Illusions are a funny thing.
I’ve seen a lot of pictures (ok, at least 3) over the years of people in mid air, smiling, legs kicked back and bent at the knees, looking carefree and sorta coordinated.
And somewhere in the back of my (somewhat older than any of those people in the pictures) brain, I had the "illusion" that I could make that exact same pose and grab it in a picture.
Some might call it a wild hair.
Others might call it a narrowly missed disaster.
Either way, it was Not what I had envisioned when I set out on this adventure.
I’m not sure whether it was a good or bad thing, but Mac was home one evening last week when I got this bright idea. He was remarkably calm when I told him I wanted to jump off the deck and have him snap a picture at just the right time.
He did think I might have lost my mind just a little bit, but hey, what the heck, right? I’ve done a LOT crazier stuff in my life and he’s known me for 26 of those years.
So we walked outside and I explained I was going to jump off the deck, kick my feet up as I was up in the air and he needed to snap a picture of me smiling as this was happening.
I think it was THAT POINT when he really thought I had gone over the edge. But, again, he just shrugged and went with it…totally ok with me jumping off the deck and asking him to capture it for evidence.
I should probably point out that the edge of the deck was about 6 inches from the concrete that I was going to land on.
And since I don’t math and certainly don’t science, I didn’t do any calculations on body mass or body weight and the aerodynamics of getting x amount of body mass up high enough to have time to kick said feet up and land approximately 6 inches from where I began.
I think that was my downfall RIGHT THERE…
We had a semi crisis when neither of us knew how to work my phone to make it take a succession of photos in quick motion so I told him to just hold down the shutter button (ha - like a real camera!) and see what happens.
NOTE: When you hold down the shutter button on an i-phone, it changes to video. So I told him to just snap them real quick like and it would work….sure I would become a gazelle at that moment and be elegantly leaping…..like 11 lords or something.
I was ready.
In my head, I could see the entire scene take place, visualizing it in slow motion, the air lifting wisps of my hair and my arms gracefully arcing at just the right angle so as to not look like I was panicked while my knees bent and my feet kicked back and made me look like the gymnast I most certainly was.
In reality, lifting this much body mass up high enough to make ANY of that happen obviously requires at least a little bit of strength and maybe even some practice. And probably a height of more than 6 inches.
But I just gotta tell ya…..when I mustered up enough umps to actually jump, I was SO thankful that it was only 6 inches from where I jumped down to the next level….but I was really wishing it wasn’t concrete I was landing on.
Have MERCY y’all….WHAT WAS I THINKING???
Everything I had jarred when I landed…and that’s a lot of jarring, just so ya know!
And those feet kicking back with knees bent and a smile on my face?
Bwahahahahaha ~ ahhh, no.
They barely left the ground.
Maybe next time I’ll math and science.
Or use Tater’s trampoline.
Or just forget the whole thing, grab a margarita and snap a picture sitting in my rocker on the front porch.
Because this Illusion got popped
Glitter & Grace, y’all!
Sasha
PS ~ in the middle picture, you can see how much 'air' I got...