The Greatest of Ease

I had no trouble climbing the skinny metal ladder up to the platform. I had no trouble standing on the suspended platform. And I had no trouble holding onto the fly bar with my right hand. But when the trapeze instructor told me to reach out for the bar with my other hand, I panicked. The two ropes connected to the fly bar were so taut that holding it with more than just my right hand meant that I would be leaning so far out as to be nearly horizontal to the ground thirty feet below.

I glanced down at my twin nine year old daughters, fidgeting on the ground, watching and waiting to see if their mother would actually go through with it. Their father stood on the other side of the trapeze rig getting the whole thing on film. I swallowed hard and reached for the can of will power I've always relied on.

The can was empty.

When did I turn into such a pile of quivering jelly?

I used to be intrepid; fearless and persistent in the pursuit of whatever I was after. In 1984, when I was a sophomore in college, I designed my own year abroad and flew off to Sydney University on my twentieth birthday. None of my friends even knew where Australia was. This was before Crocodile Dundee and "putting another shrimp on the barbie". I got ripped off by the taxicab driver right after stepping off the plane, but I didn't care. I was on an adventure.

After graduating from college in 1986, I followed my dream of working in the movies and moved to Hollywood. I got a lowest-of-the-low job as an office production assistant on the movie, Nightmare on Elm Street 4. I worked upwards of twelve hours a day for two hundred and fifty dollars a week. It was boring grunt work--making copies, picking up items, getting lunch for everyone. I longed to be where the action was--on the set. Then one day, the producers suddenly needed to get a truck full of camera equipment to the set.

"Can you drive a truck?" someone asked.

"Absolutely," I lied.

Cut to me on the Hollywood Freeway. I couldn't get the truck out of second gear, people were honking. I sweated out more sweat in that ten minutes truck ride in L.A. than I did the entire rest of the year. But I did it. I got to the set and talked my way into staying at the center of the action.

When I wanted to work with animals, I moved to Northern California to work for Guide Dogs for the Blind. When promoted to Apprentice Trainer, I lived blindfolded 24/7 for ten days so that I could begin to understand what it was like to be visually impaired. I took the blindfold off only in a windowless bathroom with the lights off and only then so that I could take a shower. After the first couple days, I began to have wild, colorful hallucinations but I stuck with it and became a better dog trainer for it.

I used to have moxie. When I got scared, I just powered my way through it. Nothing got in my way. But there I stood on the platform, too scared to move. It felt like the flybar wanted to rip me off the platform. My brain was confident that it was safe--I had a safety belt attached to two ropes and there was a net below--but my body was convinced I would die if I left that platform. I backed away. I clung to the platform guide wire with both hands. I babbled. Worse, I babbled in an unaturally high voice--Mickey mouse on helium. I said I couldn't do it. I was disappointed to be so transparently afraid. I wanted to feel less exposed. I had pictured myself swinging out in the air, people marveling at what a natural I was, my children, impressed.

The whole trapeze thing was my idea. My friend, Lizette, had been "flying" for years and she told me about a guy who had a trapeze rig on an idyllic ranch a few towns over in Sonoma, California. For the last six years, my husband and I had spent every weekend chained to a never-ending list of things to do on our fixer-upper house. It was time we had fun on the weekends. I thought trapeze lessons would make a great little family adventure.

Instead, it felt as if I had chosen a beautiful place to die; a remote ranch at the end of a winding path complete with a babbling brook and beautiful oak trees. It was a pitch-perfect autumn Saturday afternoon in Northern California. The sky was a gorgeous cerulean--not a cloud in sight, the kids wore shorts, and anything was possible.

Marek Kazsuba, a gregarious Canadian, met us at the rig. He wore a black shirt pulled tight over muscular arms and black warm-up pants. He and his wife were expecting their first child any day but that hadn't stopped him from scheduling a weekend teaching flying.

The first thing we did was sign waivers. I tried not to read the fine print as I signed away not only my own life but the kids', as well. My husband's shoulder was bothering him and he couldn't participate. I think he was relieved to have an excuse, though Marek badgered him for the next two hours, telling him that the trapeze might actually be good for his shoulder.

The small print on the waiver said to write the date in the European style. This allowed Marek to segue into a lecture on how we needed to be in the moment, let go, and trust in the instructors' directions. My blood ran cold. This is not my skill set. I am self-directed, tight, I have lots of voices in my own head. Letting go is not my forte.

My goose was cooked. But what could I do? Grab my family by the hands and run for it? Is this what Mike and I taught our children? I thought of the time at the roller skating rink when my daughter Lily participated in a kid's race around the rink. The prize was a free soda. The race started, she took three strides, saw she was not winning and collapsed into a heap of tears. We told her, in this family, we finish what we start. "We don't expect you to win--if you do that's wonderful--but we expect you to finish the race."

It's too late to back out, I thought. Practice what you preach.

After signing the waivers, we practiced our moves on a trapeze bar suspended eight feet off the ground over a thick blue mat. Against all odds and Earth's gravitational pull, I swung my legs up, threaded them through my arms, and hung from my knees with Marek's help. I felt humiliated--like a walrus on dry land, all dead weight, awkwardness and blubber. I hadn't hung from my knees since I was ten years old.

It's too late to back out, I chanted. My new mantra. It's too late to back out. It's too late to back out.

I asked the kids if they wanted me to go first and they said yes. I thought they would want to go first. There I stood on the platform next to Marek, telling him that I just couldn't do it. I might have told him several times. Maybe ten or twenty.

"It's a one-way ladder only--nobody is allowed to climb back down," said Marek softly. Oh god, I'm being handled, I thought. They lower you down into the net if you can't make yourself step off the platform.

Hello, Body? This is your brain, speaking. My children are here. I am trying to show them that one must confront their inner demons. If you continue with this frozen-in-fear routine, I am going to have to fall back on the very lame parental advice of "Do as I say, not as I do." You don't want that do you?

Marek, was still standing there holding the flybar for me. This was it. I reached out with my right hand and grabbed the bar. Then I pried my left hand off the guide wire I was clinging to. "Hep!" said Marek. This is trapeze-speak for "Go!" I jumped off the platform. I was instructed to jump straight up instead of out and away but it was no use. Self-preservation--what little I had left--made me want to avoid hitting the platform as I plummeted down to earth so I jumped straight out. This had the effect of putting several beats of slack in the trapeze ropes which my shoulder muscles had to pay for as the ropes straightened out.

As soon as I was off the platform and swinging, I was fine. I swung back and forth, hanging by my arms. Down below, the other instructor, Darryl, called out friendly instructions for swinging my legs up and swinging from my knees. Not interested, thank you. I am quite content to hang by my arms. Nice of you to think of me, though.

I didn't feel pure joy and delight, the way some people do, but I felt like this was a do-able thing--I could get through it. The kids each took a turn. They were terrified, too. "Fear is a sign of intelligence, "Marek said. I flew three more times, concentrating on my dismount into the net and ignoring Darryl's suggestions on how I could get to the next step. Lily was as scared as I was and ignored Darryl's advice, too. Hanna, an expert on the monkey bars at school, got over her fear and swung by the knees. She almost made two "catches"--grabbing hold of Marek's hands as he swung from another trapeze.

I didn't realize until I stood on that platform that fear has crept up on me with age; with age, assorted surgeries, childbirth, parenting, and a hundred and one things to worry about. I can no longer just power through things. My body and brain have to reach an agreement about what is acceptable and what is not. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe now I am the complete package.