Freeing Venus

The parachute drifted over the churning ocean and set me down on the beach.

I tumbled on the sand to free myself and felt a pinch. A scallop shape seashell, like a clam, had lodged into the soft skin on the side of my right knee.

I separated from the harness and stood on wobbly legs. As I brushed the sand off my shoulders, arms, and legs, the small seashell dropped back onto the sand. A rolling wave swept it out to sea. I looked down and saw that it had left a deep impression in my skin, an impression that never faded.

My first thought was that I had landed harder than my touchdown felt. I had lived by the beach all my life and was constantly stepping on shells and shards that hitched a ride to the bottom of in my feet. Sometimes I got cut and blood would drip from a slight incision. I had scars from falling while climbing on rocks. But with a lifetime of slips and falls, tumbles and trips, I had never experienced an indelible mark.

I was so mesmerized by the impression, I forgot about the plane, the pilot, the other skydivers. I unlaced my thick-soled tennis shoes, removed them, and then my ankle-length crew socks. I left the shoes and socks next to the strewn out parachute.

I walked along the shoreline as the tide rolled out. Steel gray clouds enveloped the blue sky. I heard thunder in the distance. I was alone, but not afraid. I saw a ribbon of lightning on the horizon and my seashell impression morphed from light pink to crimson red, as if responding to the flare in the sky. My knee tingled, something between pain and a tickle.

I had never learned to swim, but that did not keep me from the ocean. I never learned to fly, but that did not keep me from the sky. This was not my first jump, but it would be my last. It was a tradeoff of sorts. Because of my cultural heritage, I was discouraged from getting a tattoo. Now, without needle piercing my skin, I have a permanent impression of a scallop shape shell. Not what I would have chosen this for myself, as I am allergic to seafood. I can eat peanuts by the bag full, walk through poison ivory, be stung by a bee without so much as a welt or an itch, but if shellfish touches my lips, I break out in hives, if I swallow, I could go into anaphylactic shock.

You would think this threat would keep me away from the ocean. But I had just jumped out of an airplane. Truth is, I’m a bit of a thrill seeker. And if I’m really being honest, which is rare, physical challenges get my attention—psychological ones—not so much. Adrenalin is an addictive drug—that inhale of air when the jab of an EpiPen opens your lungs with a jolt.

An image popped into my head as I walked. It was from my grandmother’s house, an unframed poster of an ocean shoreline with the poem, “Footprints in the Sand,” printed in bold black letters. This was not an epiphany, it made me laugh out loud, especially when I looked down to ensure there wasn’t second a second set of footprints. My own were so quickly washed away.

I didn’t need anyone real or imagined to carry me. The sky crackled again, this time the lightning strike was close and my scallop clam shell burned against my skin. I glanced down and saw a white circle shimmering from the base of the tattoo. I turned and started to head back from where I had left the parachute.

I was shocked to see the parachute billowed by the wind and headed toward me. It morphed as it rose and took on the shape of a scallop seashell. Then it drifted onto the sand. A wind gust pushed me into the middle of my newly structured parachute and my auburn hair broke free from my barrette and tumbled down my shoulders.

The thunder clapped again and the sky turned the color of coal; I felt what I can only describe as a six foot tornado envelop me. The wind died down and the sky cleared. Thin white cirrus clouds formed ribbons against the pale blue sky. I looked down. I was naked. I tried to use my hair to cover myself.

I thought I was dreaming and tried to drag myself up from the deep sleep.

I heard the click, and then a voice shouted: “No pictures! You must obey the rules of the Uffizi Museum.”

I tried to turn my head, but I was frozen in place. People surrounded me, staring up at me, speaking in languages I did not understand.

The only thing I was certain of at that moment was that the scallop calm seashell was no longer on my knee. I heard a voice whisper in my ear, “Thank you for freeing me. I will wear to tattoo with pride and like you once did, will jump from airplanes.