One more quick note before I totter off to bed.
We all like to think of ourselves as calm and cool. The Chuck Yeager persona etc.
I really hope you all hear what I am trying to say here- more than I ever have before.
When I landed awkwardly, (I tried to flare my round chute) I was then dragged for a couple hundred feet or so as the winds were blowing around 15KT and a chute is alas a big kite. I finally got it collapsed enough to unbuckle the harness and stop the whole sad circus in its tracks.
And there I lay, in the dry grass of a California summer, on the container of my parachute and harness, panting like a dog who has run miles, and looking at my hands as my pulse thudded through my fingers in a way I've never felt before or since.
My mind would take years to process that I had just been in a knife fight for my survival, but my body knew exactly what had happened. I am known for being calm, especially when stuff gets silly. What most people don't know is that I have lain helpless on my stomach, with three fractured vertebra, staring at my hands all while panting uncontrollably.
Because despite being calm I almost ran out of answers. (Actually I did run out of answers- which helped as the only option was to bail out- much to my family's presumed happiness.)
We like to see ourselves as heroes- who will always do the right thing when the chips are down.
The reality as far less noble. Which is why compassion for those who were put in a situation just like mine, but who were so minutely less fortunate, is completely appropriate,
Cheers-
dce