Blog

Walking in the Sky

• June 2010
• Simple Living Fly Training Travel

The Parachute Center at Lodi California is a world destination for jumpers. For one thing, the price of jump tickets is half of anywhere else. Also, the planes go up all day long like clockwork until there aren’t enough jumpers to fill them, and the place runs with a relaxed efficiency that is pleasant to feel.

I found myself in California two weeks ago and decided to come to Lodi for a day or two, which turned into ten. The life is simple and good here. Flying all day, camping in a field by the runway at night with a rabbit, three owls, two white cranes and lots of mice who get eaten by the owls and cranes. I like to watch the planes take off at sunset and the moon rise. It’s also good running along straight green rows of baby wine grapes in the early morning until it’s time to go back into the air, looking down at the vineyards from the sky. I like it here.

After 5 months out of jumping with my ACL recovery, flying my wingsuit is the thing I did miss the most, so I guess it makes sense that I finally had to come live at a dropzone for a little bit. I find the most joy in repetition and practice, in everything I do. With every day spent in the sky, followed by another day, you are more in tune with your body and your flight. With every jump, your skills increase slightly.

Some people have asked me here if I’m training for something, because I’m in the plane day after day with my wingsuit on. I just want to fly. I’ve lost track of how many people have asked me how many jumps I “have,” which is a typical nice way to start a conversation at a drop zone. I don’t know. People are surprised when I tell them that. A lot of them don’t believe me. But I really don’t. Most jumpers keep a logbook, and write down every jump they do. Then the number of jumps is sort of a form of identification of one’s level or ability as a jumper. I have never been able to understand why I would want to go through this kind of bother. As a climber, I have never gone home and written down every climb I do, and then kept count of the number and considered it some part of my climbing experience. So when I first started to skydive, I was always a little puzzled by the jumping mentality, and at first kept a sort of messy incomplete skydiving logbook, until I had all the ratings certificates you need to do what you want as a skydiver without any hassles and was relieved I could be done with that paperwork job. I’ve never kept track of base jumps, and still can’t see why I would.

From talking to people, I have come to understand that there are a lot of reasons that people like to count their jumps. Some people make a career in skydiving, and it’s important to have a record of their jumps to get certified to do jobs like tandem jumps, coaching or camera flying. Other people are looking to acquire certificates, because they enjoy that, and they need to have a logbook. Other people want to have a status or identity, which is attached to their accumulation of experience, which is perhaps why people use the word “have” when they talk about how many jumps they have done. Some people like accounting. A few people told me their logbook is more like a scrapbook, and they can look back and remember special times or jumps with special people. That does seem nice, but at least up to now, my most special jumps are always in my mind. I like that skydiving as a culture is elastic enough to embrace all of these different ways of experience, with room for everyone’s way. At this point, I have no idea of what number of flights I have made in the sky, and for me, that doesn’t have much meaning. The experience is so different every day. I just want to fly, as much as I can, as best as I can.

Being here, watching the rabbit hop around outside my truck in the morning with the Cessnas tied down behind him, I think about Shunryu Suzuki and right effort.

“It is necessary for us to keep the constant way. Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual daily routine. If you become too busy and too excited, your mind becomes rough and ragged. This is not good. If possible, try to be always calm and joyful and keep yourself from excitement.

Usually when you do something, you want to achieve something, you attach to some result. From achievement to non-achievement means to be rid of the unnecessary and bad results of effort. If you do something in the spirit of non-achievement, there is a good quality in it. So just to do something without any particular effort is enough. When you make some special effort to achieve something, some excessive quality, some extra element is involved in it. You should get rid of excessive things. If your practice is good, without being aware of it you will become proud of your practice. That pride is extra. What you do is good, but something more is added to it. So you should get rid of that something which is extra.”