“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and
becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn
and feel and change and grow and love and live.” ~ Leo F. Buscaglia
Recently, I was having a conversation with a wonderfully opinionated girl in New York and she said something that caught my attention. I asked her to repeat herself and explain what she meant.
“Church bells are for the lost,” she told me. She then proceeded to explain what she had meant.
I like it. I like the wording and I like the way it sounds, so I am stealing it. IN deference to the conversation, I’ll leave the underlying meaning entirely up to interpretation. It’s hard to hear church bells at 120 miles per hour.
120. That number has come up alot often. 120 mph. 120 days. 120 degrees. 120 dollars.
I jumped out of a plane recently. I fell at around 120 mph for 8000 feet. I took my life and placed it in the fate of so much silken string without a second thought. The speed wasn’t the amazing part. I’ve gone faster than that in a car, and just as fast on my bike.
The perspective was something else. Looking at the world, from up there it was all so small. Not in the way things are small from inside the hermetically sealed chamber of a plane, where I’ll ooh and aah over the pillars of New York on Friday of this week. Being locked in that plane gives you a feeling of autonomy. Like it’s a viewing pane into a display.
In the air, there was no separation. No pane of glass; no safety liner. I was looking at the world and it looked like a painted miniature. Even after I pulled the cord and the chute deployed; even from a few hundred feet off the ground, it was so surreal. Like the paint, plastic, and acrylic on a miniature landscape; i thought i could reach those 500 feet with my arm and break the tiny 1 inch trees off their bases. I could rub the paint off the water.
I’ve been told that I am searching for something. Looking for something that isn’t inside of me when i do crazy things like this.
I think I’ve already found it. I have found that something and I am experiencing it. I found my life. Sitting dejected at my feet from years of unuse; waiting for me to remember that familiar tang and come rushing back. I found promise in the very air I was breathing all along, love in the earth, and infinite possibilities in my fingertips.
I can’t agree that I am empty or broken or missing something when I act in such a manner; thrill seeking. This is all here for us to experience it. Every crazy act, every warm touch from any friendly person is just another way of experiencing life.
Traveling this fast, you can’t stay lost for very long.
