The day I faced my fear of heights – and won
<p><em><strong>Maggie Wildblood, 75, has been writing for years and has just completed a memoir. Here, she remembers the time she faced her fear of heights – and took a leap of faith.</strong></em> </p>
<p>Here am I, more than a little over fifty, overweight, hungover. Not an auspicious beginning for the adventure of my life.</p>
<p>This is the final residential of a course at University of Western Sydney, Richmond, and again we students have been encouraged to attempt something new, challenging. I’ve tried many things, from performance poetry to Greek dancing, but nothing really physical. </p>
<p>Some of the more adventurous have gone abseiling. They’ve come back full of adrenalin and achievement. I’d like to feel that too, but given my recently acquired fear of heights, abseiling would be unwise. Wouldn’t it?</p>
<p>While I’ve been telling myself to do something like playback theatre or even bushwalking, an irritating internal voice has been urging me to face my fear of heights. Abseiling, it says, would be perfect. This is my last chance: if I don’t do it now, I never will. Abseiling will join a growing collection of things I’ll wish I’d done. </p>
<p>Last night Carol, another “mature” student, and I sat in the bar with the rest of the abseilers. Most were male, all were much younger than us. Downing white wine freely, we ignored the hands of the clock edging towards midnight, closing time. We decided Carol should doss down on the spare bed in my motel room, borrow some of my clothes for our adventure. We slept fitfully, a combination of alcohol and apprehension. When the alarm squealed at half past three we woke unwillingly, sat on the edges of our beds groaning with regret.</p>
<p>We dress after a quick shower, gulp one quick coffee: no lavatories on the mountain.</p>
<p>Now we’re huddled in the car park with the rest of the group, shivering, all of us bundled up in every piece of clothing we could find. Noses peep redly from scarves, eyes peer blearily from under beanies, gloved hands nestle in armpits. Richmond is cold in July. <em>Very</em> cold at 4 am.</p>
<p>We pile into a couple of cars and we’re away. Too late to back out now. </p>
<p>It’s black, that deep blackness that settles just before dawn. Headlights illuminate two figures standing by a beat-up ute on the roadside: Jack, our instructor and his sidekick, Bill. Clambering into the ute, they take off up the highway, make a swift left onto a dirt track almost invisible in the night. We follow, bouncing behind their vehicle along a rutted trail, headlights bouncing too against tree trunks bearing the scars of recent bushfires. We smell those fires now, months after they roared through the National Park.</p>
<p>In that intense darkness conversation becomes more and more desultory, stops.</p>
<p>Parking in a clearing, we tumble out of the cars. Our breath puffs into the cold. Jack rolls the tarp back from the ute and produces ropes and more ropes, metal rings, hard hats, a billy, water, mugs, a box of bread. He distributes them among us. Arms full, we follow the light of his torch, stumbling over roots and pebbles to a large flat rock. Around us birds begin to stir. Small cheepings, chirpings, warblings. </p>
<p>“Don’t go near the edge,” Jack warns. “It’s a long way down.”</p>
<p>The sky lightens slowly. Distant treetops appear almost hesitantly against a pale sky that is suddenly pink, suddenly red. The sky burns without flame. A kookaburra pierces the morning with its song, is answered by another.</p>
<p>We collect sticks, light a fire on the rock, our faces strained in the flames flickering. The scent of eucalyptus smoke swirls in the stillness. Jack makes tea; we burn bread for toast, butter it, eat it. No one speaks. By the time it’s fully light we’ve finished. The remaining tea is poured over the fire, then every ember, every spark, dies under Bill’s heavy boots.</p>
<p>After Jack’s meditation exercise the air of apprehension lessens. Bill disappears.</p>
<p>“Now you should all have a pee,” says Jack. “Once in your harnesses it’ll be too late.” </p>
<p>The men stand together, backs to the clearing, trousers sagging around their bums, just like the backs of elephants. They chat companionably. We women squat separately, silently, the scallops of our buttocks white against the low shrubs. There’s the hiss, the acrid smell of urine. </p>
<p>As instructed, we wrap ourselves in metres of webbing: around our shoulders, our torsos, between our legs, attach metal clips. Jack inspects us, one at a time, pulling and tugging at webbing, checking clips, making small adjustments. No room for error. No way to pee now either. We’re all wrapped up, a muddle of bulky packages.</p>
<p>I’ve avoided looking over the edge of that big, flat rock. I’ve admired the sunrise, watched the eucalypts on the other side of the valley fringe with gold the moment the sunlight hit them. Looking down is not for me just yet.</p>
<p>I’ve heard of previous abseilers who’ve scraped hands, knees, elbows; who’ve swung upside down until they managed to turn themselves around; who’ve slipped coming back up the cliff. Now I’m about to jump backward over a cliff, in a hard hat and a tracksuit, hoping to land on a ledge where Bill is supposed to be waiting.</p>
<p>Sometimes in a lift my stomach plunges. I have that feeling now. I watch as one by one people hitch up, walk backward, disappear over the cliff face, accompanied by cheers. I see their faces glowing on their return. Being older than all of them doesn’t mean I can’t do it, I tell myself firmly, unconvincingly. Anyway, Carol’s going first, we agreed on that.</p>
<p>Her turn comes. She balks. </p>
<p>“You go first, Maggie. I’m only here because you persuaded me.”</p>
<p>Expectant faces turn toward me.</p>
<p>“Come on Maggie, come on, you can do it!”</p>
<p>I hook myself onto the descent ropes, their rough fibres somehow comforting, settle my hard hat firmly on my head, back to the edge of the rock, sneak a look. The valley floor is hundreds of metres below. Treetops peer above the morning mist, sway gently as the cold air rises. Those trees might look soft, velvety even, but they won’t cushion me if I fall. That mist, fluffy, featherlike, I’d slide through that like a beer down a thirsty bloke’s throat.</p>
<p>I teeter on the edge, clutching the rope. I have to lean out at right angles to the cliff face, legs and back straight. When I edge myself over the rim, I’m persuaded to let the rope go and stand, arms outstretched, held only by the webbing and the clip, posing for a photograph. Madness! I don’t look down for the ledge I’m to land on about twenty metres below, the ledge from which all the others have returned.</p>
<p>I walk my way down the cliff, concentrate on keeping my back straight, watch my feet, watch the rope snake through my hands, seeing only the spot where next I’ll put my foot. Suddenly, there‘s a large black hole. The cliff face has disappeared into a cave! What should I do?</p>
<p><img width="370" height="250" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/23543/maggie-abseiling_370x250.jpg" alt="Maggie Abseiling" style="float: left;"/></p>
<p>Without thinking I leap out and back, ropes flying. I land about three metres further down the rock face, below the cave. Cheering erupts above me, faces grin over the cliff top. I wave at them, overwhelmed. My impulsive leap was the right thing to do.</p>
<p>“Look, look, Maggie’s been rappelling,” someone calls. If that’s what a terrified leap into the air is called, well, I’ve certainly done that. It’s easy now to continue down the cliff into the waiting arms of Bill.</p>
<p>Unhooked from the descent ropes, I’m hooked now into a new set of ropes for the upward climb. I thought the descent was hard. This is much, much harder. I have to clamber, unaided, up the rough sandstone, finding finger and foot holes. Small rocks tumble from beneath my feet. Small branches bend under my anxious fingers. I clutch at tree roots, place my feet on stones, trusting they’re integral parts of the cliff itself. Pebbles slide, the soil is sandy, nothing appears solid. There’s no one cheering me on, giving me support now.</p>
<p>The exhilaration I felt as I leapt out from the rock, the triumph of landing, all have vanished. I can think only of “down there”. My fear of high places returns. My arms tremble, my hands hurt, my feet slip, muscles in my legs ache. Never have I been so frightened.</p>
<p>At the top, I’m panting with fear, not exertion, not exhilaration. I crouch on my hands and knees until my trembling eases, grateful no one is looking. In a pocket I find a handkerchief, scrub my unexpected tears. </p>
<p>I stand and quite suddenly I experience my own sunrise. My achievement was not going down the rock face with the encouragement of the group, nor leaping backwards to avoid the cave. It was that dogged fight to get back up to the top, unaided, alone. Overcoming my fear: that’s my victory.</p>
<p>I rejoin the others, cheering on the last few, loud as the loudest.</p>
<p><em><strong>If you have a story to share please get in touch at <a href="mailto:melody@oversixty.com.au">melody@oversixty.com.au</a></strong></em></p>
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