The instructors at Fly City, part of the ongoing Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, must have sensed trouble. A man clambered up to join me and my female instructor on the small platform.
I was glad he was there, but embarrassed. No one else in our class had needed backup. Glancing down, I noticed even more onlookers had paused to stare at the empty lot across from the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where a full-scale flying trapeze has been set up and pros from Fly School Circus Arts and the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts are teaching anybody who antes up $55 how to swing on a trapeze.
It was official. I was making a public spectacle of myself.
So I jumped off the platform.
Holding the bar as tightly as I could, out my body went, swinging over the net like a giant pendulum. I felt weightless. Graceful even. It was a glorious feeling.
I laughed out loud as adrenaline rushed through me. I'd never felt so free. I was a kid again, swinging so high I thought I could loop over our back yard swing set, only I was higher in the air than I'd ever been on a swing. I wasn't sure how much longer I could hold on to the bar, but I wanted to go even higher.
All too soon, though, Fly School owner Mary Kelly Rayel called out, "OK, now let go and sit down." I did as she said and dropped into the net, laughing.
Not bad for a first-timer, I thought as I clambered down a ladder. I'd pushed outside my comfort zone, so to speak. Could somebody give me a high five?
I spotted an onlooker who'd laughed at me and said, "Was that you who was laughing? Why don't you try it?"
I was feeling downright cocky about what I'd accomplished until Rayel announced, "The next time, we want you to hang from your knees."
Yeah, right.
