Jump Rock
On a 90-degree Tuesday, we decided to end our summer with a Splash, capital S. My wife, two teenage sons, yellow lab, and I traveled east into the Daniel Boone National Forest where we maneuvered our way along a winding two-lane road that first crisscrossed and then paralleled the Red River. Once parked, with towels slung over our shoulders, we hiked a short distance along a dirt-worn path, the rhythm of our steps accentuated by the pap-pap-pap of our flip-flops. We arrived at our destination—a rounding bend in the river, a gentle “U” that was home to a swath of muddy beach and a thirty-foot tall boulder.
Even from across the river, the gigantic rock was striking. Shaped like a marshmallow just beginning to be squished, the boulder sported streaks of moss along its face. On its slightly sloped forehead, scrubby shrubs of green and a few leafy saplings wiggled their way out from cracks and crevices. Down below the boulder’s chin and above the water, the bottom section of stone curved inward, rusted slick-smooth in glorious homage to the years, decades, centuries, millennia of steady mountain-melted flow.
Once we’d waded across the cool and crawling river, scaled the trodden foothill that runs behind the robust rock, we stood as a family, shoulder to shoulder, and stared. We looked into the bright mid-morning sky, gazed at the quivering late-summer trees, and, more than anything else, peered down at the green Red River. From atop our thirty-foot perch, the flat water below reflected the surrounding scenery and appeared still. A drifting leaf suggested otherwise. This was Dara’s first trip to Jump Rock. Sonny, Jack, and I had spent an afternoon at this spot each of the past two summers. Maggie, who was joyously paddling in the water below, had also been here before. But regardless of whether this was the first or the third time peering down at the river from this vantage, fear was present.
Having previously stood on this stone’s scrubby scalp, I’d made this jump dozens of times. I even had a perfect survival rate—hadn’t missed the water yet. Still, as I looked down, my heart quickened, my stomach flummoxed and flapped, and nervous adrenaline sped in spasmodic spurts throughout my body. I backed away from the edge and turned my gaze towards the sky.
*
Back when I taught English at a small private school, each spring, another teacher and I would accompany our graduating eighth-grade class to a high ropes course on the outskirts of Louisville. The climbing-along-cables-and-platforms-while-up-in-the-trees excursion was deemed as both a team-building exercise and as a sort of send-off. After my first experience chaperoning the event, I found that the high ropes course offered not only what was promised, but much, much more.
In the subsequent years, I deemed this tree-navigating activity as an opportunity for our students to learn about the most relevant subject of their lives: themselves. There’s something about being that high off the ground, standing on one-inch wires that makes us drop all of our facades and attitudes. While dangling up in those trees, with nowhere to hide, we no longer pretend anything. We simply are who we are. Even in front of ourselves.
So, the day before the trip, I would walk into class, ask the students to clear their desks, sit up straight, and face forward. Then I lectured, spoke, preached about the opportunity that awaited them up in the trees. I explained that while they were suspended from cables twenty-five feet off the ground, they were going to be understandably nervous at the least, petrified at the worst. This was a great chance to learn how to overcome such debilitating fear. Be mindful. Discover what you require to prevail over our human feelings of fear and doubt and concern, for they will show up in your lives again. That’s a given. So find what you need to succeed. Maybe it’ll be a scream or a friend. Perhaps some tears. Maybe much quiet. Search inside yourself to unearth the key to your own personal empowerment. I promise that knowledge will benefit you for the rest of your life.
*
Looking down at the river, my stomach insisted it must twist. My thighs quivered too. As if receiving small doses of electrical stimulation. I concentrated on my breath. Forced myself to inhale with my belly. Not my chest. I made myself remember that I had jumped before, had a perfect record. I even insisted the streak would continue. But I still felt afraid.
So I inched forward. Again. Looked over the edge. Again. Leaned out until that exact angle when lean reached “too far” and struck a streak of fear so fierce it jolted my chest, stomach, anus. I backed away. In the coolest voice I could muster, I said to my youngest, “Go ahead.”
Jack edged closer. He’s the bravest Martin when it comes to dare-devilish feats, but even he hesitated. Briefly. Once he’d taken his own moment of stillness, he crouched, sprang, and down, down, down. Splash. He emerged from the green and rippled water and voiced an exuberant, “Whoah!”
The relief of Jack’s success reached the three of us still atop the boulder. Sonny, Dara, and I were each inspired. Slightly. Then I looked down. Maggie was paddling circles around Jack. Seeing the two of them down there, I felt fear rise again. In protest, I resolved to go next. This however gave fear courage. Now it rip-roared along my veins and vessels as if aware of its current superiority. As if it knew it was close to pinning me into submission. I couldn’t wait much longer. I had to go next. If only I could get a grip.
I stepped back to give myself more time. And enough room for a medium stride. An added benefit to my small retreat was that I could no longer look down over the edge. My eyes couldn’t calculate the height. So I held that position. There, the sunshine warmed me. The sky’s soft blue surrounded me. I tried to breathe it in. Tried to bring a piece of the morning’s calm into my own being. And that’s when words fluttered into my mind. My words. Words I hadn’t spoken in years. Words I last uttered while standing in front of a small class of eighth graders. Hearing what I’d said clearly wasn’t necessary. These were sentiments already stored upon the shelves of my mind. They were just dusty, having been so long overlooked. It’d been years since I jumped across pizza-box-sized platforms and dangled from cables twenty-five feet above the earth while my insides twisted, my legs wobbled, and my brain said wait, wait, wait and no, no, no.
Then, other instances of my life from the past half-decade sprinted by in a dizzying slideshow. I could barely make out the scenes, but the common theme was obvious: Fear. Fear of failing. Fear of falling. Fear of looking stupid, of not being good enough, of being unworthy, unsmart, un-everything. I could see and feel fear’s emotional lasso holding me captive—keeping me working a job that made me miserable, keeping me from seeing a doctor and a therapist, keeping me from following my dream, from not living my own precious life.
Once the images played out, I was left standing under the clear sun, amid a soft breeze, surrounded by trees and questions. Why had I forgotten about my experiences dangling in the trees? My own words to eighth graders? Why wasn’t I using what I’d learned about myself? What was I still so afraid of?
With a sigh, my attention returned atop the boulder. I eyed the sky, the trees, my family. Then I inched forward. One more time. As I stared down at the water and calculated the height, I brought to mind what the high ropes course had shown me. I remembered how my brain can overload me. Too many tales of caution and self-defeat. So many that I become paralyzed, inactive, overwhelmed. I shivered. Not at the jump, but at the minutes and hours and days my life had lost, shackled by mentally-whispered words. I decided it was time to grip back. I took a breath and dropped the voice of fear right there. Just plopped it down like a couple of swollen black garbage bags taken to the curb. Remembering how I require silence, my shoulders rose. My thighs solidified. My stomach settled.
I glanced down at Jack, back at Dara, and Sonny. I grinned.
And then. With my eyes forward.
With my mind quiet.
I jumped.
