baSe

It was much, much easier than I thought it would be to climb over the railing of this bridge.

I had assumed I'd whinge and hesitate, leaning over and looking and leaning over and looking again and flitting around for an excuse to wait -- just one more moment, just to catch my breath -- and just one more pin check -- and just until this last group of cars has roared behind me, traffic wind pressing my jacket collar firmly against my neck, trucks bleating deeply and hoarsely when they see my silhouetted figure leaning out over the void of the canyon.

In actuality, the African sun recently tucked itself behind the Outeniquas. I'm quickly losing the light.

This is obviously, precisely the right place, time and moment to make this step. We're leaving RSA in a handful of days. If I don't move decisively, I'll lose this chance.

So.

I catch Brett's wide smile with my own. We dash to the other side through the headlights of the evening traffic. I follow the last trickles of honeyed sunlight that pour along the narrow railing. I find the center of the bridge. I gauge the breath of wind that moves across the span. I throw my right leg over. I throw my left leg over. The left shoulder of Brett's enormous rig has slipped from its rightful place into the crook of my elbow, so I slide it back and ask him to confirm its position.

I feel the cold curve of the railing under each hand.

I hear the rustle of the pilot chute as Brett gathers it carefully into his grip.

I glance quickly down at the river canyon below. It's perfect -- a long, flat, wide, soft swath of powdery sand. A shallow, calm panel of water slips along the left-hand side of the canyon, gamely wending itself out of my intended path.

A handful of construction workers has quietly lined up along the railing to my left, dark faces and hands disappearing into the advancing night, safety-orange jumpsuits craned over the edge, waiting.

I tip my chin up to the invisible horizon behind the hill in front of me, and I see the last of the light slide from it.

"Ready?" My voice is steady.

"Yep. I love you baby."

"I love you, too." Good lord, do I ever mean it. "Three, two, one...see ya."

My hands slide smoothly over the metal. My knees bend, then spring.

For a moment, perfect silence. Perfect peace.

Then, suddenly, the world is full of fabric sounds and I'm suspended over the riverbank. I grab one orange toggle in each hand, sashay into the slight turbulence in the canyon-bottom venturi and land, alighting gently on my feet.

I turn my face up to my beloved on the bridge and holler madly, my voice meeting his (and the construction workers') somewhere in the middle.

This is a fork in a long, long path, with the promise of an extraordinary journey ahead.

I'm so glad I waited for this.

Lazy Sunday

Rain, rain, rain. We were stuck indoors, which is a novelty in and of itself.

Not every day is a red-letter day out here, but sometimes it's good to remember just how delightful every. Single. Day. Always. Is. Today, I:

• Slept in like I meant it
• Listened to buckets of rain pounding symphonically on the roof, in the marshland reeds and on the surface of the lagoon, accompanied by the howling Capetonian wind
• Got my hair cropped into a swingy little shag
• Got a cute lil' nose ring and a pretty new dress
• Made my first batch of pickled peppers
• Fed flying grapes to a friendly dog
• Had a great yoga session
• Planned a week chockablock with awesomeness

And so I am grateful.

encounter at farpoint

Brett figured out the meaning of life today.

As we ambled down Noordhoek Beach this morning, slowly zippering in and out of the liquid-glass sea, he recounted his half-dreaming realization that each of us is one iteration of the universe at large, learning about itself through the one tiny window we each represent, and that our greatest responsibility is to live deeply, widely and well in order to present the best set of data for our part of this grand experiment.

It's perfect.

Sedgefield, Revisited

The clouds have been gathering for hours before we careen up the dirt road to the Sedgefield launch. Looking out onto the ocean from the ridge, the multitude of clouds casts a shifting reflection on the silver sea, the late-afternoon sun warming the whites to a pale buttercream.

The sock, steadfast and orange, snaps to oscillating attention, pointing insistently across the grass.

No one else hangs in the air, nor is anyone waiting on the ground. The carpark is eerily empty, devoid of dogs and backpacks scattered in the sun; of nervous families fussing with the children as they wait wearily for a tandem passenger, whooping giddily from somewhere along the treeline; of helmet-headed pilots, moving their Santa-sacks of nylon to and from the shade.

There's only the thwap-thwap of the sock; the sussurus of the wind pushing up and over the wooded ridge; the snap of my fingernail between my teeth.

The clouds, dense and clotted-grey, knead themselves along the glass ceiling of cloudbase. Shafts of sunlight split the velvety canopy for long moments, throwing the trees into crisp relief before disappearing.

I decide: I'm gonna fly.

I apply my gear with great ceremony, giving each buckle a solid tug before shimmying back into the harness. The straps, once hopelessly awkward, settle easily onto the slopes of my collarbones; over the soft rise of my chest; across my breathing belly; along the same line of thigh that a lover's hand nestles. The toggles in my palms, I buck the glider into a firm and heaving wall, letting it gather breath before slipping it into the airflow over my head.

Before I know it, I'm bouyed into a dancing mass of bubbling thermals, sweeping me swiftly towards the patchy afternoon sun. Delighted, I bounce through the jostling crowd, spinning handily up and down; leaning so far out of the soft side of the harness that I seem to be drawn bodily up into heaven, trees retreating dizzily into a green featureless carpet, a heathen version of the Rapture with bare feet crossed at the ankles and a breathy Portishead soundtrack pumping in my ears.

I spin, and dive, and dolphin, and whip wide wingovers over the  fields far below. I buck and deflate and reinflate and rattle in my high-suspended seat. I whoop and holler and sing.

At some point, I notice the other pilots crowding the carpark. I smile, knowing we brought them here.

One thing is clear: I'm a different pilot today than I have ever been.

siren

It's thickly overcast, perfectly silvery, as though the African coast were a secret Narnia buried under a snowdrift. The filtered sun casts a cottony shroud over the ocean, drawing birdsong into silence, muffling the syncopated slap of waves. It's been a long time since I last submerged myself in saltwater.

You smelled like the sea.

There's a boogie board strapped to my wrist. It was the only thing from the encyclopedic rack of boards in the carport that would fit in the cabin of the golf-cart-sized car I'm driving. The board is festooned with smiling dolphins and, inexplicably, the planet Saturn. One dolphin leers up at me from the technicolor nonsense of the board, goading.

What a question.

A single jellyfish burbles by. A crab runs across the top of my foot, its movements feather-light needles on my skin. This ocean teems with life below its dancefloor surface, and I perch at the edge - me and my flourescent-dolphins-passing-Saturn boogie board - unable to see beyond the first line of breaks.

You're so careful with me. I like it.

I watch the glassy water swell into an azurite blueness, bubble into cloudlike white, then spread into a twisting, airy clarity as it passes the pillars of my legs. I wonder who invented the color "seafoam," and what made them think of it. I wade deeper.

The only way out of the foxhole was to shoot the SS gunner.

Submerged to the waist, I sashay along the beach in my shimmering skirt of sea. Sand-colored fish explode in neutral starburts as I move through them. Little remembered things swim across my thinking, then dart back into the depths.

I'll see you soon.

the grandest project

Today, I noticed that the first flight we booked leaves in a couple of weeks.

Heh.

Hilarious that we ever thought we'd be on it. Heck, I don't believe we ever truly did.

I.

Today is the day I start a travelogue.

I should have begun it in the airport lounge, as I sat restlessly in the pregnant pause just before we piled into the good ol' jumbo jet. Or in Frankfurt, wired and tired and rubbing at my underdressed arms. Or upon arrival in Kommetjie, from my perch at a wide-plank table, watching the ocean breeze poke at the enormous chandelier overhead.

Or ten years ago. 

Or, perhaps, right now.

In any case, right now is what I have...so here we go.

II.

We've been flying every day, several times a day, at several sites a day, for twelve days. As thrilled as I am at the tremendous growth this has afforded me as a pilot, I'm understandably exhausted...so when we woke this morning to the sounds of a petulant sea and the gunshot retort of rain on the metal roof, I melted back into bed with a rumbling sigh of gratitude.

In the quiet that fills these earthbound hours, I think about my beloved mobility -- of my religious devotion to moving around the spheroid temple of the world, and of touching a match to the candle of everyone I meet out here. I think about how much more me I am when I'm on the move; how sensual; how stimulated. How the yoga of travel cracks me open and fills me with a buoyant sense of peace.

Tomorrow, the skies will clear, and the Good Hope wind will shuffle teasing fingers through my summer-light hair as it unfurls my wing before me. Until then, it's coffee and music and quiet conversations beside the fire.