The Flop

Though I’m having fun with these metaphors, the cliff, the ledge, the climb, the jump, the fall, and the impact have long been very - and sometimes painfully - literal parts of my life.

When I was four, I tumbled down from the top of the basement steps in my Cinderella costume, leaving a crown-sized dent in the wall when I hit the bottom. And I wasn’t wearing a tiara.

Growing up, I loved rock climbing. I would fly around, popping out from underneath or behind rocks every so often when my parents got concerned they hadn’t seen me for a little while.

When I went to rock climbing camp, I reached the top of the climbing wall and was too scared to let go. It took awhile to talk me down.

I used to do gymnastics and I would stand there for an hour trying to get the courage to do a back handspring. I would just false start the entire time. I couldn’t make the jump.

I once went to a quarry that had a waterpark in it. When I got to the part where you hold onto the handle and swing out over an at least 20 foot drop, the attendant hadn’t given good instructions. But when I jumped over the edge of the literal cliff, I blacked out. My arms just let go. I was lucky that I had swung far out enough to miss the rocks when I fell, but I hit part of the tarp (I think?) and did a face plant on the water. I got at least whiplash, if not a minor brain injury, from that.

There was some success, like when I went bungee jumping off of the Auckland Bridge.

It’s funny how I’ve had a very intimate relationship with gravity but I’ve always felt internally that there was zero gravity (that I had none). I couldn’t connect to my body. My entire mime journey has been me running into metaphorical, yet still somehow somatic, walls. Haptic feedback.

I spent a lifetime trying to connect with my body.

no chords