When I was fifteen, like most American teenagers, I was desperate to drive. My friends and I longed for freedom (though we were far from unfree) and the unfamiliar (really, life itself should have been strange enough for us at that age) and were convinced that as soon as we got our licenses, we would drive out to meet the world and the world would come to us. 

Big Events that we couldn't yet even imagine would transpire. Weren't our desire and longing grand enough to merit such a reward? It turns out that the most exciting result of this momentous right of passage, the procurement of a driver's license at sixteen, was that we were able to stop for coffee every day before school, and sometimes, if feeling really rebellious, return to the same coffee shop for lunch. Driving widened the circumference of our lives by approximately four miles. But, that's not what this story is about. 

This story is about secrets, and what we do when we are burdened with someone else's secret. And, also about vulnerability and how blind we sometimes are to our own. 

Driver's Education happened to everyone. No one complained much about it, since it shook up the regular routine, which definitely needed shaking. Plus, we could take the classroom portion of the program with our friends, provided our birthdays fell around the same time.  After hours of driving observation, course instruction and countless cautionary videos—the instructor warned us of their graphic content, unaware that we'd just watched Pulp Fiction in the theater for the third time—we would finally get behind the wheel. Granted, this particular wheel would be in a car festooned with embarrassing STUDENT DRIVER signs, and the driving instructor would be riding shotgun, his foot hovering over his specially designed passenger side brake; nevertheless we were thrilled. 

My driving lessons took place on summer days, which had been, up to that point, lazy. Innocence is long and unperceived. Summer upon summer, we had run between houses, scorching our young feet on burning sidewalks, feeling punished by boredom of our own making. Then sprawled on carpets and cool soft couches we would talk endlessly about life or read books side by side. Massive pizzas would be eaten, VHS tapes played. Occasionally, prodded by mothers fed up with our sloth, we fashioned half-adventures out of walks to Thundercloud Subs and trips to the mall. 

So we were ready to grab at any shred of the banner of adulthood hanging in front of us, and I was hyper with excitement when I finally got in the crappy little red car for my first hour of driving practice.

After less than five minutes on the road my palms were pouring sweat, slipping too easily from the correct position of ten and two. In the back of the car were two other students who were logging their requisite hours of driving observation. Furtively, I took one hand at a time off the wheel and held them in front of the blasting air conditioner.  I could feel my anxiety leaking over onto the previously calm instructor, who sat straighter and straighter in his seat.  "Easy, easy," said the middle-aged teacher, poised rigidly with adrenaline, as I rolled down the street at half the speed limit. Suddenly I realized I was responsible for every single body in the car, whose exoskeleton was not enough to protect the life within—everyone needed their own, like hermit crabs. 

Slow motion crashing cars from the safety videos crumpled one after another in my mind. This was too much power. I wished I was in the backseat, at the mercy of some other nervous teenager, not the one in command. A new facet of my personality blazed—I would prefer to be the observer, a position in which it's far easier to convince oneself of security, and, if forced into a position of control, I would at least like the luxury of not being watched. 

Sometimes the universe answers a silent plea, and thanks to some scheduling miracle, I didn't have any more student observers for the rest of my driving hours. It was just me and my new instructor, who had recently started teaching at the driver's ed school. I was happy to have the teacher from my first hour replaced by this younger one, who was more laid-back and relaxed. He wore shorts and casual t-shirts that stretched over a big, friendly belly. He was so chill that he seemed impervious to my anxiety. In the passenger's seat he rode like a friend, his elbow out the window, and occasionally he would lean forward to turn the radio dial, looking for a good station. Every so often he'd point out where to turn, but it seemed more like a suggestion than an order. Unlike my friends' instructors, he didn't make me do anything scary like take the highway or parallel park. 

It was like an episodic road trip. All that was missing from the scene was a plastic bag full of snacks from the 7-Eleven. I don't remember how many hours we logged, but even one hour is a long time to make conversation, especially when cruising slowly around wide, quiet neighborhood streets. Whereas I could talk for days to my friends, I didn't have much to convey to this man in his mid-twenties. He wouldn't understand my particular plight of itching to start life, as his had already begun. Plus, I was concentrating on the road. So, I listened and asked questions, and hour by hour, he began to reveal himself. He talked deeply about his life, his upbringing, his move to Austin, what he wanted to do, his loneliness. Just like two friends on an endless empty road. 

During one of our last hours he began talking about how he had never had luck with girls. 

Here we were moving into new conversational territory and I started to feel uncomfortable. The gap between our ages and genders snapped into place between us. I didn't want to hear about my friend/teacher's love life, or lack of love life, but in my hours of listening, a feeling of empathy and complicity had been growing in the car like a protective amniotic sac, and I would not have dreamed of puncturing it by changing the subject or revealing any discomfort in my face. 

Girls just didn't go for him. They saw him more as a friend. Just look at him. Big and cuddly, not the kind of guy that girls want. 

I nodded in sympathy, keeping my eyes on the road. 

So, in the past, a long time ago, he did something he's not proud of—his throat tightened with guilt around his vocal cords--it's just he'd been alone for so long, and he was stupid, and that's just what his friends did.  He would go to bars and wouldn't know how to talk to girls or even approach them. So, a few times, only a few times, he'd put a roofie into a girl's drink when she wasn't looking. 

I swallowed hard. My sympathy swerved away from him toward those unknown girls being slipped rohypnol (was it even then called the date-rape drug?). I looked at the empty console and felt relief that we hadn't stopped at the 7-Eleven and no sodas sat in the cup holders. 

But I listened to his confession as a priest hearing a penitent's regret—at least that's how I felt at the time—solemn, assuming a mask of compassion while, internally, compassion slithered away. 

Even now, describing the moment, there's a whiff of betrayal, like I'm breaking a code of silence. And, in fact, my memory has done a partial job of locking down the secret, because, even though I remember those hours and the beginning of his revelation like it was yesterday, I do not remember how the conversation ended, which is appropriate for a story about a drug that erases one's memory. 

Put a roofie into a girl's drink…  and then, a blank.

Did he trail off? Did he assure me that nothing came of it? That he slipped the sedative into an unattended tropical cocktail, but then slunk away into the night without committing any further crime? I don't know. The information is suppressed, swept away under some heavy, shameful rug. 

What I do remember is my own guilt, which has changed over time. 

First, there was the original guilt in the moment, of hearing the secret (whose proportions also shift upon inspection; one minute I look and it's a small misdeed, the next, a grave one), of a girl who felt she had given tacit permission to accept the burden as a listener and in so doing, became a conspirer. Of disgust at my concurrent and contradictory judgment and pity of him—I understood his loneliness, but not his deception; I understood his feeling of ugliness, but not the manipulation that only magnified that ugliness. 

Then, later, I felt guilty about keeping the story to myself. Even if all he had done was slip a strange girl a party pill behind her back and nothing more, should I have done something? Telling someone at the driving school, for example, was the farthest thing from my mind. But why didn't I whisper it to my friends, my partners on the long road to maturity? Was I flattered that I could be trusted with a grown man's shame, or embarrassed that I had somehow elicited this information? 

I also circled back and told myself that he merely shared this story as a cautionary tale, like one of those crash videos, so that someday I would remember this friendly, lonely man when I stepped into a bar and would guard my own cocktail, covering it with a coaster when turning my back. It was a lesson from a teacher, a warning to me, his student, to stay away from guys like him. 

Maybe over the hours in the car, from the passenger side, I had grown to resemble one of those girls and his remorse built until he forced himself to confess as an act of absolution. Or maybe the fellow-feeling we had conjured was a true one, the empathy real, and he simply felt safe to share. 

But, what is that bond? One between a young man hired to teach left-hand turns and a fifteen year old, fresh to life, buckled in next to him for a required hour? Perhaps the same impulse that drove him to slip a pill into a vulnerable girl's drink was the same impulse that pushed him to reveal a secret to another one: a dangerous mixture of a need to control and a lack of good judgment. 

Or was he just a human doing what humans do, sharing all sides of ourselves, trying to lay some of the heavy burden of being at another's feet, hoping that they will receive it with kindness? 

Analysis and memory deceive. The recovered mental images skid and jump and smear. I almost remember canceling my last hour of practice with him and rescheduling with another instructor. But, perhaps that's just a redemptive wish. It could be that I drove with him one last time with a smile pinned to my face. 

I had wanted to be the observer, and not the observed. I wanted to avoid the highways, but still keep the windows down and the music loud, to keep a child's feeling of safety but also experience the thrill of adulthood. 

Although I didn't do much with my license once I got it, I had already gotten a taste of the complexity of the world. Even when the streets are wide and easy, twists appear, and sometimes our own minds can't be fully trusted, changing perceptions as they do over time, keeping some fragments of memory immersed while letting others drift to the surface to confound us, years later. 

Five years old, walking with my dad / I call him Mom.

New in English class, just finished German, fill out a form with my name and major / I write: Audrey—Englisch.

Shoot off a quick email to my boss; read it after sending / Kind regards, Audlrkey

Running by the river, policeman stops me / Are you okay miss? / Yes, why? / Your face is just so red.

When I moved to Chicago many years ago I chose a tiny studio apartment in the heart of the Gold Coast, because it was in the thick of things, but also because it was directly across the street from a decent bookstore (when alone in a big city, it's always helpful to have a book haven nearby). 

But, until I sat down with the building manager to go over my lease agreement, I had no idea that I was moving a block away from what some locals refer to as the Viagra Triangle. 

After explaining the apartment's pet policy, the building manager, a pretty Chicagoan in her late twenties, said casually, "If you ever want a free meal, you should go to Gibsons. It's just around the corner on Rush Street."

I thought it odd that she would be referring me to a soup kitchen when I had just signed a year lease. Were my shoes that shabby?

"A free meal?" 

"Yeah, in the Viagra Triangle," she clarified.

I imagined a charity group called the Triangle ladling out free hot soup and pressing handfuls of Viagra into grateful palms. 

"The what?" 

She laughed, "You know, all the restaurants and bars down the street. That area's called the Viagra Triangle because it's where older rich dudes pick up women. So, yeah, if you ever want a nice free meal, just head down to Gibsons Bar, wait a bit and a dude will buy you a drink and a steak in no time. My friends and I do it all the time." 

She probably saw the look of horror on my face, because she dropped it and started talking about bike storage in the building. Or maybe her advice was simply part of their welcome orientation: Pets, Viagra Triangle, Bikes, Recycling. 

During the summer I would pass Gibsons with its outdoor tables covered with snazzy green and white checkered tablecloths and look for my building manager with a steakhouse sugar daddy, but I only ever saw families, cozy couples and tourists digging into impressive Chicago-sized plates. I was almost let down. Where were the impresarios and soulfree girls hungry for steak? Everyone looked disappointingly normal. But this was actually a relief, because one day my new boyfriend, who is now my husband, asked if I wanted to meet there for lunch. 

"At Gibsons? Have you ever been there before?" I asked apprehensively. 

"Of course! They have the best steak in Chicago." 

After one lunch there, I too was won over, and I could almost understand how someone might hang out at the bar hoping to be offered a martini and a meal, because it's just that darn delicious. If ever you were to sell your soul for a steak, theirs would be the one to do it for. 

Gibsons would not be Gibsons in any other city in the world. It is quintessentially Chicago. Everything is large and lavish, but its Midwestern values cut through the ostentatiousness; its spectacle is simply the natural result of bighearted generosity. The friendly servers set down huge portions on the table as if they were mothers over-serving their children home for the holidays. 

Before ordering you will be shown a gigantic platter with all the cuts of steak available. The waiter probably presents the same tray of raw meat sixty times a day but from the first to the last table his delivery is just as spirited and magnanimous. He explains each hefty piece with pride and finally recommends the Chicago cut, a twenty-two ounce challenge to good sense. 

And, why not some sides? Now's not the time to get fancy. Creamed spinach and mashed potatoes will do just fine. 

You ask for a serving of ice-cream, as my innocent mother-in-law did one day, and you are presented a towering 6-scoop sundae. You order a slice of chocolate cake or macadamia nut pie, and though the price should clue you in to its size, the server doesn't tell you that it's enough to share with all six of your dinner companions. The waiter wordlessly arrives with a slab of cake that is the size of some European cars. 

"Here you are. The chocolate cake. Would you like some extra forks by any chance?" 

I spent many Saturday lunches at those outdoor tables at Gibsons, and unfortunately, I never once witnessed a transaction like the building manager described. Although there are certainly some interesting characters that frequent the joint, the naughtiest, most blush-worthy thing about the place is the food. 

The world knows that something magical happens in a French kitchen, where years of tradition converge with highly cultivated appetites, a stage set for culinary excellence. And, indeed, a dinner party in France, from its creation to its consumption, resembles a dance. Each person knows her part, whether she is the prima ballerina (the hostess) or part of the corps (the diners). The dinner has been choreographed and honed over centuries, and those ancient moves spool in their very DNA. 

First, there is the aperitif, or "apero" to whet the appetite for both the meal and conversation to come. Talk is light, the champagne bubbly. The smallest nibbles are served. Just a drop of tapenade on the slimmest cracker, a tiny dish of oily black olives, a few buttery gougères. There's no need to rush or overdo the prelude. 

Eventually the group senses when it's time to move to the heart of the matter, and the guests fold their cocktail napkins and make their way to another table, set beautifully and flickering with candlelight. Dishes are produced without the slightest evidence of effort. They seem to appear out of nowhere. Platters are passed, portions served gracefully. A salad is tossed at the table. Gentlemen pour the wine to a discreet level, and it is sipped by knowing lips. 

Attention is paid to the food, but not too much. The company and conversation are the focus, the food the music that enlivens the whole dance. 

Courses are moved through slowly and talk might grow more heated. Weather, children, and vacations have been discussed, so now politics may be introduced, if the guests are willing. By the cheese course tempers have died down, and now full concentration can be paid to the food, like discussing the music after a performance. Dessert is artfully arranged: a basket of ripe fruit and a simple tart, shiny as cleaned glass. A sliveriest of slivers is requested. The diners have dined lustily, but not outrageously. They sip tiny cups of coffee and perhaps thimblefuls of a special digestif. The long meal winds down. Everyone has played their part beautifully. 

As an American lover of food, I am in awe, an appreciative member of the audience, but one who feels deeply awkward on stage herself, as a cook and as a diner; I like to think that my enthusiasm helps compensate for my awkwardness. Although I don't have centuries of culinary tradition on which to stand, I do have good cookbooks, which is how I learned to cook. Years ago I read fat cooking bibles, like the Gourmet Cookbook and How to Cook Everything, cover to cover. Shelf after shelf, I devoured even introductions and silly chapters that explain all the utensils you need and why, which is probably how I ended up acquiring three different lemon-squeezing contraptions. 

But, no matter how much I've read and how much I've cooked, I have yet to produce a meal that is as effortless, or at least as effortless-looking as that of a French cook. The strain can be felt even in the meal-planning stage. Several cookbooks are consulted, notes taken, lists made. A meal as elaborate as Thanksgiving requires its own Excel spreadsheet. If I don't follow the recipe exactly then perhaps the magic of the dish will be missed by one little teaspoon of turmeric. Who knows? (To be honest, things have gotten better over the years as I've gained kitchen confidence, but for formal occasions, I can't take any risks.)

I've had the pleasure to dine at enough French tables to know the general choreography, but there's always something that feels a bit off when I'm the one throwing the dinner party. 

The cooking has begun. Everything that could be prepared ahead of time has been prepared. Now dishes roast and steam and bubble at the last minute for maximum flavor and appropriate heat. I have everything perfectly under control. 

And then a guest wanders into the kitchen. "How's it going in here? Let me help."

What? My concentration is broken, the rhythm's now off. I feel guilty turning him away, but don't want to charge him with any major task. Chef Control Freak is at the helm. 

"Oh, good. You could stir the sauce." That seems harmless enough. 

I try not to let my mouth display my inner snarl as he adjusts the heat on the burner. 

The aperitif is served while I am still cooking. I bolt out to sip some champagne and smile at the conversation and then sprint back to the kitchen to slam pots around. The hors d'oeuvres are good, too good and too plentiful. With my overflowing baskets and platters, I am unintentionally murdering my guests' appetites. They follow protocol, eating what they are served. The saucisson is cut into huge chunks rather than slivers. Thick slices of toasted bread, rubbed with garlic, are being dabbed in olive oil. I can't stop it. It's too late. 

Meanwhile, glasses are being topped off with abandon. Martinis, as well as champagne, have been offered, and so not only are my guests getting full, they are getting drunk. Polite conversation is already veering into dangerous territory. While slathering a radish with salted butter, one guest brings up socialism. Things are going downhill fast. 

The appetizer was anything but a tease, and I can see that the guests would be happier continuing to drink and munch just as they are, but the gargantuan main course must be served. I toss the salad at the table and leaves of dressed lettuce fly out of the bowl onto the tablecloth. 

Because my guests are sensitive, they can clearly see that toil has gone into this meal, not least because of its sheer volume. I can feed the entire block with just the mashed potatoes. And, so instead of being the elegant background music to the conversation, the feast becomes the centerpiece. The diners can't help but notice my expectant face, which wants to shout, "HOW DOES IT TASTE!?" So they deliver positive, drunken feedback, and I can relax a little, until one guest says, "Oh, how interesting to serve green beans at this time of year." Goddamn those out-of-season green beans! 

I don't offer three selections of cheese, I offer nine. The guests do their best considering their dampened appetites, but some look stricken as I announce dessert, which is done to the same extravagant, Jupiterian level as the rest of the meal. Instead of one simple tart, there's a tart, a cake, and a pie. And ice cream if you prefer. Oh, and also some warm cookies. They are overcome by choice. It's like a European, who is used to shopping at a tiny local greengrocer, is now standing immobilized in Walmart. One guest demurs and sits silently in a digestive stupor. Another, tipsily game, takes a slice of everything, and I ignore the conversation to hear what he has to say about the cheesecake. 

Clearly this is a meal cooked by someone whose favorite dish growing up was something called the big-as-yo-face burrito. At the end of the meal, which lacked finesse and balance, and was somewhat out of season, I look around, and to my surprise everyone seems happy and satisfied. It was over-the-top, zany even. So, maybe my dance de cuisine is not the graceful movement that I aspire to; perhaps it's more like a circus, loud, overwhelming and hopefully entertaining.

Never will I have to bungee jump, white water raft, spelunk, or attempt anything else remotely daredevilish. I have nothing to prove. You see, I once went skydiving, and that single afternoon with that solitary jump has given me a life-time free pass to avoid all extreme sports (or just regular old sports, if I find them too scary or potentially embarrassing). 

I know a great rock to climb! Do you want to go?
No. 
Why?! Are you scared? 
Irrelevant. I once went skydiving. 

We can take a helicopter to see the Grand Canyon! It's amazing. Let's go!
No.
Why not? You're missing out. 
Irrelevant. I once strapped myself to another person and jumped out of a plane. 

I realize that there are people who actually skydive as part of their occupation or, even more inexplicably, for recreation. Kudos to them. The world is truly a better place for having them in it, and I am in awe of their steely nerves. For me, the experience was the ultimate test to prove that my body, which had always felt naturally opposed to death-defying leisure, was indeed more sensitive than the average body, or at least that my nervous system was. 

Just try it! You'll like it! 
No, that's what they said about skydiving. 

I would like to blame my friends for dragging me on that excursion, but I only have myself, and beer, to blame. Five of us had gathered on a Friday evening, a drinking game was played, and tipsy plans were hatched. At the end of the night, we had made a very fuzzy, tentative commitment to go skydiving as a group. I had, apparently, enthusiastically signed up. But, I hadn't expected my friend to call me the next morning and explain excitedly that he'd booked a day of skydiving for us the following day. Immediately, while still holding the phone, I could feel a slithery, icy fear run down throat and pool in my stomach. Of course, then, I didn't have the conviction that I have now. I didn't know without a doubt that my preferred speed for traveling through open space is 4.0 mph, ideally with my feet on a sidewalk. Although, I had suspected it. 

Over the years, my friends had pointed out that I was, when it came to a certain kind of fun, kind of a drag. No fun at state fairs. Pointless at theme parks. I thought, perhaps this fear thing was just that, a thing, like an object in the road that I could step over. It felt physical, manifesting as a lump in my throat, a sharp stick in my diaphragm, so maybe if I just chose to bypass them, I would find that there really was something worthwhile on the other side. Mind over matter, right? (Later, this ability to ignore blaring physical panic would prove useful for public speaking.) Maybe I really had been missing out on all the fun.

My big question was, do other people feel the same fear and are simply able to overcome it? Or, does my body manifest more terror than average?

I would find my answer soon enough. 

My friend scooped us up in a borrowed minivan for the hour-long drive to our testing ground. Everyone was in good spirits. The stifling dread was still present, but I was already practicing just going about my business while it was busy working away on my insides—butterflies, more like sharp-beaked raptors, thrashed around in my gut. This was going to be the ultimate experiment, and maybe I was stronger than I thought. Perhaps this experience would obliterate anxiety, and at the end of it, I would be… someone who could like surfing, for example.

We would be falling through a perfectly blue Texas summer sky.  We had signed up for tandem jumping, in which we would be attached to a more seasoned skydiver who was responsible for all the important stuff, like pulling the ripcord to our parachutes. This obviously seemed like a safer option than going it alone. The skydiving center stood on a basic airfield amidst miles of flat landscape. We were the only group of amateurs that afternoon, which was a good thing, because one of their two small planes was out for maintenance, so we would be going up one by one. It was going to be a long day.

The instructors, all men, were intimidatingly serene and reminded me of less attractive versions of Patrick Swayze in Point Break: rugged, bleached and scruffy, with a patina of dirt and danger. Their faces looked like they spent a lot of time at the mercy of high velocity. In a big, empty room they showed us how we would be crouched in the seatless airplane and how to properly position our bodies as soon as we were in the air; ideally, we would resemble excited babies on our tummies, stretching out arms and legs. No one should look like a cowering, compressed ball when being emptied into the ether. In other words, ignore your instincts. 

We were issued our jump suits, and as soon as I zipped it up and looked in the mirror I knew I had made a huge mistake. For I already looked like a big baby in an oversized nylon onesie. We had straps that we had to tighten at the very top of each leg and around our waists so that, over my jumpsuit, it looked like I was wearing a giant, black jockstrap.  
 
I walked out to greet my friends expecting to get a good laugh at how funny we all looked, but for some reason, they looked pretty cool, especially my friend D., the only other girl in our group, who looked like a svelte model getting ready to shoot an advertisement for space suits. 

Since we had to go up individually, I of course volunteered to go last, and that made the wait even more excruciating. D. was the first to go, and the rest of us sat on a wooden park bench outside the base waiting for her to appear in the sky. We first watched her climb into the small plane with her tandem partner and a few other divers who were jumping alone and then take off. When she finally appeared in the sky, we leapt up and ran toward the area where she was going to land, which she did gracefully, giving a little jog at the end along with her partner, and then she shouted, "That was amazing!!" 

"All right! Congratulations!" We high-fived her and listened to her recount their jump as they unfastened themselves from various straps and hooks. 

One after the other, my friends landed out of the sky with the same light touch and shouted enthusiasm. One declared that his life was forever changed, and that he was going to be a professional skydiver. 

By that point, after the long wait, my nerves were in the same state as my over-suit jock strap, tight and painful. But, my friends' unequivocally positive experiences were helping me to psyche myself up. If they loved it, I'll love it!

"Are you ready to rock!?" My instructor asked me when it was time to file into the plane. I'll call him Bullet for the purposes of this story. Bullet was a huge, hulking, buzz-cut blond man, who looked like a descendent of Vikings, and that gave me some comfort. We climbed the tinny stairs into the plane, and I crouched in front of Bullet, who got busy attaching my straps to him. The few other divers in the plane gave me thumbs-up and I tried to smile back without looking like a wild-eyed maniac. 

It wasn't that I was afraid of dying, or rather, I wasn't afraid of the plane going down or my parachute not opening, but as we ascended sharply I was more worried about having a stress-induced heart attack. I poured sweat into my thick, itchy flight suit while enfolded in Bullet's large frame. By the time we reached the right altitude, I was merely a molten feverish skin thrown over a body hollowed out by fear. There was no voice with which to ask to turn back. I watched the individual divers crouch-hop toward the open door and hurl themselves, one by one, out of it. 

It was my turn. Bullet's bulk urged my limp body up to the doorframe. And rocked, one, two, three, out the door, out into the shrieking wall of wind outside the plane. My body was now two lungs, pumped too full, struggling against the loud air, and a mouth, trying with contortions to catch a regular breath. It felt like my lips were clamped onto a gigantic deflating balloon. And then, finally, Bullet pulled whatever cords he had to pull, the parachute opened and I felt like I was jumping over the side of building, hit with full G-force, and painfully pulled back by my giant jockstrap. 

This was the part of the skydive that most people would enjoy, soaring through space, suspended, aloft, free. Fields, and regular life, far below. Bullet passed me two handles to hold that would control our direction in the air, but I had no grip strength. So, he tried to show me some fancy maneuvers himself, where we would swoop in large circles, and I whimpered for him to stop. The cold fear had drained out of my body, and my nerves had chewed through every last drop of adrenaline at my disposal. Now I was human-goo. If someone had taken a picture of me in the final descent, they probably would have captured the drool of an unconscious person. The ground, sweet, solid, life-affirming ground was still achingly far away. 

At last, Bullet reminded me how to properly land, but I knew it was of no use, my gelatin legs weren't my own, and just as I expected, on impact I collapsed on the ground, in a pile with poor Bullet, speechless. 

I had made it back to earth. Rather than stepping over my fear, I had launched myself through it (or, at least, Bullet had). Even when it was a screaming gale force wind bursting inside, I moved forward. 

And, what was at the end of the anxiety-rainbow?

A big pot of spent adrenaline and a lifetime of justification for avoiding extreme sports. 

In all honesty, the experience did help me distinguish when it's worth leaping through fear (a job interview), and when it's wise to listen to your body's preferences. If it's digging in its heels on the way to a surfing lesson, why not just hang out on the beach, reading a good book instead? You can wave to your more adventurous friends as they're smiling on their boards and wait for them with a warm towel and a calm heart. They'll tell you their stories of big waves, and you'll cook them a fine dinner. 

We all have our strengths and passions. Mine just don't involve air masks, jumpsuits, or parachutes. 

Summer is over.

On the chalkboard Mrs. Brown slowly wrote out the letters as she repeated, "Summer is… O-V-E-R."

This was her first sentence to us, her fresh crop of Language Arts students, and it was calculated to send crackles of fear through our young bones. It worked. All of our other teachers had played get-to-know-you games that first day, sowing warm and fuzzy first impressions, assuring us that the year ahead would be a fun one and that school was a cozy home away from home. But not Mrs. Brown. She meant business. Using any means necessary, she intended to shepherd our small souls, on the cusp of puberty, through crucial lessons like how to diagram a sentence and why it's necessary to wear deodorant every day.

Unlike those other teachers, she didn't seem to follow a strict lesson plan. Instead, she taught by divine inspiration and guided with theatrical, military discipline. To us, babies of baby boomers, our egos mostly fluffed and coddled from birth, she was something utterly unfamiliar, both frightening and exciting.

One day we filed into the the classroom to find Mrs. Brown not by the chalkboard, but kneeling in her tweed skirt on the large carpet beyond our desks. She sat silently until we joined her. On the floor sat a packaged bar of Irish Spring.

"Children, you know what this is?"

"Yes! Soap!" It was wise not to assume Mrs. Brown was being rhetorical. She encouraged us to express ourselves exactly.

"Do you use this every day?"

"Yes!"

"Well, that might be true. But, today I'm here to give you a warning. Your bodies are changing in all different ways. Maybe it's already changed. Maybe it will change this week or the next. The point is, it's going to happen, and when it happens, you will start to stink."

The room itself seemed to close in with a humid funk.

"Not your usual playing-around stink, but an adult stink. Before the change, if you forgot to use soap or deodorant, it might not be too obvious, at least for a day or two. But, after this change, guess what? There will be no denying it, you'll stink. So, tell me, what's going to happen if you forget and come into my class stinking?"

None of us could even mouth an answer. We were paralyzed with the fear that we already stank and didn't know it. Maybe I smelled like sweaty garbage to my classmate next to me? How could I know? Had I used soap that morning?

"Well, I'll tell you what's going to happen. The first time, I'm going to be nice and pull you aside and tell you that you stink. But, the second time? If there's a second time, you will find this bar of soap, this very bar, which I keep in my top desk drawer, sitting on your desk for all the world to see.

"And every year, at least once, this bar ends up on the desk of some poor student who doesn't listen to me."

We imagined a dirty, prematurely mustached child coming in to find that relic of shame perched neatly on his desk. The horror.

This style of teaching was wildly, dangerously different than anything we'd experienced before, and our brains and possibly reeking bodies stood at attention. The lessons Mrs. Brown taught us are seared into the folds of my frontal lobes like no other teacher's. She was fearsome and unpredictable and one of the best teachers I ever had.

Another time, she stopped herself in the middle of a lesson on etymology, heeding the call of the Gods of Decency:

"I know you all like wearing those Umbro shorts. No idea why you'd wear swimming trunks away from the pool, but if that's the style, that's the style. Even though those trunks might have built-in underpants, they're not real underpants! You have to keep on wearing your regular underpants in addition to the Umbros! If I see something hanging out of those shorts, I'm going to let you know it."

I've never forgotten Mrs. Brown's practical advice, and not just about the basics of hygiene. For example, no one should dot their i's with anything other than a simple, clean dot; hearts and smiley faces are not diacritics. But, it was her passionate love of books and language, and her determination to instill the same ardor in us, that made her my favorite teacher. Listening to her lecture about the origin of words, we felt like little scholars. She encouraged me to write, and when she read one of my poems, her brow would furrow in concentration like she was an editor going over an important piece.

Mrs. Brown never did reveal a soft gooey center, and we didn't know if she had favorites, but she did give special attention to those of us who liked to read.

Before Christmas she asked me, "How many books do you plan to read over break?"

"Um, three?"

"No, you're going to read at least a thousand pages, and I want to know exactly how many when you get back." Over break I got a thrill opening my small reading log and noting how many pages I'd read after I finished each book.

Mrs. Brown had high standards and expected us to exceed them. She stretched our abilities and expectations of ourselves like we were her fresh warm dough. For fun she would give us mysterious phrases and ask us to translate them into aphorisms. "Class. 'A winged vertebrate in the palmar extremity trumps twain in the foliage.' Quick. Go!" Somehow we made our way to "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".

Unlike other teachers, Mrs. Brown didn't give A's just for effort. In fact, from time to time, she even gave F's. We had heard about F's on TV shows. We thought they were mere elements of fiction used to heighten the drama. But, in her top desk drawer, next to that bar of Irish Spring, Mrs. Brown kept a thick, red felt-tip marker, which she used exclusively to dole out F's, large and circled, in front of the shocked eyes of a lazy student. I'm pretty sure that nothing of the kind was actually recorded in her grade book, but it still made an impact. It was just one more weapon in her teaching arsenal.

She wanted us to leave at the end of the year with a more accurate glimpse of the world that was eventually waiting for us. Our future bosses wouldn't stroke our egos. We had to work hard, deliver results, push ourselves. We couldn't show up to the office unwashed with baggy shorts and no underwear. People were watching and judging.

At the time, we probably complained when some days her class felt like a tightrope walk of shame, but we still felt like she was giving us a peek at something beyond the daily grind of middle school, at the outside world, but also deep within us. Curled inside the core of each of us was our future self with individual talents and drives. She used all the tools she had to root around in us and get to that core and carve it out a bit more. It was a little painful, a little embarrassing, but worth it.

I don't know if Mrs. Brown still teaches. I hope so. I wonder, if she had taught our class in this day and age, would she get flurries of texts and emails from parents at the end of Soap Day or Umbros Need Underpants Day? Would she have to throw away her red marker and stick to a lesson plan? Would some of her special spark be dimmed?

That's not to say that others teachers should use her tactics. Frankly, I don't think anyone else could get away with it. She was a unique package of practicality, stern character, and passion, and it was this blend that made her techniques so effective. She saw us as multifaceted potentialities—dirty rugrats, readers, future citizens—and she addressed every one of them with her stuffed drawer of tricks, following where inspiration led.

At least once a month, when I finish a book or properly dot an i, I think of her and get a chuckle and say a little prayer of thanks to whatever power was whispering those magic secrets to Mrs. Brown.