Jumping

By Laura

Jump Jive an Wail - The Brian Setzer Orchestra

Ah, the art of bouncing. Up and down and up and down. Jumping-leaping-springing-vaulting-bounding. Like plucking at the rubber bands on a home made shoebox guitar, the act of jumping is a freedom, one that normally only belongs to little kids.

One week, my dad decided to take us to the fabled snow, a stuff that my brother had never before seen. That drive, long, unending, numbing, had Dad and I drooling for some excitement while Mom and Ian snored in the back seat. A spike of color appeared over the brown fence among the white houses and the dead gold grass and the flat dull sky we were passing. The inkblot was one of those fantastic jumping houses. I do believe it was Spiderman looming off the roof of it. It was the only vibrating color among mediocre expanses. My heart swelled with yearning to fly around in a jumpy house of mine own. No one over the age of ten openly admits it, but you know you all want one too.

I remember stepping inside one of those sweating, rubbery tents and immediately tripping, falling flat on my face, and then… bouncing back up. The bliss and joy of being able to fall down, slam into, fly up, and flip over the flatly colored walls without the pain that those actions would incur out there—in the real world.

Reality is like trying to inflate a balloon, never knowing, only hoping, that the latex skin holds without popping. Popped balloons would mean that the world discovers your sins and vices and quirks and habits and histories; far too many people are ashamed of the contents of their balloons. The silly, free giddiness induced by using your muscles to get off the ground is the result of releasing your little yellow balloon voluntarily, that ppphuudddt sound of forgiving, losing control on purpose, and having fun.

And it’s not just the personal joy you experience when ricocheting of rubber walls or springing on a trampoline. When you jump, not only are we laughing at you, but we’re also laughing with you:



But those leaps of good intentions, fired by great expectations, can lead to pain. Every jump is a risk. When you leave the ground of solidity, Mother Earth and the world of logic/life/reality, you enter the realm of ether and muses where nothing is as it seems, where the only thing supporting your very tangible, heavy body is a nearly intangible, invisible gas, where everything gets “curiouser and curiouser!” as Alice says.

You think that skipping rope is no big deal? You tense your muscles, feeling firm and ready. Your knees are bent; you straighten them out with a soft grinding noise like drying applesauce: push off from the asphalt, and launch into the air with exhilarating weightlessness, floating, alone, and above. Panic sets in. You can’t handle the freedom. You will go crazy from the potentiality of everything and anything. No support. Body will fall, crush, die. End. But then your feet fall –THOCK—on the ground, just on the other side of the jump rope. You bend and tense to do it again.

Just little jumps. But then there are those who sail off bridges and planes, the Empire State Building. Those who take soaring leaps during the first lunar landing or a heart-pounding hurdles event. Many of these folk are experts, assisted by suits, shoes, or parachutes. Some forego the precautions and leap blindly. Just last year, approximately 34 suicides occurred by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Thirty four people were fed up with life. Thirty four people added their corpses to the sea. Thirty four people wanted liberty from living.

A portraitist by the name of Philippe Halsman discovered the discipline of "jumpology." Halsman convinced many of his subjects, including millionaires, movie stars, and royalty, to jump for a camera. Jumping released a natural face more beautiful than the one composed of boa-constrictor-suits and high-heeled shoes. Jumping allowed his models to relax and become real.

Lastly, I would like to mention the movie “Flubber.” This jolly green blob bounces his way through basketball tournaments, bowling balls, and fights. No other entity embodies the spirit of the bounce better than mischievous Flubber, who congas, bonks, and boosts nearly everyone involved, all with a giddy giggle.

We jump for freedom from law, from adulthood, from formality, from life. Jumping is a way to escape momentarily (or not) from our problems. We jump to test the boundaries of the earth and the gravity that hold us down. How far can we go? Everest? The moon? Pluto? The other side of the galaxy? The other end of the universe? Heaven?

Boing! Boing! Squeak!
Boing! Boing! Squeak!
A bouncing mouse is in my house,
It’s been here for a week.
--“ Boing! Boing! Squeak!” Jack Prelutsky