The Forty Days

Did you ever know that you’re my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
’cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Why am I quoting this song?  I.  Don’t.  Know.  It has the word “fly” in it . . . and “wind.”  And it’s kind of awesome in a purely late-eighties, kitschy way.  Oh, yeah, and because today I was flying through the air when I took trapeze lessons at Trapeze-Experience.

But before I tell you about this great experience, let me paint you a picture of my mood as I walk into the lesson.  I go to sleep Friday night at 5:00 am (when I arrive home from my police ride-along adventure) and wake at 9:30 am.  I run around all morning getting prepared for Sunday’s charity event–Advice for a Nickel–which you should go to if you live in Austin.  As I am trying to find Trapeze Experience, I accidentally drive into a car wash and have to back out around two curves to get out of the place.  Behind one of the curves is a fire hydrant.  Smack!  Officer, seriously, it came out of nowhere.  I don’t break the damn hydrant (fortunately), so there isn’t a giant stream of water shooting sky-high, but I do cause some minor damage to my car.  I shake my fist with fury at the heavens.

Needless to say, as I walk into my lesson, I am tired and pissy.  But all that shortly changes.  The staff at Trapeze-Experience is welcoming, enthusiastic, and energetic.  There are only four students in the class, and I am the only one who has not taken a class before, so I begin with a personalized ground lesson.  (There are five staff members for four students!!  Great staff-to-student ratio, so lots of personalized attention and instruction.)  The instructor walks me through the basics of trapeze and the sequence I am going to perform.  Within twenty short minutes, I am ready to get on the trapeze.  Seriously?  Here’s my first attempt:

Wow!  That was truly exhilarating.  After I practice this sequence a couple more times, I get better, but I become absolutely exhausted.  I’m working muscles in my body I never knew existed.  I’m also a little nauseous from all the hanging upside down and the back-flip dismount.  I go up and practice the sequence again.  After I slither down from the net and plop my exhausted body into a chair, it occurs to me that a little part of me may be dying.  And I begin to wonder if I am killing myself a little bit with every day of this forty days (and it’s only Day 12).  Am I truly living?  Or am I just going to wear myself out and chip away at my own (and my wife’s) sanity?  Will the message of this experience be that living intensely is great, but only as long as it occurs in short increments surrounded by lots of sitting around watching re-runs of The Cosby Show?

As I contemplate this, I realize that it is my turn again (the four students rotate on the trapeze, so there is about ten minutes or so between turns, which, as it is becoming clear, is not enough).  I must be a glutton for punishment because I practice the sequence two more times.  No more . . . please.  But then it is time to implement the sequence with one of the staff on the other trapeze and practice “catching.”  I take some deep breaths, climb up the ladder again, and muster all the worldly strength that is left in my tarnished body.  There is absolutely no way I’m not going to complete the catch successfully.  I jump off the platform and . . . well, you can see for yourself.

What up??!!  I wait my turn, practice the catch one more time and nail it again.  Lesson over!  Thank you, Lord, creator of all heavenly creatures and trapeze lessons!  I sprawl out on the ground, feeling depleted and exhilarated all at the same time.  One of the instructors tells me to wait until Monday when I will be horribly sore.  Awesome.

Overall, I highly, highly recommend Trapeze-Experience.  If I had an amazing time, going on four and a half hours of sleep and having just damaged my car, imagine how good a time a normal human being could have.  But I am so, so tired.  I have never looked forward to Yom Kippur so much–a day of rest (my last one in these forty days)!