This is my first foray into the brave new world of blogging. I'm jumping in for the first time.
Everyone has a large number of memorable firsts in their life, which form a sort of continuum.
Many of those firsts are things that everyone else also experiences, such as learning to read, or ride a bicycle, or losing virginity, which, while memorable, are often less interesting for others than for oneself because of their commonality. Unless one's own experience of the event is truly exceptional, such as learning to ride a bicycle in a minefield during a revolutionary uprising while on fire.
Other firsts are truly exceptional and unique, such as being the first walk on the moon. This is the other extreme end of the continuum. Very few people have walked on the moon. Very few will ever be able to. And only one could be the first.
The first time blogging is more on the unexceptional side. Yet it feels like a big step. Like jumping off a cliff.
I still remember the first time I jumped off a cliff.
A friend and I had been working a short-term temporary job. We were still teenagers in high school, and had finished for the day at midafternoon. We had the option of waiting for parents to pick us up, or walking. Neither was a good option; waiting for parents would involve waiting, probably for a long time, and walking would involve a long walk out of our way because we were up a steep hillside. And in either case we had to be somewhere else soon, for some reason I don't recall. I told him there was no way we could get there in time.
"Don't worry", he said, "I know a short cut. Follow me! We have to run!"
And he started running, around the building, across the yard, towards a low rock wall.
"When we get to the wall, jump on top, and then jump off as far as you can", he said.
And then he sped up. He was about 10 feet ahead of me. As we approached the wall he sped up. I assumed there must be a ditch or something on the other side of the wall. He jumped onto the wall, and then off. I followed, jumped onto the same spot on the wall, and leaped off.
As my direction of motion became more vertical than horizontal I realized there was no ditch. The rock wall was at the edge of a cliff. At the bottom of the cliff a steep hillside began, covered with scattered trees, bushes, ferns, and brambles: blackberry and poison oak bushes. A beautiful California hillside from almost any perspective except the one I had at the moment.
I don't know how far we fell, but it was far enough for a brief conversation. As a looked at him falling about 10 feet below me I said "Oh Great. Now what do we do?"
He looked up at me. "Ski!", he said brightly as he fell.
"Ski? What the hell does that mean? It's the middle of summer, there's no snow, and I've never been skiing", I replied as I fell
A look of concern crossed his face briefly when I said I'd never been skiing before. Too late now, of course.
"You'll just have to learn fast, it's easy! I didn't know either! Just watch me and do what I do!", he said. Again brightly. Too brightly by half, I felt. But I watched what he was doing.
Falling. Off a cliff down toward a steep hillside covered with trees and bushes.
Immediately below us was a small bare spot of hard dirt near the top of the steep green hillside. Just before he landed on it he said, "You just ski! Like this!"
He hit the spot and bounced off to the side and down, past a tree and down towards another bare spot on the steep hillside. I did the same, bouncing toward the next bare spot, following him down the hill. The hillside whizzed by in a blur of green and brown as we bounced back and forth down the hillside from one bare spot to another. There were a number of close calls as we zig-zagged down the hillside. Finally the hillside began leveling off, and we began running again, about a hundred yards to the bottom of the hill. This was the local kids' shortcut down the hillside. I assume their parents never knew about it. One would hope.
We did make it in time to wherever it was we were going.
Later that same day, I asked my parents for something or other. All my friends could do whatever it was.
They asked me the famous parent question in response:
"If your friends jumped off a cliff, would you follow them?"
I could truthfully say yes, as it happens, I would, and already had. Earlier that same day.
My parents still did not grant permission for whatever it was, but being able to answer yes to that age-old parent to child question more than made up for it.
Hopefully the same will be true of blogging.
In case you were wondering, no, I don't remember the second time I jumped off a cliff. But I do remember the third. Those were both deliberate, intentional events. I wasn't following anybody. And they were different cliffs. I've never jumped of the same cliff twice.
