardice. I ummed. I’m sorry to say, fair reader, that I may even have aahed. I weighed up terror against being all bored and regretful, and (unusually for me) decided I would tweak the nose of the dreadful spindly killer fish and give Skydiving a go. And there was always the idea that I might tackle my mild fear of heights and emerge a stronger man for it.

Oh, it’s all find and games at first, as they give you a blue (literal) jump suit and poke a camcorder in your face. The terror still isn’t real as they buckle you up to the harness with which your tandem expert will eventually cleave himself unto you. But as they march you out of the preparatory hangar and you see the light aircraft – which has been quite clearly constructed out of used cigarette packets and a tube of Uhu glue – it all gets quite scary.

I was already having second thoughts as we took off. The cardboard plane was rickety enough, which just served to remind me that I was about to be surrounded by nothing but air. I felt sick. There are photos of me looking bleached of all colour. Still, I thought, if it comes to it I don’t have to jump. A waste of $300, yes, but no one is going to make me.

And then it dawned on me. I was right at the front of the plane.
It was a narrow plane. Perhaps they hadn’t found enough cigarette packets, but the design was such that if someone decided that they didn’t fancy this jumping lark it was going to be horribly awkward squeezing everyone else past him. As my tandemee (an insane Aussie whose name was something like Killer Bob) glee pointed out that we still had half the ascent to go, I started to realise that I was a bit stuck. I could jump, or I could do something even more unimaginable.
I could inconvenience everyone else.

I began to panic in earnest. Could I move before we reached the correct altitude and, in effect, multi-task my meekness? No, we were belted firmly and there was no room to manoeuvre. If I shrank to one side would they get passed me? Probably, with a lot of climbing and kneeing each other in the face. No, there was nothing for it.
I would have to skydive out of sheer Englishness.

No half paralysed with fear, I allowed myself to be dragged to the open door of the plane, was shown the infinitely terrifying blue of the endless sky (which scares me far more than the ground, so much for one-size-fits-all psychology) and was pushed off.

The really odd thing was that I was so terrified of the general falling through the air thing, that it didn’t occur to me to be afraid of dying. It wasn’t until long after the parachute had opened that I remembered that there is always a small but real risk of malfunction. I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. This says everything you need to know about fear. It’s basically shit.

The other odd things was that I recall that I absolutely fucking loved it. But I say “I recall” for a good reason. I can’t conjure up the feeling anymore. I have no physical memory of that adrenalin rush, I just recall that I once had it. The fear, on the other hand, was so intense that I can still feel it now.

The upshot is that these days I am even more scared of heights than I ever was. But I can watch the official video of my jump with a certain amount of pride, even if my technical contribution to the whole process was the screaming. But I’m not doing it again. Oh no. Fuck right off.