I am a pretty cautious guy - an injurious history will do that to you. Of course, sometimes I forget how cautious I am and push some limits that allow me to find even more reasons why I should be cautious… These experiences have created a healthy respect for rocks that make my bike fall down and rapids that make my kayak flip and so forth. When it comes to heights, I’m not terribly fearful though very respectful. Heights can normally be controlled, in that we can choose to be extremely careful near a 3000 foot cliff by crawling on our belly to the edge so we can get a close look. Because of the choice involved, I do not usually feel fear in the face of heights. Unless the goal is to jump off the cliff. Then the fear just makes itself at home.
Tyler asked me to come with him and Mike and Steve, my mountain biking buddies, to go cliff jumping into a little out of the way lake here at the south of Cache Valley. I told him I would bring my kayak out to watch, but I did my cliff jumping back in college and it was scary enough back then! He sent me a YouTube video of people jumping from the cliff at Porcupine Reservoir, our destination, and it changed my mind. The cliff is steeply angled so you can jump from almost any height, from 6 feet to around 50 or so feet. The 6 foot cliff looked pretty good!
For the next few days, as I thought about the cliffs, I imagined jumping from 20 feet up and would go into an instant cold sweat! Tyler would visit me in my cubicle and talk about jumping and I would go into cold sweats. I woke up the night before and was thinking about the day ahead and went into a cold sweat. There was definitely some fear having fun with me. The time finally came and when I first saw the cliffs, I thought that this didn’t look so bad… Then as I got closer, the cold sweats were pretty steady. This was nuts!! I couldn’t help think that only an insane idiot would voluntarily jump off a perfectly solid rock through the air into the angry water below. I started climbing up to the cliffs…
It’s amazing how much higher distance is when you are looking down. I got to where the majority were jumping from, a series of heights we estimated to be between 15 and 35 feet above the water. Seemed like forever above the water! Ty, who, due to an unfortunate birth defect, was born without fear glands, announced he was heading to the highest point to jump. This was a small spot 15 or 20 feet higher than the next highest spot and reachable by a small treacherous trail. I followed Ty up just to see what it looked like. As I looked cautiously over the edge, I held tightly to a gnarled tree that was standing guard, trying to warn would-be thrill-seekers of their impending doom. The swimmers far below looked like tiny multi-colored soda cans floating in the water. Except that the soda cans were yelling for Ty to jump. He didn’t wait long before taking a giant leap forward and plunging downward… and downward… and MORE downward… and splash!
I carefully climbed down from the death-defying point to rejoin the rest of the jumpers-to-be. There were 20 or so people on the cliffs and in the water, most of whom I did not know. Peer pressure is a powerful force that we spend many years teaching our kids to avoid and overcome… So when I heard the comments from my buddies, “Huffyman’s gonna jump from the kiddie cliff!” and “Huffyman’s a CHICKEN!”, I was easily able to withstand the pressuring jeers. I only went higher up on the cliff because my equilibrium was off and I lost my sense of direction… NOT because I was being made fun of! I stood at the edge looking down at the water 1000 feet (just estimating) below, surrounded by other encouraging adventurers (“He’s gonna biff it”) and at the same time, totally alone on that precipice. A lot of thoughts go through the mind at a time like this… Mostly thoughts telling me to turn around and go home. But other thoughts crept in as well. Others people were jumping and they were still alive. I was told the survival rate was well above 84%, but I had checked the guest book and saw I was the 85th jumper of the day with no deaths reported as yet… I had jumped like this before, though 26 years had passed, which was longer than most of those jumping around me had even been alive. I made it out alive then, so surely I could repeat that success. I had lived a good life, and had fought a good fight. I didn’t have a will. Dang! Finally, I quelled the thoughts and said out loud, “I have to do this.” Someone behind me said, ”Actually, you don’t have to do this.” I realized that was true. I didn’t HAVE to. But I WANTED to get past this barrier of fear so I did the only thing that could do that. I leaned forward and jumped through common-sense and the cold-sweats and into thin air… I don’t remember anything from that moment till I hit the water. I’m pretty sure I passed out and the water revived me. Anyway, I pushed to the surface to receive the cheers and adulation I obviously deserved. What a wonderful feeling to break the surface into the life-giving air! From high above me, I heard those wonderful words, “Get out of the way, others want to jump!”
Over the next little while, I jumped 2 more times, passing out each time and being revived by the water upon splashdown. I found that technique worked really well for me. One thing I learned in the couple of hours spent on the cliffs – almost everyone has a healthy fear of jumping off a sturdy comfortable cliff into open space. As far as I could tell, everyone who came to jump succeeded, though not in the same time-frame. Some took a few minutes to get ‘er done, and others took a couple of hours to get the nerve up. Small groups of friends became a larger group of conspirators, and counselors, helping each other find their own place of comfort. There was lots of laughter and encouragement in this group environment where, unlike most of life, it was impossible to hide your fear. There were several partner jumps with complete strangers that helped the fearful find their way past their own barriers. We cheered loudly when the hesitant finally took the plunge, always surfacing with a huge smile of victory.
It was a great day of overcoming fear and sharing the experience with a bunch of friends and strangers. Since moving past this cliff jumping fright that I was held down by before, now when I think about leaping into water from the rocks, I… break into a crazy cold sweat!
I looked on her sweet face, all aglow in her smile, and felt lost as to how I should feel. I loved that I couldn’t keep her from climbing the tree in the back yard when she was 4. I loved that after falling on the rough sidewalk and getting the many scrapes cleaned and bandaged, she went running again, just as crazily as before. I cringed and I worried, but I cheered inside. When 5 or 6 years old and in the midst of some drama where reality mixed with play, the musical words spilled from that child’s lips that would define our relationship, “Play along wis me!” I’ll never forget the realization that this child was bright and playful and aware to an extent I have spent the last 15 years discovering. She reached out for me, the little girl with the bandaged knees, and I wrapped my arms around the beautiful daughter in the wedding dress… Tears streaming and heart singing and scared to let her go.
