Jules ready to for the big jump. Three...two...one!
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Bouncing Back From Fear
By Jules Nolan
First they bind your feet. Well…not so much your feet as your ankles and calves. They lash them together like some crime victim. Then the younger one, the bearded, grinning, younger one attaches a giant weight to this whole binding business. It feels like a cinder block, pulling you forward slightly, throwing off your center of gravity. You compensate by sticking out your backside to keep from doing a face plant. With one man on either side they help you stand and instruct you to shuffle your way forward. Filled with dread you oblige and move toward the platform beyond which is nothing but air.
You advance just far enough so that the weight slides over the edge of the bridge to the abyss below. It dangles there, counter-balanced by your resisting thigh muscles and jutting-out backside. The wind whips around you, lifting up your hair like some experiment in static electricity. You feel dizzy with vertigo as panic rises in your chest. “Ok,” he says, that grinning, young one again, “give a wave up here to the camera, bend your knees, push off with your feet, and jump forward on the count of three…two…one.”
And you look down. Down 140 feet. Down to the gently moving waters of the Auckland, New Zealand harbor. “Safe Seas,” says the other one. The one who never really looked you in the eyes. The one whose face you couldn’t identify in a lineup. He means that the harbor is clear of boats, and that on your descent to the waters below you will not be impeded by some oceangoing vessel. You are not about to smash into a boat. But you are about to fly.
And so you cast one last look at your family, your young, soon-to-be-motherless children, and your clinically insane husband who has gotten you into this mess in the first place. You take a breath, wave to the camera, and jump.
And you scream and accidentally shout some naughty words. But not the naughtiest, not the big one. You are plummeting towards the water, faster than you’d ever dreamed feeling that “rollercoaster drop” in your stomach. Then, surprisingly you begin to slow down as you approach the surface of the water. Just feet above the surface you come to a slow, gentle pause, a hesitation.
The bungee cord does its work and you are pulled upwards toward the big bridge again, increasing in speed as you reach the top of your bounce. It feels like a swing, only upside down and with your arms dangling up around your ears. And then from the top of your bounce you slow, hesitate and dive again, bouncing like some red rubber ball attached to a wooden paddle.
At the top of the third bounce you remember that you are supposed to pull the release cord by your ankles so that you can sit upright in the harness around your seat and view the harbor as they reel you back up. You pull the chord which releases your feet and the ropes do their work. Now you are sitting upright, suspended 90 feet below the bridge, swinging in the harbor breeze. It occurs to you that no one else in the world has the view that you have at this moment. No one is suspended 90 feet below the Harbor Bridge in Auckland, New Zealand watching the sailboats, their sails bowing to the will of the wind. No one sees the gulls soaring at eye level and the ocean rippling along below their dangling feet. It is your childhood backyard swing and a flying dream all wrapped into one. You will never forget this moment, this feeling of freedom.
Legend has it that bungee jumping originated in the Pacific Islands of Vanuatu. The story goes that a young village woman was married to an abusive man named Tamalie. He repeatedly beat her, catching her during her many attempts to run away and giving her more of the same ghastly treatment. One day as she was running from him she climbed the highest banyan tree in the village. He followed to the very top. Taunting his cowardice she jumped from the tree, having secretly secured vines to her ankle. He was astonished to see her land safely on her feet, but so incensed with her taunting, that he did not notice the vines, and quickly followed her. He too jumped from the tree, but without the vines, jumped to his death.
This event is said to have taken place hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago. Initially it was commemorated solely by the women of the villages of the Pentecost Islands, coinciding with the celebration of the yam harvest. Young adult women would climb and jump from the highest tree as a tribute to this brave, abused woman, her strength, daring and intelligence. Eventually though, the men of the village were shamed by Tamalie’s representation of them and the village’s annual display of women’s bravery. Land jumping (as it was called) then became exclusively the domain of the village men, to reclaim their honor.
Fast forward several hundred years and you have the current thrill-seeker’s pursuit of bungee jumping. It was adopted first in New Zealand where many of the crazier adventure activities like canyoning, zorbing and jet boating originated. People of all ages now jump off bridges, sky towers, even building cranes. And they do it for a variety of reasons: to face a fear, to commemorate an event, to get married, to experience that ultimate feeling of freedom.
But most who seek this thrill do not know the story of the abused village woman who was truly running from fear and toward freedom. Most people think the jump is just another outrageous way to have fun on vacation. They do it because their friends talk them into it or simply because the opportunity presents itself.
I think it’s a shame that people don’t know this story. Because although bungee jumping is wildly thrilling and an enormous “face your fears” type challenge, it is also a way of paying homage to one very brave woman. And I credit that unforgettable feeling of freedom to her spirit – sharing a moment of true freedom from fear, and finally reclaiming the act for herself.
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