The Cliff

Sun stained hair dangles over the edge of the cliff, brushes against jagged rock and flowering grasses rooted into the sea-salted promontory. Chin on the ledge, eyes just over peering down at white foam crashing and dissolving at the base of the vertical drop. 

I hear voices to my right, “That must be at least a hundred feet. Wouldn’t want to time that jump wrong.” A nervous laugh and a shuffle of feet away from the jutting lip of earth. There are tourists here at this “Hazardous Zone.” I am one too, a visitor in this place of soft curves and sharp edges and ants crawling over it all, which includes my body prone on shifting pebbles. 

I look down. 

I feel the distance and the depth of the sea. I imagine whales nesting in kelp gardens and sea stars stretching spiny arms just below the surface. I can feel the myths of this place: tribes of sea people under the waves creating the ebb and flow with their exultant dancing and watery breath, providing shelter for the fish, tending gardens of sea snails, smiling up into the distant sky with bubbles escaping between coral teeth.

A woman lies down on the top of the cliff to my left. She scoots her face past the edge and peers over. She is not me but suddenly I am dizzy, my body tense and drifting over the stone with her motion. I close my eyes and swallow hard. I feel as though the earth will tilt, slide me off this solid rock and sift me into the sea. My body acts independently of my mind, my legs tumble over my head, I am somersaulting through space, torn by rocks as I fall, torn by waves as the plank of me collides with the surface. Rejected by the water, I float lifeless, eyes still closed.

All this movement in the mind, a waterfall of images because of another body that could possibly fall, a woman that could possibly tumble to her death, someone I could not possibly save. What is this? This responsibility for strangers (myself), the fear of others (myself) plunging off very tall things: cliffs, masts, rooftops, bows, bridges. What part of me is terrified of the uncontrolled descent? From where have I fallen? What jagged wall has torn me apart?
Who am I trying to save?

I challenge myself to jump. 

I curl back from the edge, unfold myself to standing and stare out at the vast expanse of undulating gray. Hills of motion and wind rippled valleys around evergreen islands. I breathe in salty air, watch the tour boats create arrows in their wakes pointing to shore. I breathe out the fear and rear back, winding myself up for the step-step-nothing. 

I am in the air, free from gravity for a moment before arcing towards the deep water. My arms open wide, the fluttering of my clothes my feathers, I am flight and forgetful of what earth feels like under talon and hollow wing. The moment comes when my body finds molecules different from the air I’m holding, holding me, and I shatter into a million brilliant shards of sunlight. I dissolve in the white foam and become a billion blinding stars overhead, a thousand flitting fireflies in a golden field, a bioluminescent spume of whale’s breath in the night.

I open my eyes and the woman is gone. My equilibrium restored, I am alone on the edge of this world with the dandelions and ants and pebbles. The ocean has consumed me right here on top of this cliff.
I am no longer dizzy and scared.

I am flight and I am falling,
I am shattered and I am whole,
I am dissolved and I am complete.

I stretch my arms over the cliff then curl back into the world, away from the edge, resting on rock-tattooed knees. The sunlight is glittering on the turbulent water as I stand and walk away. There is a splash. I don't turn around. The tribes below the surface dance on.