Deciding to skydive
At the age of 26, I decided to fulfil a fantasy: to zip myself into a jumpsuit and skydive — from way up high, where even the birds refuse to go. It was the spring of 1981, and the first time I stretched beyond my identity as a young wife and dedicated bookworm.
My husband, John, was away in northern Ontario on a whitewater-kayaking course, and it seemed the right time to set off on an adventure of my own. So when John called me the Thursday night before the weekend for which I'd arranged to make the jump, I revealed my plans. He said I was crazy. Then he told me to go for it. And then, after a brief pause, he said he was proud of me.
Landlady down!
I wasn't idiot enough to tell any of my work colleagues about my adventure. (If I backed out — a good possibility, I thought — they'd still be teasing me at my retirement party.) But I did tell my landlady.
Dear Hilda was in her kitchen, baking, when I walked in the Friday night before my jump, my little suitcase clutched in hand. I can still see her reaching up into the cupboard for nutmeg, poised delicately on a kitchen chair... and then toppling to the linoleum when I made my announcement. "Nancy, you're potty!" she sputtered, still on the floor. "You'll break your neck!"
I helped Hilda up off the kitchen floor and sprinted out the front door — feeling lighter than air, already.
My skydiving adventure begins
An hour north of Sarnia, Ont., just outside the village of Grand Bend, I steered my little Honda wagon into the parking area reserved for parachutists. Overhead in the soft spring twilight, bright rectangles of evening skydivers glided over farmers' fields. It looked like heaven.
As I approached the landing point, a clearing of matted fields clustered with mud-splattered trailers, the aura of serenity dissolved in a current of energy and suppressed excitement. As some jumpers struggled into their parachute gear, others practised landing by jumping off picnic tables and rolling onto foam strips on the ground.
I located the instructor for my jump the next day and spent an hour trying out equipment and learning how to steer and gauge wind velocity.
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