You know how there are certain moments that you can clearly identify as life-changing? Not life-changing in that ambiguous happy-fuzzy-rosy I-feel-so-alive way but that distinct, transformative, I-will-never-be-the-same way? Well I had one of those moments this past Sunday. In a complete reversal of everything I've ever done or dreamed of doing, I got up the nerve to go bungee jumping... naked.
It all started when two friends-of-friends who were visiting from Masaka, Kathleen and Michelle, decided to go bungee jumping into the Nile. This had definitely been on my to-do list, but as of late my rapidly depleting stores of money made the $65 price tag seem decidedly out of my reach. So I spent my Saturday watching DVDs on my laptop and eating ice cream. But then Kathleen and Michelle returned, visibly glowing and bubbling over with the remnants of the experience, and said: "Yeah we got there to check in and they asked us how we would like to pay: cash, credit, or the free option?" So what is this free option? You guessed it: you go nude, you go free. Michelle had taken them up on the offer, and judging by her complete and total state of satisfaction, I thought to myself "I can do that too." Save $65 by putting on my birthday suit? That's not really comparable to being a stripper, is it?
So the next morning my roommate Kate and I saw Kathleen and Michelle off and pondered the prospect of actually going through with this. We stumbled upon the phone number for Adrift and called, making a tentative reservation for 5 pm. Now Kate and I were accountability partners in this whole gig: it takes two people for them to open up the tower and we had made the reservation together and we were going, so neither one of us could back out now. That being said, we spent the afternoon chugging down Nile Specials (one of the local beers that's brewed just a hop, skip, and a jump away) because we figured that it's all fine-and-dandy to say you're going to bungee jump naked, but -- more for the naked part than the bungee jumping part -- it probably takes a litre of Niles to actually do it.
But at around 6:30 pm just as the sun was beginning to fall, we did it. Kate and I hiked up the tower, met the gorgeous Australian man and his Ugandan sidekick with whom we were entrusting our very lives, and after watching a few other brave souls take the plunge (clothed), we stepped right up, took a deep breath, and stripped. This is where the Big Life Change began.
The change was almost instantaneous: it was like for as long as I could remember I had this tumor of fear lodged in my stomach that would flare up and cripple me every time I thought about doing something "risky," like quitting my crappy job or standing up to my parents or calling a guy back, and the moment I stripped down in front of that sexy Australian bungee guy the tumor unlodged itself from my gut. Then, when I hopped over to the edge of the tower (they tie you in at your ankles... haha no harness or anything just your feet!), stood tall and proud in front of a crowd of squealing Ugandans and hollering muzungus, and 3...2...1... lept into the open sky with the Nile river waiting 44 metres below to break my fall, that knot of fear that had bound me all my life dissipated into nothing more than an unwelcome memory. As the air whooshed in my ears and the world enveloped my eyes, I was free. And when I reached the water and dunked into the Nile for just long enough to realize that I'd made it, I was flooded with ectasy.
The waves of joy and power and energy and liberation surged through my body as I bounced up and down above the water like a floppy fish. There was no was my smile could contain my joy nor could my body contain my energy -- I was seeping out the edges of my skin and into this beautiful world. The landscape spun around me as I tumbled through it freely, absorbing a stunning kaleidoscope of silver water, green mountains, and barely-broken sunset. Mind you I'm upside down this whole time, so the sights were so alien and disorienting and beautiful -- especially the sweeping upside-down sunset!
Once the bounces gradually became less and less high, out rowed the two guys who would raft me back to land. As they reached out to me with a paddle and cradled my naked body into the raft, little did they know that they were the first individuals on this earth to touch the new, fearless me. It was so adorable when they asked if it was "very much fun," to which I gave a resounding yes. Then one of them told me assuredly, as if to squash whatever anxiety a white woman might be experiencing when rowing naked in a raft with two strange Ugandan men, "We are all born naked easily."
We are all born naked easily. So what happens from that point forward, when trust and freedom become replaced by apprehension and shame? We spend an indefinite number of years losing sight of our innate perfection, learning to look-both-ways and be-a-good-girl/boy, walling ourselves off from our true nature and the true nature of our life on this planet: love. We are all born naked easily. And when I -- surprisingly easily -- reclaimed my nakedness, it was like something new was born inside of me. Something that, I hope, will guide me to a life of more joy and adventure and discovery and growth. The truth of the shift materialized when I stepped back on solid ground, my heart pumping hot blood and adrenalin: I knew that never again could fear limit what I might dare to attempt. That's a line from the Lady of the Bracelet definition that I'd always struggled to imagine for myself, but that very line is what spoke to me as I floated back towards the tower to retrieve my clothes.
Coming down from the tower, Kate and I gasped and giggled and stumbled around with big gestures and big remarks -- "Can you believe we just did that?!?!" "Ohmygod that was the greatest thing ever!" -- all because, in that moment, we were truly soaring on top of the world. When we reached the bar to order a pair of Nile Specials, never had the brand slogan seemed so fitting:
You've earned it.
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