In the massive cleaning I’m doing of my office—the first in 10, maybe 20 years—I keep running across old pieces I’ve written and forgotten. Here’s one, from when I was 50. I don’t remember why I was wearing a back brace, but I remember the event, perfectly. As always, it relates to other parts of life besides the obvious—skiing. 

I AM STANDING at the top of an 18-meter ski jump, which is 60 feet from the point where you become airborne—about the height of a five-story building. I am wearing a back brace under my ski suit, and a number on my chest, 46. I have never done anything where I was required to wear a number. I’m afraid of heights, and I don’t want to sky dive or bungee jump. Yet here I stand, watching a man in an orange suit drop a red flag. “That’s you. Go!” the coach calls. What am I doing here?

A few weeks earlier, I had seen a magazine piece about the Utah Winter Sports Park, near Park City, where competitive skiers train on Olympic-size jumps and the public is invited to learn on small ones. I immediately thought of my son, Andrew, who’s twelve. He doesn’t ski so much as look for rocks and moguls to jump off, and he’s ecstatic when I offer to take hm to an official ski jump.

Then I start to worry that he’ll break his neck or back, I’ll have to call his father and it will be my fault. I contact the park, and one of the coaches tells me, “We run a safe, controlled, two-hour program. We start you out on small moguls, and work you up gradually to the beginners’ jump. You don’t move up to the next step until the coach decides you’re ready, and you don’t do anything unless you’re comfortable. You don’t even have to jump.”

I don’t plan on jumping. I have chronic back trouble, and as a precaution, I wear a brace when I ski. I’m doing this for Andrew. But I take my skis along, just in case I want to try the runs. When we arrive at the Park, we see the awesome wooden jumps—18 and 38 meters—and beside them, the “play area,” where the program starts. In the play area, there’s a course of little moguls that look no more threatening than bumps I’ve skied over dozens of times. I decide to ski there—it’ll be more fun than just watching.

As we unload the car, Andrew starts fighting with his sister. I try to make them stop, and fail. He wants me to carry his boots, and when I refuse, he mopes. Now I’m getting frustrated: I remind him, in a not very courteous voice, that I’m going to all this effort for him, and all I ask is that he be pleasant and cooperate.  He turns away, angry tears in his eyes.

At the registration desk, a young woman in a warmup suit hands me a two-page, single spaced, legal waiver to sign. I don’t dare read it, but as I initial each page, I catch sight of a phrase that says that death is a possible result of this activity.

Andrew is still sulking and kicking the table with his boot.  He says he feels rushed, and I’m not helping him, and at one point, I pull the number off my chest. “Let’s forget it.”

“No, Mom!”

We reach a shaky truce, rent helmets and join the group of fifty people on the warmup hill. The coaches show us the “inrun position,” which we’ll use at the top of the ramp. Jeff Volmrich, our instructor, tells us to loosen our boot bindings, so we can bend far forward at the he ankle, and to crouch down low with our arms behind us, resting on our hips. Jeff says, “When you reach the takeoff point, you extend your body straight up and forward., hands still behind you. After you land, put your arms out for balance and do a snowplow stop.”

We practice this in place, and then he shows us the flag signals we’ll get from the coach at the bottom of the hill. “This is very important, so you don’t crash into each other,” Jeff says. But he talks with lightning speed: “If the flagman holds two flags crossed in his right hand, that means the inruns are closed and the left outrun is clear. When he holds the flags out in two hands, the outruns are closed and he’ll signal the skier on the right inrun with the right flag.”

I have no idea what he’s talking about. I will not understand, until the session is over, that the inrun is what you ski down to reach the takeoff, and the outrun is the landing hill. But I’m the only one who seems puzzled. The rest of the group—mainly boys from eight to thirteen—are snapping their buckles and stamping their boots. So I pick up my skis and follow them up the hill.

It’s hard climbing, in the thin mountain air, and I have to stop and catch my breath. I’m one of the last in line to try the three-mogul (three-bump) run. Andrew sails over it, hikes back up the hill and moves on to the five meter jump.

Everyone else skis down the moguls easily, except for a couple from Minnesota, who haven’t skied in years. When the man heads down the moguls, standing up instead of crouching, one of the coaches, Janet Ivers, says softly, “He’s gonna need help.” The man’s girlfriend goes next and falls on her face. Then it’s my turn, and I don’t fall, but I find myself tensing and leaning back as I pick up speed. “Is it all right if I just stay here all day?” I ask.

“Sure,” Janet says. “But you’re doing fine.”

After thirty minutes, there’s only me and the couple from Minnesota left in the warmup  area. Everyone else has done the five meter jump and headed for the rope tow, so they can be pulled up the mountain and ride down the landing hill of the 18-meter jump. I catch sight of Andrew’s jacket as he swoops down the snow. When he glides to a stop, he grins and waves.

I have done the moguls eight times, but I’ve fallen once and forgot to put my arms out after landing.  Janet tells me I’m ready to try the five meter jump. “You won’t get hurt,” she says.

“I won’t?”

She shakes her head. “Even if you fall, it’s not that far, and the snow is soft. I promise, you won’t get hurt.”

So I take the jump, but my landing is rocky. I climb back up the hill, panting and sweating. My clothes are soaked. I look with longing at the rope tow on the advanced slope, which is becoming a powerful incentive to move ahead. One of the coaches, Krister, who’s from Sweden and has blue eyes and an infectious smile, tells me all I need to do is relax. “Make your body like jelly.”

I try this, but as I pick up speed, I have to concentrate intently to stay loose. I land more smoothly, but when I hike back up, Janet tells me I have to actually jump when I hit the takeoff. Before, she had told me to just rise up, but now, she wants me to use my feet to spring up as high as I can.

It’s a challenge: to stay limp and soft, and then, at the very moment you’re picking up speed, when you’re moving fastest, when the wind is screaming past you and your stomach lurches and you’re most petrified, at this very second, when every muscle, every instinct for self preservation tells you to lean back into the hill, you have to jump forward, leap off into nothing, into what Carlos Castaneda calls the “nahual.”

“Jump!” Janet yells, as I reach the orange cones that mark the takeoff point.  I don’t jump with all my strength, but I do manage a hop off the edge, and I land sweetly—no fall. After I do this once more, Jeff tells me I’m ready for the rope tow.

I stop to take pictures of Andrew, who’s making his first run down the 18-meter ramp and jumps, in perfect position. He comes to a stop before me. “Were you scared?” I ask.

His eyes are dilated and his body trembles with excitement. “Yes. And I want to do it again.”

I follow him to the rope tow, a steel cable with yellow plastic paddles which you’re supposed to grab and place under your seat. When I grab a paddle, I get jerked forward and fall. The operator stoops the rope tow, and kids pile up behind me, impatient.

I fall once more before I’m standing at the top of the outrun. The flagman whips the red flags around, then lowers his arm. I wait. He lowers it again. “That’s your signal!” the coach yells. So I crouch and take off, flying over the snow.  This is fun: the speed is fabulous, the snow is packed and perfect and I know that no matter how fast I go, I’m going to stop when I reach the flat ground. I do this once more, and Jeff tells me to try the 38 meter outrun.

Larry, the coach standing at the top of this run, tells me it’s much faster than the 18 meter jump. “So if you do this, you can do the jump.”

“Really.” For the first time, it occurs to me that I actually might try it. Larry says he was on the national ski team in 1974, and still loves the sport. “How’s your back?” I ask. He points to the walkie talkie around his neck. “My back hurts more from carrying this equipment than from jumping.”

I start down the ramp and feel a thrilling rush of adrenaline. The speed is becoming so intense I’m on the verge of panicking and at that moment, I begin to slow down.

“Want to do that again?” Jeff asks.

“Sure.”

When I’m on top of the outrun again, I hear Jeff’s voice crackle over the walkie talkie. “The public jumping session is over now. I’m closing the gate.”

That’s all right, I didn’t expect to do the high jump anyway. I’m happy I got this far.  I race down the outrun, enjoying it even more, and when I stop in front of Jeff, he says, “Want to try the 18 meter jump?”

“I thought you were closing it.”

“You’ll be the last one.”

I look up at the ramp. Andrew is one of a dozen boys waiting on the platform for a final jump.

“You’re ready for it,” Jeff says.

“All right.”

I manage to catch the rope tow without falling, and when I join the boys on the platform, I ask Andrew if this is more frightening than the 38 meter outrun.

“Way more!”

The other boys agree.

I start to waver, but Krister tells me, “It’s not as fast as what you just did.”

“But it’s scarier!” the boys say.

I hear Janet call to me from the play area: “Go, Sara!”

I take my place at the end of the line. One by one, the boys ski down and jump, until it’s just me, standing at the edge. I hear Jeff say over the walkie talkie: “We got a first timer now. Stand by.”

“Copy that.”

It sounds as if he’s saying, “Get the ambulance ready.”

Larry has come over to watch me, along with Krister.

“Can I just ride over it, without jumping?” I ask.

“It’s better if you jump,” Larry says.

“But will something bad happen if I don’t jump?” I ask.

“No.”

I look down the ramp. “Who’s the oldest person who’s done this? I ask.

“I think we had a man who was 78,” Krister says.

The flagman drops the red flag. I take a breath. Another. A strange calm comes over me, and I push off.

Stay loose now, even though you’re picking up speed. Relax your shoulders, your back. Faster, faster, keep yourself light and feathery, oh God, I’m in the air, this is much worse than the last run because there was snow under me but now there’s nothing—I’m in free fall—and then I land. Gently, easily, my skis gliding over the snow like butter. I put m y arms out and punch my fists in the air, throw my arms around Jeff. Everyone is cheering. Andrew says, “I can’t believe you did that, Mom!”

I can’t believe I did it. I want to hug everyone and I can’t stop smiling, and I thank all the coaches for encouraging me because it feels so good.

In the days that follow, I relive the jump with Andrew and we savor it, like a secret. What surprises me is how I was able to change my mind and leap. The shift occurred, it seems, when Janet told me if I fell, I wouldn’t get hurt. She had no way of guaranteeing this—people get hurt while crossing the street—but she said it with absolute confidence and certainty, and I accepted it. Once I knew I could fall and survive, I could jump.

When I tell this to Andrew, he’s quiet a moment. “So, Mom,” he says, “can we do it again next year?”

I think about my back, and my age, and about not making promises I can’t keep. Then I smile. “Of course.”