"What a terribly good idea," I said, wiping some of the chocolate-cherry mocha from around my mouth and leaving the rest of it in a moustache shape that would later embarrass me in front of the children. "How very smart you are."
So this weekend, I went para-diving from one of the base mountains of Mount Fuji. At 1,500 feet, it was about as high as I could get.
There's not much to say. There was nothing to say when I sat in the van and climbed the mountain to the jump-off point. There was nothing to say when I jumped from a 1,500 foot cliff face with nothing but a double duvet attached to my back, and there was nothing to say when I realised that I was floating thousands of metres above the ground with Mount Fuji looming huge and snow-topped in front of me, and miles and miles of Japan stretched beneath me, and bright blue sky above and around me. There was nothing to say when the instructor asked if I was alright because she thought I might have passed out, and there was nothing to say during the fifteen minutes while we floated back down to the ground like tiny little spiders attached to our flimsy little web sack. There was nothing to say at all. Words totally disappeared. All I could do was make small, fishy, gasping noises, and try to communicate to my worried instructor via exhalation just how silent it was, and how peaceful, and how calm, and how utterly, utterly unterrifying.
And how happy it had made me, and would keep making me as long as I could keep remembering it. Which would be: forever.
And how happy it had made me, and would keep making me as long as I could keep remembering it. Which would be: forever.
"I did it," I said to my friend on my return.
"Eh?" she replied, redunking her tea bag. "Did what?"
"Found a natural high." I showed her the photo of my parachute. "And you're right. It was just what I needed."
There was a pause while she looked at the photograph, and then she frowned and looked back at me.
"I was talking about multi-vitamins or something," she said eventually. "An extra banana at lunch or something. But yeah." She looked back at the photo.
"That'll probably do it too."
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