Catch me I'm falling.

9 AM. Wide awake. Can’t sleep. I’ve got butterflies already for our first adventure in Interlaken, Switzerland. I’m going skydiving for the first time ever with a few of my Bethel friends (Jake, Annika and Laura). 11:45 rolls around and we say our goodbyes to our friends, including the usual banter of “I was the last person to see you alive!” and “Hope to see you back in one piece!” These conversations didn’t really do anything for the nerves for me, but at the same time, I actually contemplated what would happen if I died on this stunt. I actually thought about writing out a will/goodbye letter and sticking it in my pocket as a goodbye to my family and friends back in the states.

They call our names and we climb aboard with some other adventure seekers: 4 Australian tourists and a auto-parts supplier from Detroit named Josh. I hit up a conversation with him about business and told him we were studying international business while we are here abroad. After a beautiful 20 minute ride to the airfield we met our Tandem masters. Mine was from Australia (named Mick, how perfect) and began suiting me up and told me that we were going to be jumping in the 3^rd group. The following was our initial exchange:

Mick: so Spencer, this is your first jump? Are you nervous?

Me: Yeah, a little.

Mick: You should be, you’re jumping with me!

Me: How long have you been doing this?

Mick: Well, I started last week. (brief pause, laughter) No, I’ve been doing this for 11 years.

After this came the wait. The wait for your group to go up was just adding to the anticipation. It was pretty encouraging to see everyone landing and just having a blast from the adrenaline rush. We saw the first group go up, jump and then land in front of us and then the 2^nd went and came down and all of a sudden the plane is at the end of the runway and Mick is calling me over. The way we sat down in the plane was the reverse order we jumped out. Mick and I hopped in last. Guess that makes me the guinea pig aka the first to jump. The taxi ride and initial flight took only 15 minutes and we were above the clouds, peaks of the Swiss Alps breaking out around us. Mick motioned to the pilot, the engine was cut and the door slid open.

We had covered what was going to happen several times up until this point, but it sort of went out of my mind because I was jumping out of an airplane. Mick told me to tilt my head back, smile and after five seconds, to spread my hands out and he would take care of the rest. In order to get out of the plane and to not smack our heads on the wing, we stood on a small step, did a 180 degree turn while stepping off and then did a back flip into the open sky. The freefall from 14,000 feet lasted only 45 seconds but we reached speeds of 120 mph. It was hard to even get breaths or hear anything but the rushing of the wind around us. Mick reached his hands out in front of me and gave the thumbs up and pointed at my harness. This was the second part of the instruction, the chute deployment. Mick would pull our chute as soon as we broke through the cloud ceiling. I literally was face to face with the thick puffy white clouds you usually only see from airplane windows. I reached my hands out to touch them, and just like that, whoosh. Silence. I could hear myself cursing just from the adrenaline rush. Mick had the controls of the hangliding chute open and we were about 4,000 feet above the ground. He steered us around toward the landing strip and dipped us around. I told him he had a pretty amazing job. He replied: “It’s just another day at the office.” After about 4 minutes of some amazing views of the mountains and lakes of Interlaken, we lined up at the landing strip and slid in safely, right alongside our friends.

The day before, when we were travelling from Freiburg, I had my iPod on shuffle with some new music I loaded on for this trip. I found myself listening to this song called “Catch me from Falling”, a song from the new Broadway musical ‘Next to Normal’, recommended by my accompanist, Emily. As I was listening, I couldn’t help but resonate with these lyrics:

Catch me I’m falling / Flying headfirst into fate.

Face what you fear / soon it comes clear,

Catch me I’m falling / Catch me before it’s too late.

The strange thing was, even though I was nervous/really excited to skydive, I found the most comfort in those lyrics as I was standing on the platform outside of the plane at 14,000 feet. I sang that verse, and let my ‘fate’ up in the hands of God (and Mick) and stepped out of a perfectly good airplane.

As the slogan of the Outdoor Interlaken adventures company reads: Get started living. I like to think I said “Yes” to life on my adventure here in Interlaken.