How Supergirl Learned To Fly
Our identities form early. I was headstrong and climbing way above my means by five, reaching higher and higher on the dogwood tree in our front yard until I was even with the second floor, and the branch my foot was on broke. I wasn’t ready to stop, but gravity insisted. When I landed, I remember being more annoyed at the tree’s instability and lack of cooperation than at being injured. It was simply in my nature to keep going, to look at an obstacle and think, “why not?”
This has translated, over the years, to a number of accomplishments. It has also led to several free falls. Without kids or a husband, I was able to make decisions based purely on me—a luxury that went out the window soon after my first blush with couplehood, and completely disappeared down the road, waving and carrying a satchel, after motherhood. Whether we want to or not, we can’t help but be a blending of what is around us, what we join with.
I was 16 when I jumped off the cliff by my Uncle Steve’s farm for the first time. The air swallowed me whole as I shot 30 feet down, my knees tight together and my arms flailing above my head. I imagine I looked much like a marionette who has been dropped from a stage, strings still holding her hands. It took less than two seconds for me to hit the water. I was surprised to hear the slap as my feet hit; less shocked to feel it. I sunk down, eyes closed against the coolness of the water, pumped my legs, and broke through the surface. I felt relieved to breathe and looked up, enjoying the view of the cliffs from the lake.
We had driven up from New Jersey for the 25th anniversary of my Uncle Steve's purchase of Better Farm. He bought it with the $20,000 he was awarded after a car crash that forever robbed him of the ability to walk. The money went a long way in the depressed town of Redwood, and he and our family thought buying 25 miles from Fort Drum was a great investment, that the town would grow as the military base got bigger, and eventually, it would be worth a fortune. They were wrong. But my parents, as well as my Uncle Bill and a number of their friends, had spent one heady summer expanding the house, and were eager to share the fruit of their long-ago labor with the next generation.
As we drove toward Redwood during the summer of '95, dad told stories of those months. He always looked to me like a big kid, the guy who never grew up, and had children of his own as an excuse to keep playing. In his 40s, he had fading red hair, a gap-toothed smile (a trait I inherited), and when he got excited, his skin turned crimson, and his freckles disappearing in the flush. They were barely visible for most of the trip, as he regaled Nicole and me with tales of flips and cannonballs off the edge of the Millsite Lake cliffs, located a few miles from the farm. I was fascinated by the stories revolving around the lake and the mighty cliffs that stood like Valhalla above them.
When we got to the farm, Steve assured us Dad's stories were true, and encouraged us to explore for ourselves. He promised the trespassing signs were hogwash, and to send anyone who bothered us to send them down the road to his place and he'd smooth things over. The others in my generation, of course, immediately set to begging to see the cliffs up close. I joined with feigned enthusiasm, wondering how high the precipice actually was. I had such a fear of heights that I forbade my parents from driving on the outer edge of medium-height bridges (the idea of accidentally careening through the guardrail and falling so severe, it affected my travel choices). The terror induced by the thought of a looming rock face with no protective railing was only outweighed by my desire to not be seen as a scaredy cat by my family.
Steve was left behind at the house, along with my mom.
"Leaves of three, let it be," she had repeated, speaking in time to her chopping as we sauntered out of the kitchen and away from the domesticity of slicing potatoes for dinner. "And don't forget the OFF! You need to be care-" her voice cut abruptly behind us as the front door slammed and we scurried to the car. The slamming was necessary, as the mosquitoes were the size of small horses, and had been known to carry off misbehaving children in the night. That, and we'd heard the speech on ticks enough to know it by heart.
Dad and Bill led the expedition. As we drove, long-abandoned barns gazed at us with longing while the car battled horseflies and gnats for a share of the asphalt. Dusty fields with bales of hay piled like forgotten toys lined the road as we wound through the country.
We cruised to the cement patch Steve had talked about, and parked just off the road, the weeds immediately tangling around the tires, threatening to pull the car into a machine-and-flora love affair. For a moment, I imagined that was what had happened to some of the rusted-out vehicles we passed on the drive in. They had simply been so enamored with the long grasses that they'd decided to embrace them for eternity.
Leaving the vehicle, we were careful to avoid the shiny three-leaved plants my mother kept warning us about, and tiptoed over the flattened carcasses of frogs laying like pre-cooked colorforms on the asphalt. We paused at the rusty iron gate, bending down to roll our white socks up to our knees, a barrier against the merciless ticks. We looked like an oddly uniformed basketball team.
We hiked east, past the tin "trespassers will be shot" signs, and through the fields tracked with the tire marks of the local kids' ATVs. As we walked deeper into the woods, the trees bent above our heads, slumped in the heat, and our socks began to sag. Dry grass clung to our newly exposed sweating calves, affixing itself with surprising persistence, while Nate, Bill's son and my cousin, actually whined: "Are we there yet?"
Dad and Bill walked ahead, their sneakers chomping down on last autumn's fallen leaves. Dad used a branch to swipe away spiderwebs and hanging twigs, while the foliage threatened to bounce back in defiance of man. "Be careful where you step, girls. There's a lot of poison ivy out here."
Luke giggled and rolled his eyes.
"Dad, mom warned us about a million times. We're not little kids. We know what to look for," I chastised as I struggled to keep pace with the group.
A quiet fell over us and our steps quickened as our bodies sensed we were close. I could hear my breathing become heavier in the heat, the only sound besides the occasional chirp of a bird and the crunch crunch of our feet. The trees grew scarce as splashes and tribal whoops caught our ears: the voices of those who had beaten us to the promised land.
We rounded toward the left and gasping at the site. Stepping out between the branches, the woods opened to reveal the edge of the world. I'd heard the stories, I knew the lake was giant, and had seen it from the road when we drove by.
But there was something about standing above the water, perched on the ledge, watching the expanse of blue reaching out to play tag with the sky. There was no shore, just the sheer drop, 30 feet down. The rocks clung to the face of it, while dried soil was kicked over the cliff carelessly as kids ran to the edge and lunged, or scaled the rock wall back up to the top. The water was so clear, I could see the fish circling the ankles of local teens as they treaded water. A motley crew of proud evergreens, leaf-filled oaks, and leafless skeletons that had been ravaged by pests or weather or both stood back from the edge, and I felt they were perhaps sharing my vertigo high above the water. Red ants formed a zigzagging conga line through the dust, and spider nests ornamented the trees like grey puffs of cotton candy. Several small islands, the nearest over a mile away, dotted the horizon, with one in the middle housing a solitary white structure. Squinting, I could make out falling boards and a hole in the roof with a large branch peeking out, its leaves playing peek-a-boo with the summer breeze. I thought of Bob Ross, the oil painter, and how many "happy little trees" he would have to paint to do the green foliage justice.
I looked around, trying to take a mental photograph. The spell was broken by Nate, who yelled "Sweet!" as his 6' 9" frame jostled me as he jiggled by, abandoning his towel, and taking hold of the rope at the top of the cliff.
"Nate, be sure to swing all the way ou—" Bill started to warn his son, but by this time, Nate was already mid-swing. He let go just above the water, his body twisting so that he slammed down into the lake ass first. The smack sent waves crashing into the rocks, and Nate emerged from the depths with a groan. "...Out so you land with your feet down. It stings whichever part of you hits first," Bill finished, while Nate attempted to climb out of the water and rub his ass at the same time.
The local teens were snickering as Luke, Nate's younger brother (and smaller at only 6 feet even), walked out to the rope and asked shyly if he could have a try.
"If you want to get a feel for it, swing out and swing back," Bill advised, noticing his son's trepidation.
"I just don't want to end up like Nate."
"There's no way you could end up like Nate," Bill replied dryly.
"Just try to go in feet first," Dad chimed in. "It's a timing issue. That's all there is. You have to wait until you're at the highest point, so you're still going out."
We watched as one of the locals demonstrated, then another, leaping off the cliff in rapid succession.
"Just make sure you're out over the water,” Nate mocked. “Otherwise, you'll end up smashed onto the rocks" Nate mocked, climbing the side of the cliff with the aid of a rope ladder.
"Nate!" Bill grumbled.
I squatted on the edge, like a small toad with its legs tucked tight, and, questioning the merit of tumbling into the water, asked my dad, "How high do you think it is?"
“About thirty feet or so.”
"Yea?" Luke asked, twisting the cord around his hand, then untwisting, over and over in time with his breathing. His blond hair was just long enough to create a veil over his blue eyes, but I could still make out that they were squinting towards the water, as if willing it to be a little bit closer than 45 feet.
"Just don't think about it," Dad offered.
"Here. I'll show you." Bill placed his towel down and took the rope from Luke's hand, explaining the physics of leverage and force. He looked at the water, and hesitated.
As he was talking, I watched one of the local boys climb the giant tree next to the cliff. I nudged Dad, and even though I was sure the tree could easily support him, the rock-a-bye baby song about boughs breaking kept warbling in my head. He jumped down, slapped the water, and bubbles and waves careened in all directions as the lake swallowed him. There was a stunned silence. We were aware the water was deep—no one had ever been able to touch the bottom—but still...
For a moment I thought I'd made the whole thing up- never saw him plummet, never saw him go under. Then, in a grand gesture of insubordination, he emerged, whipping his black hair around, spraying the excess water in all directions. He grinned. I exhaled. His friends cheered.
Bill looked at my dad.
"Who was that? Where…"
"The tree," Dad explained.
"The tree?" Bill paused. "That kid went from the tree?" Bill's eyes rounded, his mouth going slack at the thought.
"Yea."
"That's like an 84-foot drop. What an idiot." Bill looked at the rope, reconsidering. "I can't do this. There's no way."
"You already did it, like twenty years ago," Nate challenged him
"Yea, but that was twenty years ago," Bill pointed out, still clutching the fraying twine in his right hand, running his left over his bald head.
"Come on Bill, it's time for a really stupid and pointless act," Dad chuckled.
Bill laughed, and I thought he might actually swing out. I could picture him flying over the water two decades ago, all ambition, recklessness, and long brown hair tied back with a bandana. A quarter century changes your perspective. When you're 20, you're invincible. But at 45, there's more to be lost; more knowledge of what a fall like that can do to your body, and worse—what swinging back and hitting the rock face can do.
He shook his head, smiled, and handed the rope back to Luke. "I don't think so, boys." He walked gingerly down to the edge, next to my dad. "Shall we?"
Again, time seemed to reverse for a moment. As Dad and Bill stood, about five feet from each other, looking out at the water, I remembered the stories they told about each other, and growing up a year apart, throwing dummies off the widow's peak on top of the house during their staged plays, and using each other like brothers instead of cousins.
Bill always said he went to my dad for advice when he wasn't sure what to do. In his speech at Dad’s wake four years later, he would say "Dan, if I'd have known you would die on Tuesday, I would have called you on Monday to ask you how to handle it."
But now, Bill was all smiles as he looked a foot away for courage. Dad beamed back at him, winked, and jumped. His reddish-blond hair caught the sun, and seemed to glow for a split second. He flapped his arms, as if trying to stop gravity or time or both. He's a lot bigger than he was in the pictures back at the house, I thought, thinking of the photo on Steve's bookshelf of my dad in 1970, only a couple of years older than I was now, with a puff of fire-red curly hair jutting out in all directions. He was skinny back then, ribs showing through his chest from a late growth spurt that hadn't quite allowed his body to come into normal proportions yet. He was crouching in the picture, wearing a pair of blue jeans, sporting a lot of dirt around his face and upper body, and grinning like a fool having the time of his life. Now he was a middle-aged man, with a few extra pounds around the middle, but still a childlike voice calling out, "Ah!" as he descended, smile intact.
"He always yells like that," I said, as the sound echoed like a cartoon. "Come on Bill, do it!" I pushed.
"I'm coming," he called down to Dad, "Nobody down there?"
"No one," Dad shouted back.
"Going right onto Papa Dan. Lookout!"
He hesitated for a second, a gargoyle on his perch looking out at the clouds and the islands, maybe praying, maybe questioning God. Or maybe making his mind blank in order to summon the courage (or stupidity) to take the plunge. He looked over at all of us, leapt off the rock and dad turned his head to avoid being splashed.
Bill’s shorts ballooned out as he descended, the air making the fabric appear like a round, red balloon. I noticed, in that instant, that your arms flap when you are falling. They make little circles backwards, the kind of motion kids do in elementary school gym classes when they are stretching. You know, logically of course, that you can't fly. But some piece of the brain, the one that didn't pay attention in science class, still thinks "flap!"
In the ensuing years, I would see a variety of people bound off this bluff. Sometimes they were naked, appendages flailing in the summer sun. Sometimes they brought booze, or rowdy girls, or both. Once, when the plumbing was out, we came by kayak with soap and shampoo, and bubbles danced around us after our leaps. But nothing felt quite so magical as watching my balding uncle and graying father relive their youths by bolting off that cliff.
When Bill surfaced, they both laughed; that kind of laugh that is part satisfaction, part joy, and, mostly, relief at having survived. High above, I laughed too, embracing the audacity of my companions, and feeling my trepidation dissipate with the ripples in the water.
I took a step forward and closed my eyes as the ground separated from my feet.
