Notre Dame Magazine | Autumn 2013
I jumped out of a plane. Then I wrote about it. The beginning:
Way up there, in the first weightless moments of free fall at 10,500 feet, the cold atmosphere is silent.
There are only wisps of sound: of thudding heartbeat, of nylon jumpsuit against parachute container, of clinking metal fasteners, of the plane’s droning engine fading into nothingness above. An island of whispers through a vast stillness.
Gravity vanishes. It is still there, of course, tugging downward, but its apparent absence is palpable in sudden weightlessness. Stomach flutters upward. Nerves spark with energy. Brain struggles — and fails — to comprehend it. To process it. Total free fall.