Anti-climb-actic, or, my patronus is a helicopter

Ok, so I’ve been gone for a while. I have my reasons. If you really want to know wtf my problem is, you can ask me. In the meantime, I’ll be getting stories up as quickly as I can. And there are some pretty damn good stories to tell, if I do fear to say so myself. They’ll come slightly out of order, but just pretend it’s like that time I got season two of Parks and Recreation on DVD from the library and started watching all the episodes in order, burning through the disks in record time because I didn’t notice that each disk had a “More” button on the episode menu and that therefore each disk actually had more than two episodes on it, and so I initially was deeply impressed with the Wire-like sophistication and attention to detail that this show demanded of its audience, and was really heartened at the push toward greater intellectualism in television, all of which turns out to not actually be true and so I had to go back and start the season over again, this time watching all dozen or so episodes on every disk. Sure, that only happened last week, but it feels like yesterday. And also it’s a really good show, even though they messed up the menus pretty bad.

And I should say, too, that this story was only made possible by the fact that I have a bizarre work schedule this month and so worked six days in a row, then got a Thursday off, then worked another six days in a row. It sounds horrible, and it was. But here’s what happened that makes it ok:

Except first I have to back up and introduce my friend Robin, so named because she thinks she’s a sidekick, but really she’s way more awesome than me, me being Batman in this scenario, which I have to admit I’m pretty partial to. Except I can’t in good conscience let someone who is as good as Batman pretend she’s not quite as good as Batman, so I’m going all nerd-core on her ass and naming her Nightwing instead. NW for short.

NW, as it turns out, is both afraid of heights and regularly goes rock climbing, which at first I thought at least one of those had to be a total lie, but she swore to me that it’s true and that she had figured out how to work beyond the fear and wanted to teach me to do the same thing. She’s always been honest with me, or at least I think so, so I decided to trust her. So she told me that not only are we going rock climbing, she has a plan to make me love it. Or at least tolerate it, and frankly I’m willing to settle for that.

Which is good, because I’ve tried rock climbing before. I was not what I would call to my mind “successful.” I had my own plan for learning to not be afraid of heights, which turned out to be a very stupid person’s plan. The very first thing I tried was the auto-belay, which for those of you who haven’t used it, is for when you want to climb a rock wall but can’t find anyone as dumb as you to go with you and hold your rope while you do it, so instead you tie yourself up with a robot rope with enough of its own rudimentary sentience to let you go up but not let you back down unless you cry. Remember I thought this would be the best way to start.

After the fire department came and got me back down (thanks, guys!), I decided to try working with an actual human belayer to build my confidence. I was with my friend Koatkoama, who has received his fantastic nickname after I answered a few questions on his behalf at coolnicknamegenerator.org (thanks, Google!), and who was then immediately renamed Hakokonet when I accidentally refreshed the page. I told K-H I was going to destroy my fear by climbing all the way to the top of the wall and back down again. I’d like to note for the record that he, an experienced climber, went along with this.

After the paramedics came and used the Jaws of Life to cut me down (I’m still not sure why they didn’t just get a ladder), I decided I was probably never going climbing again, unless a rattlesnake bit my favorite child and there was no antivenom available and the only way to help said child avoid excruciating misery and certain death is to climb to the top of a rock wall to get a gun to shoot myself so I don’t have to figure out what I would actually do in a situation like that. So NW had some baggage to overcome.

“Don’t worry, I have a plan,” she told me at the gym after I had suited up in appropriate rock-climbing gear, which, based on my observation of the other climbers, appears to consist primarily of a cool earth-tone T-shirt and a BPA-free water bottle. I believed her. I mean, she teaches children to overcome their fears and learn to climb, so I figured she would have an awesome plan for me which was appropriate to my adult age level. “You’re going to have to trust me,” she began by saying. I immediately began to distrust her. She started by showing me the rope-and-pulley system and explained the redundant safety mechanisms which rendered it impossible for me to fall, just like there are in elevators, so it’s actually impossible to die in elevator accident.

Little known fun fact about me: I have had a vision of my own demise, and I have known for years that I will die in an elevator accident.

She went on to explain that, given my, um, “sensitivities,” she will be the most attentive belayer in the entire history of rope, surpassing even the admirable Sam Gamgee’s elven hithlain rope when, at his command, it untied itself from the cliff and followed him to Mordor, while still slipping off into the woods during the day to hunt for game and gather firewood, then at night turning itself into a handsome tailored evening suit for Sam to wear to formal events. She explained she would allow absolutely no slack as I climbed, so even if I did slip I wouldn’t fall, but instead would dangle humorously for the observation of others, and she Certainly Would Not Let Anything Happen to Me. She then explained patiently, as I dripped sweat on the floor, that as long as physics worked properly, I would be just fine.

Little known fun fact about me: I got my high school physics teacher fired for incompetence.

But she had a plan, dammit. This plan involved several steps:

Step One: Learn to Trust Your Belayer, or, “Start climbing and let go when I tell you to.”

I obediently started climbing. After I was about 30 inches up and already suffering the effects of vertigo, I heard her voice echoing distantly below me say, “Let go!” I said, “No!” She said, “Do it or I’m not letting you back down.”

I bet she’s mean to the little kids, too.

So I leaned back about 2°. Then 3°. Then 5°. I clung to the wall with crab hands as I stuck my butt out, not able to commit to letting go. 45 minutes later I finally leaned back far enough to lose my grip and immediately clutched at the rope with all four limbs, gently swinging pendulum-like while I screamed like a little girl. We repeated this performance every 12 inches all the way up the wall. I noticed the manager watching me by the end of it.

Step Two: Learn to Trust Your Rope, or, “Fuck!!”

“Now we’re going on a wall that’s slanted, so you’ll swing if you slide off. That’s what we want to happen. It’s not the end of the world. You’ll be fine. Climb up high enough that you’re over my head before you let go, though, so you don’t kick me in the face.”

Now, NW only stands about eight inches high, so you would think this would not be a particularly challenging task. And yet, I kid you not, it took me four tries to mince up the rope far enough to not kick her in the face when I fell and swung as though from a gallows rope. Not that I wasn’t seriously beginning to consider doing it anyway by that point.

Other things I learned that day:

Try Letting Go Without Warning Your Belayer and See What that Does to Your Arrhythmia

Your Equipment Will Hold You, I Promise

You Won’t Die if You Slip Off the Holds

Seriously, Lean Back in the Harness a Little. And Loosen Up, for God’s Sake

I Know I Said That You Can Trust Your Holds, So it’s Really Unfortunate That the One Hold That Looks Like a Screaming Skull was Actually Loose and Spun Around in Your Hand Like a Promise of Your Own Death when You Tried to Grab it and Put Your Weight on it

Stop Making That Noise, People Know Me Here

So that trip was not necessarily a complete success, shall we say, unless you count surviving to be successful. But we laid some important foundations or trust or some jazz, plus practice makes perfect, and I’m nothing if not perfect, so we agreed to go again later in the week, specifically Thursday, which was my only day off in March.

And for my one day off in fiscal year 2011–12, I decided to head up to Eloy to watch the skydiving teams practice, because apparently I have become the sort of person who thinks that’s a normal thing to do. Sherman Alexie had told me there was a team of 240 German skydivers coming into town to try and break a world record for number of Germans simultaneously trying to break a world record, and I decided that would be something worth seeing. They would make four attempts at a world record that day, and although I saw the last three, I missed the first, because I hit the snooze button a couple of times, and who knew Germans would be punctual?

But what I didn’t realize was that there is apparently a dearth of entertainment for old folks in the Phoenix area. The spectator seating was absolutely PACKED with retirees from north of the 42° parallel wintering in Arizona. People had brought their own chairs and picnic lunches and set up camp right there. The average age of the audience was easily 75, and that’s counting me, the wife of one of the pilots, and their 2-year-old daughter. Although I didn’t realize it when I went up there, this phenomenon would prove to be every bit as entertaining and educational as the skydivers themselves. I have now, for example, seen every type of melanoma capable of residing on the human body. I have seen two grown women wearing matching silver sequined visors, I think unintentionally. I have witnessed adult males, apparently in all seriousness, and as though this was a highly desirable business prospect, speculate on concrete ways to make the dropzone “more of a tourist trap.”

I also spent eight contiguous hours being subjected to conversations exactly like this:

Old Person #1: Where ah you from?
Old Person #2: Minnesoota. You?
OP 1: Wiscaahnsin. Do you see da plane?
OP 2: Nou, I don.
OP 1: Dere it is.
OP 2: Ja.
OP 1: Here caam da jumperss.
OP 2: One, too, tree, foor, fiiave, six, seven, ate, nain. Dere’s nain.
OP 1: Ooooh, he’s goin real fast.
OP 2: Look at how fast.
OP 1: Real fast.
OP 2: Ja.
OP 1: How fast d’ya spose dere goin?
OP 2: Real fast.
OP 1: I wouldn’t do dat.
OP 2: I wouldn’t eeder.
OP 1: My son might do dat.
OP 2: Ooh, look, it’s a parashoot! Dat one’s red.
OP 1: Real red.
OP 2: Ah, dat udder one’s a girl. You can tell by da size of ‘er.
OP 1: Oooh, look, he’s going land! Look at how fast dey land.
OP 2: Ooooh, he’s going to miss da grass and land on de dirt.
OP 1: Oy vey.
OP 2: Shit.

So although I work in public service and I am very proud and privileged to do so, I had had just about my fucking fill of other goddamn people and their stupid shitty conversations by the time the final jump rolled around at 5:00. It’s possible I may have been a little cranky at that point, especially considering that the dropzone cafeteria had been strained way past capacity all day and the only thing I had for lunch was breath mints and my own cuticles.

So I’m in a bit of a mood when dude in a flight suit sits down next to me and starts talking. Unfortunately, the load had just gone up, so I knew he knew I knew it would take a good half hour for the planes to get to altitude, which meant I had 30 minutes with nothing to do but talk to Mr. Friendly Ass. I wasn’t pleased about it, but not actually being a jerk, what are my other options? So I talked with him. His name was Bert.

And Bert, apparently being my divine reward for being goddamn patient as a goddamn saint all goddamn day, turned out to be a really goddamn interesting guy. We talked skydiving, politics, libraries and government, the military, hunting, and, probably not surprisingly, aviation. I told him how my first childhood career goal had been to join the military as a fighter pilot. This plan was scuttled when I was in third grade and got conjunctivitis that went untreated and so it wound up permanently damaging my eyes, so one of my pupils doesn’t work right and I don’t have 20/20 vision, and the ophthalmologist at the time told me not to worry my pretty little head because no one would ever notice, except it’s one of the first things that everyone always notices about me and I also spent most of my high school years having people ask me if I was on drugs because of it. So fuck ophthalmology, is I think what my point was.

In any case, Bert reminded me that you can be a commercial or private pilot and have corrected vision. I agreed that’s true, but I must have seemed hesitant, since he pressed the issue a bit more. I realized he was picking up on something else, something that I think a lot but never really say to anyone, since it’ll never happen, so what’s the point in saying it? But my speech was halting and hesitating enough that it seemed as though I’d better explain what was going on in my head:

“The thing is, that as much as I’d love to fly a plane, and as great as that would be, in my heart what I really want to do is fly a helicopter. That’s where my love is.”

Bert looked at me, paused, then looked at me again. “Funny you should say that,” he said finally. “I actually flew here in my helicopter.”

I had to physically resist crawling into his lap.

So the upshot is, just by me asking, he agreed to take me up and let me fly his helicopter around for a while. Moral of the story: Always ask.

Bert and I and his friend he had flown in with waited until the 240 jumpers had landed so as to avoid making German skydiver confetti, or Konfetti, as they disappointingly call it in Germany, then walked right past the huge red and white signs that say NO SPECTATORS PAST THIS POINT. That was frankly my favorite part of the whole day. And sure enough, as we strode past the Twin Otters and the Skyvans, walking into the sunset with my sunglasses on and wind blowing my hair back Top Gun–style, there was a helicopter, right there, parked or docked or gangplanked or whatever helicopters are on the ground.

It was AWESOME.

I got a safety lecture before we got in and we designed an exit strategy for when we landed again. Apparently it’s kind of a PITA to power up and power down and power back up again, so after we started up the helicopter we wouldn’t be stopping it again to let me off. It was decided that Bert and I would go up, then I would wait in the passenger seat (on the left in a helicopter; did you know that?) until his friend came to escort me swiftly away from the bird, then he would bring me my purse from the backseat while I waited a goodly distance away and in full view of the pilot at all times. I asked if when I got out, I’d have to duck and put my hand over my head while I’m running like they do in M*A*S*H, so as not to get my head rotored off.

Tip: If you ever ride in a helicopter, do not ask if it’s like on M*A*S*H. This is apparently tres gauche.

But Bert very patiently explained that no, the main rotors don’t pull down when then start, they pull up, so an adult can stand upright and be in no danger as long as they don’t go near the tail rotors. Why they did that on M*A*S*H, which I figured out when I thought about it later, was that a) they’re not landing on a nice clean well-maintained tarmac, but instead in near-wilderness conditions in the middle of a war zone, with dirt and rocks everywhere and also bullets, so there’s going to be debris flying around, and b) they all wear Army-issued hats, except for Hawkeye who irreverently wears an unauthorized fishing cap, either of which could get sucked off their heads and into the rotors, which would cause some fairly major wardrobe malfunctions indeed.

Next we did the pre-flight check, which always thrills me. I love looking at the craft and seeing how the whole thing is put together. His helicopter was white and undecorated, and practically the whole front half was gleaming windshield, kind of like if Gandalf flew a helicopter instead of riding Shadowfax. It was beautiful. Just stunning.

When we got in, they buckled my seat belt for me, and I was surprised to see it was a regular car-type seat belt and not a 4-point seat belt like I was expecting. Bert showed me what all the controls did, explained the displays and how to read them, and told me what to expect when he powered up (a big racket and a lot of jumping around like we’re about to blow up, then hovering two feet above the ground for a minute, then we’d take off). I put on the skimpy passenger headset. He put on his brown aviator cap, his white helmet, his goggles, his elbow-length leather gloves, and then finally strapped on a giant stick with which to beat off all the ladies.

And sure enough, that big racket at the beginning is a little intimidating. I was kind of scared at that point, since I didn’t know what to expect, and also since I was somewhat concerned about throwing up in his helicopter. But it smoothed out after a minute and then we hovered. And that’s when I knew it was going to be amazing.

You wouldn’t know by reading this blog so far, but I went up in a small plane a few weeks back. That motion felt much like a fair ride (I’m thinking of the chairs that hang on chains and swing around), or like a weight on a string, so that the pivot point is at the top, and your feet and butt are swinging around like they’re trying to escape your head. This = instant motion sickness. The helicopter was the opposite: the direction of the movement comes from the top, so your head (or top half) leads and your feet and ass follow, like the human body is supposed to move. Which meant there was no motion sickness, and that it felt natural, it felt beautiful, it felt real and honest. It felt like every one of the thousands of dreams I’ve had about flying come brilliantly true. It felt like home.

It occurs to me that I’m not entirely certain if what we did next was completely legal, so I’m going to protect Bert’s privacy and change his name. “Bart” got us up to altitude (I forgot to ask how high we were, but I’m guessing 7 or 8000 feet?) while I stared out the window, in utter shock at how not scared I was. I felt completely at home, and this surprised me more than anything that day. I remember saying something really articulate to him to capture the poetry of the moment, something like, “DUDE!!” or “OH MY GOD THIS IS AMAZING!!” I may have asked him to bear my children; I can’t really remember. I’m not even sure I can even make an attempt at describing now how beautiful and unearthly the view was, and ordinarily there isn’t anything at all I find beautiful or interesting about the desert, if that gives you some idea.

He had me practice piloting by watching out for obstacles, such as power lines, other planes, stray skydivers, and birds. I laughed when he said birds and he gave me a bemused smile. “Yeah, birds. Helicopters have to watch out for those.” I speculated it was because the result would be disgusting, but he shook his head. “No, if we hit a bird, it’ll come straight through the windshield. That’s why I wear a helmet. Otherwise I could get knocked out if a bird hits me in the head. Do you want me to be unconscious?”

He was dead serious. How on earth do you respond to a maybe-not-quite-rhetorical question like that? What I eventually said was, “Ideally, no.”

I paid MUCH more attention to the birds after that.

Then it was my turn. Bart of course would still be operating the velocitator and the deceleratrix, leaving just the yoke to me (I don’t think that’s what it’s actually called, but it was a big horizontal bar that extended over both seats with a handle at each end). Remember in Galaxy Quest how the Thermians designed the controls of the Protector after watching all the historical documents? I watched so much M*A*S*H growing up that I actually kind of somehow thought I would be flying in combat conditions and grabbed the yoke hard, ready to get my troops to safety.

“Easy,” said Bart. “You’ve got a death grip on it. Hold it like you’re holding a baby bird.”

I tried again. This time I tried to draw on my only other knowledge of helicopters and piloting them, which is Howling Mad Murdock from the A-Team. Him I loved sincerely. He was funny, loyal to a fault, absolutely honest, could fly anything, and had a special love for helicopters. I wanted to be him as a kid. I wish I were kidding: I wear Converse high-tops to this day because Murdock did. So I imagined myself as good old HM, and when that didn’t quite work, I imagined myself as the special guest star who comes in for one episode and forms a Very Special Relationship with Murdock after seeking out the A-Team to help save my father’s cattle ranch that has been in our family for six generations but is now being threatened with foreclosure by the evil local banker who wants to buy us out and build a strip mall on our property, but we both know that my future is on the ranch and his is with his friends trying to clear their good name, so all we have is a few days together that we’ll nonetheless both cherish the memory of forever.

That seemed to do the trick. I handled the craft easily and steadily, like driving a baby bird. Although when he told me to turn left the first time, I didn’t realize it was a hydraulic steering system that was WAY more responsive than my Prius and he had to grab the controls to steady us. That seemed to be a fairly common mistake, though (“They all fall the first time”) and he didn’t appear ruffled or in any way concerned at all, unlike, most notably, myself. He just told me to try again.

And then I was doing it. He had me make some turns, practicing using the controls and feeling how the craft responds to me. I learned how not to point the helicopter down (very important). The controls were actually so gentle it almost felt like I just had to think and the helicopter would make my wishes come true. Then he wanted me to get comfortable flying in a straight line (harder than it sounds), so we made a run following a long, narrow irrigation ditch, at the end of which was a small thermal exhaust port just below the main port. I broke off at that point.

We were probably only up for about ten minutes, but it was life-changing. I don’t know where I’m going to get the $10,000 for lessons and the extra arm and leg to get my own helicopter, but that’s my new goal. I’m thinking I may need to get myself a rich boyfriend. At least one. I’m willing to consider some sort of timeshare arrangement; it’s worth the administrative overhead.

Which brings me back to rock climbing, which I did again with NW that very same evening. In a lot of ways I felt kind of stupid and small going back into the gym, even after flying a freaking helicopter, since the first thing I tried to do was put my harness on backwards. But the only way out is through, so we straightened me out and tried again. And I was right back to the same problem as before: I just couldn’t relax and trust that I wouldn’t die. We tried everything. I was actually worse than the first time. Obviously something critical was missing and I could tell she was getting frustrated—not with me, exactly, but more like for me, which I found deeply embarrassing. This is how shame spirals get started.

She thought for a long moment, took in a deep breath, then blew it out. “Can you tell me, what, exactly, the problem is? Describe it. Be specific.”

“It’s really scary when I look down.”

In the long silence that followed, I could almost hear the punchline: Then don’t move your arm like that. But with infinite patience, she simply said calmly, “Then there’s your answer. Don’t look down.”

I huffed and puffed about how impossible this was. She wisely cut me off and said, “You need a happy place. Think about something very, very happy. Maybe it’s a nice beach. Maybe it’s a fluffy white dog. Figure this out. You’re going to use this later.”

I thought about it. I thought about the times in my life I’ve been happiest. When I’ve felt the most at home as a human being, the most at ease in my body, the most free, and the most hopeful about squinting in the brightness of the life in front of me. You only get one guess what I thought of.

“Ok, I’m ready.”

“Good. So remember: One. Trust your belayer. Two. Concentrate on what you’re doing. Three. If you get scared, go to your happy place.”

I started up the course. (It was a 6 on a vertical wall, for those of you who are curious.) I did ok at first. I sat back a couple of times in the harness to reassure myself it was there and would catch me if I needed it. NW kept a very tight belay, as promised. But about halfway up, the holds got slippery and the course got weird and hard, and I started that pre-panic funny breathing I do. Except this time I caught myself.

I thought about the helicopter. I thought about how high up you go when you fly and how it felt like it did in every dream about flying a helicopter I’ve ever had. And I thought if I ever expect to have any hope of piloting, I’d better do something about this heights thing. I took a deep breath and tried again. I didn’t look down.

And suddenly I’m part squirrel. I climbed straight to the top, and when I got both hands on the top hold, I forced myself not to think about the horrible thing I was doing and just pushed back from the wall and let go to signal I was ready to come down. NW brought me back, and I bounced right up when my feet touched the floor. She looked slightly stunned. I probably did, too. “That was good!” she said. I smiled, kinda goofily. “Yeah, it was, wasn’t it?” She grinned. “Yup.”

I didn’t panic on my second climb, either, or on the third. Plus the third one had the horrible spinning skull again, although someone had fixed it and it wasn’t spinning anymore, only skulling. And the fourth and last time I climbed a 7, which I think is either a zero in binary or 32 in dog years; I’m not quite sure what the conversion rate is. Except the 7 on the sign looked like a 1, so in my mind it’s still a 1, which doesn’t actually exist for some reason. I slipped a couple of times and just kept going, like I knew what I was doing or something. And I got back down and felt damn good about myself.

And now I like climbing. I really do. I went again with Hakokonet a few days later and I genuinely liked it. The secret to not being afraid of heights appears to be: “Don’t think too much.” So I don’t. I’m ready to get a gym pass and my own gear so I can go whenever I feel like. I’m even ready to go outdoor rock climbing, once I found out that the courses are already laid in (laid out?) there and the climbers don’t actually create it as they go. Yeah. Totally ready. Fuck yeah.

But the best part of this story comes at the end, when I went out to the parking lot to get into my Prius, totally high on myself and feeling like I could conquer the world. I just got in like I always do, but the Prius did something it’s never done before: it tried to lock itself. I freaked out, imagining costly computer repairs or possibly the Prius gaining sentience and forcibly objecting to the fact that I always tailgate. Then to make things even worse, across the dark, badly lit parking lot comes this guy who walks right up to the driver’s side and peers in at me. I was just reaching for the mace I don’t carry when he said:

“Excuse me, but I think you just got in my car.”

I looked around at all my stuff that wasn’t there. Oh. My. GOD. I got in a stranger’s car without even noticing. The timing was just exactly perfect that he had gotten out and I, drunk on being an awesome not-scared climber, had walked RIGHT in and sat in his car and tried to drive it away. I scrambled out and apologized, then ran back to my car and drove it over to him to prove that I really did have a Prius nearly identical to his. He said it was cool. Unlike, of course, myself.

So active humiliation aside, I’m now looking for both climbing gear and helicopter lessons, if any of you know anyone. It’s probably a long shot, I know, but one thing I’ve learned is that it’s always a good idea to ask. So I’m going to try just asking for what I want from now on, instead of assuming that no one is interested, or that I don’t deserve what I want because the universe has it in for me for some reason. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? Except if someone decides to take that opportunity to tell me all about how cold it is in Minnesota in the winter, and how their son went skydiving once in 1998. I still really hate it when that happens.

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