Life or Leap
By Josh Herman
My 1994 GMC Jimmy made every bump in the road feel like a crater.
“Dude, this is going to be so much fun,” my friend Tyler yelled over “Rosa Parks,” the popular Outkast song blaring on the radio.
”You are going to love it,” he added.
I turned the knob on the radio to lower the volume of the music.
“I’m really excited,” I responded as I made eye contact with him through my rearview mirror. I wasn’t excited
We were on our way to a place my friends and I called “Blue Hole Point.” It is at the base of a mountain near my home. A cliff oversees a small lake below and today was the day I was going to leap from that cliff into that lake. My friends Tyler and Matt had made the jump several times and I had always been too “busy” to join them. Today there was no escaping. No more excuses; no more homework, no more basketball practice, no more family gatherings in the way. I was jumping. Maybe I was jumping.
I drove along the dirt road and we continued to bounce around as if it were the start of an Apollo launch. I knew we were getting close and ideas to escape the daring feat ping-ponged in my head. I had enjoyed the first 16 years of my life so much that I thought it would be nice to relish another six or seven decades.
“Slow down,” Matt exclaimed as he pointed to our left.
A yellow piece of caution tape was bandaged around a large tree.
“This is us, guys,” Matt said excitedly with his hand on the passenger side door handle before the Jimmy came to a complete stop.
We filed out of the vehicle, all three of us with towels draped over our shoulders. We stepped to the edge of the road and stared down the hill that had been hidden by the thick tree line. My friends set off down the hill first. I followed suit. The dirt was loose and did not offer safe footing. We had to make short, choppy steps to not stumble, lose balance, and tumble down the hill. Every few feet we would divert our path to a tree and pin ourselves against it with our palms to stop our momentum. This went on for several minutes until our destination appeared.
The lake, the waterfall, and the rocks all came into view. I tilted my head up and the cliff came into my gaze. It was much higher than I had expected.
We reached the flat; I did not shudder and spoke no words that would reveal how scared I was. I spotted a picnic table at the bottom of the hill. Tyler and Matt kicked off their shoes and placed them under the table, while I slowly and delicately untied my laces.
A path wrapped around another area of the hill we had just descended that led up to the jumping point. Matt made his way to the start of the path.
“You should stay down here while we jump in case something goes wrong and we need some help,” Tyler said to me.
This brought me relief as I was desperately fighting for every second between the moment I parked the Jimmy and the moment I gave into reckless abandon and jumped off the cliff. An intensified sense of worry, however, accompanied that relief. A part of me thought that I was creating my own fear, that my mind was getting the best of me and that there was no real danger. Hearing someone else mention the possibility of something going wrong took my internal fear and manifested it physiologically as my knees began to shake. My nerves ceaselessly agitated me. I tried to stop my knees from shaking, but I couldn’t.
Tyler pointed out the rocks jutting out of the water below the cliff.
“For obvious reasons, you want to make sure you jump out far enough to clear those rocks,” he said, smirking.
I forced myself to chuckle as a large lump formed in my throat.
“You should also come up as soon as you can because the temperature can take your breath away sometimes,” he added.
“Wait, what do you mean,” I shot back at him.
“It’s the middle of fall in Pennsylvania. Bro, you think that’s Jacuzzi water in there?"
The temperature of the water hadn’t even crossed my mind. I thought once I reached the water, I could stop worrying. I haltingly dipped my toes into the water. He was right, far from Jacuzzi water. It was downright frigid.
Matt had already made it to the top and Tyler began his way up the path to meet him. At the top, Tyler questioned whether it was too cold of a day to jump.
“Yes, too cold to jump!” This was a concern I thought was worth some discussion.
“No way. I’ve jumped when it’s been colder than this. Don’t be a wuss,” Matt sneeringly said to Tyler. Tyler gave in and stepped to the ledge.
“Damn, so close,” I thought to myself.
Matt was the daredevil of my friends. He never turned down a stunt. He was a skateboarder with long, shaggy hair. When asked if he would jump off a bridge that a friend might jump off, he would probably respond by saying that he was looking for a higher bridge. He was the most fearless of my friends, while also the most dimwitted. I couldn’t help but wonder if the traits were related.
My eyes were fixated on my friends above me. I watched as they took a few steps back and prepared. They gave each other a nod to indicate that it was time to jump, took a few quick, hard steps and were embraced by the mountain air. Gravity made quick work of their descent and my companions broke the surface of the water. Tyler entered the lake feet first, while Matt had splashed down in an awkward horizontal twist. I stared at the surface of the lake and after several seconds, their heads emerged from the water. Their arms and legs flailed violently. Their desperation to reach the edge of the water was evident. They crawled out of the lake and ran to the picnic table where they had placed their towels.
“Damn, what a rush,” Matt yelled to Tyler.
They shivered and shook as they dried themselves off. Without a word to the other two, I trudged my way over to the path. Today, the boys were jumping off the cliff at Blue Hole Point and I was one of the boys. I was jumping. Maybe I was jumping.
Knees still shaking and head down, I began my ascension. The climb was manageable, but by no means easy. The steep slope caused me to lean forward and my eyes scanned the path for rocks and roots I could grab onto. The tall trees blotted the path in their shadows. The only contents of my winding route that weren’t directly from nature were the cigarette butts and broken glass that littered the trail. Always one to avoid danger, I paid extra attention to the ground to make sure the shards of someone’s beer bottle didn’t wind up in my foot. I made my climb intentionally slow, but reached the launch point nonetheless.
The drop looked even higher from this view. I carefully eased my way over to the ledge and peered down at my cold and discouraging destination. The lake, unlike the path, was untainted by remnants of people who had visited this place before. The surface was calm and still and mocked the continuous and fierce stir in my stomach. I knew the longer I waited, the more likely I wasn’t going to go through with it. I ran through my short, but vital, checklist.
“Clear the rocks at the bottom and surface fast,” I thought.
I took more of a running start than my friends and in an instant, I was airborne. I remember thinking that it took only a second for Tyler and Matt to go from the cliff to the water, but time became nonexistent during my free fall. Had I jumped far enough?
As I momentarily pondered my horizontal trajectory, I crashed into the bitter lake and the autumn water cut into me. I didn’t have time to make a mental note of exiting the lake quickly as my body instinctually fought to escape the water. I was a fair swimmer, but my arms and legs were numb. I kicked and convulsed my way to the edge of the water, where my friends greeted me with my towel. I wrapped myself up and in a moment of reflection, congratulated myself. I had jumped.
Matt waited for my head to reveal itself from my towel as I dried my hair.
“What’s the verdict?”
In order to avoid giving away the fact I was terrified to begin with, I tried to come up with the answer he was looking for.
“That’s incredible, guys. We are going to have to come do it again sometime,” I uttered excitedly.
“My thought exactly,” Matt responded.
He turned and walked not toward the hill that would lead us to our ride home and not toward the picnic table that was housing his shoes, but to the start of the path leading back up to the cliff. He turned and yelled back at us.
“I was thinking right now.”
Read more from Josh Herman on his personal blog.
My 1994 GMC Jimmy made every bump in the road feel like a crater.
“Dude, this is going to be so much fun,” my friend Tyler yelled over “Rosa Parks,” the popular Outkast song blaring on the radio.
”You are going to love it,” he added.
I turned the knob on the radio to lower the volume of the music.
“I’m really excited,” I responded as I made eye contact with him through my rearview mirror. I wasn’t excited
We were on our way to a place my friends and I called “Blue Hole Point.” It is at the base of a mountain near my home. A cliff oversees a small lake below and today was the day I was going to leap from that cliff into that lake. My friends Tyler and Matt had made the jump several times and I had always been too “busy” to join them. Today there was no escaping. No more excuses; no more homework, no more basketball practice, no more family gatherings in the way. I was jumping. Maybe I was jumping.
I drove along the dirt road and we continued to bounce around as if it were the start of an Apollo launch. I knew we were getting close and ideas to escape the daring feat ping-ponged in my head. I had enjoyed the first 16 years of my life so much that I thought it would be nice to relish another six or seven decades.
“Slow down,” Matt exclaimed as he pointed to our left.
A yellow piece of caution tape was bandaged around a large tree.
“This is us, guys,” Matt said excitedly with his hand on the passenger side door handle before the Jimmy came to a complete stop.
We filed out of the vehicle, all three of us with towels draped over our shoulders. We stepped to the edge of the road and stared down the hill that had been hidden by the thick tree line. My friends set off down the hill first. I followed suit. The dirt was loose and did not offer safe footing. We had to make short, choppy steps to not stumble, lose balance, and tumble down the hill. Every few feet we would divert our path to a tree and pin ourselves against it with our palms to stop our momentum. This went on for several minutes until our destination appeared.
The lake, the waterfall, and the rocks all came into view. I tilted my head up and the cliff came into my gaze. It was much higher than I had expected.
We reached the flat; I did not shudder and spoke no words that would reveal how scared I was. I spotted a picnic table at the bottom of the hill. Tyler and Matt kicked off their shoes and placed them under the table, while I slowly and delicately untied my laces.
A path wrapped around another area of the hill we had just descended that led up to the jumping point. Matt made his way to the start of the path.
“You should stay down here while we jump in case something goes wrong and we need some help,” Tyler said to me.
This brought me relief as I was desperately fighting for every second between the moment I parked the Jimmy and the moment I gave into reckless abandon and jumped off the cliff. An intensified sense of worry, however, accompanied that relief. A part of me thought that I was creating my own fear, that my mind was getting the best of me and that there was no real danger. Hearing someone else mention the possibility of something going wrong took my internal fear and manifested it physiologically as my knees began to shake. My nerves ceaselessly agitated me. I tried to stop my knees from shaking, but I couldn’t.
Tyler pointed out the rocks jutting out of the water below the cliff.
“For obvious reasons, you want to make sure you jump out far enough to clear those rocks,” he said, smirking.
I forced myself to chuckle as a large lump formed in my throat.
“You should also come up as soon as you can because the temperature can take your breath away sometimes,” he added.
“Wait, what do you mean,” I shot back at him.
“It’s the middle of fall in Pennsylvania. Bro, you think that’s Jacuzzi water in there?"
The temperature of the water hadn’t even crossed my mind. I thought once I reached the water, I could stop worrying. I haltingly dipped my toes into the water. He was right, far from Jacuzzi water. It was downright frigid.
Matt had already made it to the top and Tyler began his way up the path to meet him. At the top, Tyler questioned whether it was too cold of a day to jump.
“Yes, too cold to jump!” This was a concern I thought was worth some discussion.
“No way. I’ve jumped when it’s been colder than this. Don’t be a wuss,” Matt sneeringly said to Tyler. Tyler gave in and stepped to the ledge.
“Damn, so close,” I thought to myself.
Matt was the daredevil of my friends. He never turned down a stunt. He was a skateboarder with long, shaggy hair. When asked if he would jump off a bridge that a friend might jump off, he would probably respond by saying that he was looking for a higher bridge. He was the most fearless of my friends, while also the most dimwitted. I couldn’t help but wonder if the traits were related.
My eyes were fixated on my friends above me. I watched as they took a few steps back and prepared. They gave each other a nod to indicate that it was time to jump, took a few quick, hard steps and were embraced by the mountain air. Gravity made quick work of their descent and my companions broke the surface of the water. Tyler entered the lake feet first, while Matt had splashed down in an awkward horizontal twist. I stared at the surface of the lake and after several seconds, their heads emerged from the water. Their arms and legs flailed violently. Their desperation to reach the edge of the water was evident. They crawled out of the lake and ran to the picnic table where they had placed their towels.
“Damn, what a rush,” Matt yelled to Tyler.
They shivered and shook as they dried themselves off. Without a word to the other two, I trudged my way over to the path. Today, the boys were jumping off the cliff at Blue Hole Point and I was one of the boys. I was jumping. Maybe I was jumping.
Knees still shaking and head down, I began my ascension. The climb was manageable, but by no means easy. The steep slope caused me to lean forward and my eyes scanned the path for rocks and roots I could grab onto. The tall trees blotted the path in their shadows. The only contents of my winding route that weren’t directly from nature were the cigarette butts and broken glass that littered the trail. Always one to avoid danger, I paid extra attention to the ground to make sure the shards of someone’s beer bottle didn’t wind up in my foot. I made my climb intentionally slow, but reached the launch point nonetheless.
The drop looked even higher from this view. I carefully eased my way over to the ledge and peered down at my cold and discouraging destination. The lake, unlike the path, was untainted by remnants of people who had visited this place before. The surface was calm and still and mocked the continuous and fierce stir in my stomach. I knew the longer I waited, the more likely I wasn’t going to go through with it. I ran through my short, but vital, checklist.
“Clear the rocks at the bottom and surface fast,” I thought.
I took more of a running start than my friends and in an instant, I was airborne. I remember thinking that it took only a second for Tyler and Matt to go from the cliff to the water, but time became nonexistent during my free fall. Had I jumped far enough?
As I momentarily pondered my horizontal trajectory, I crashed into the bitter lake and the autumn water cut into me. I didn’t have time to make a mental note of exiting the lake quickly as my body instinctually fought to escape the water. I was a fair swimmer, but my arms and legs were numb. I kicked and convulsed my way to the edge of the water, where my friends greeted me with my towel. I wrapped myself up and in a moment of reflection, congratulated myself. I had jumped.
Matt waited for my head to reveal itself from my towel as I dried my hair.
“What’s the verdict?”
In order to avoid giving away the fact I was terrified to begin with, I tried to come up with the answer he was looking for.
“That’s incredible, guys. We are going to have to come do it again sometime,” I uttered excitedly.
“My thought exactly,” Matt responded.
He turned and walked not toward the hill that would lead us to our ride home and not toward the picnic table that was housing his shoes, but to the start of the path leading back up to the cliff. He turned and yelled back at us.
“I was thinking right now.”
Read more from Josh Herman on his personal blog.