Free Falling
My youngest daughter, Ceci, turns 18 very soon.
It has been fun watching her mature these last few years.
From learning to drive—I lost a little bit of hair there.
To becoming a very accomplished water polo player in high school.
To graduating with honors and distinction.
To finding her own way into life's next chapter.
Both of Sarah's daughters are fantastic. They're like little pictures of Sarah's personality—still unfolding their own wings, learning to fly, but unmistakably shaped by the nature and nurture of their mom.
So they're very easy to love.
With Ceci's 18th birthday coming up, Sarah asked her what she wanted to do. How did she want to celebrate this milestone?
And Ceci, of course, said:
"I want to skydive, Mom."
Holy shit.
One time we were in Hawaii and hiked back to this waterfall. It was pretty far up. It had to be 100 feet tall—or at least that's what it seemed like to me.
It was probably only 30.
But you wouldn't get me up there!
In this pristine location, others like us had ventured down the trail to find the waterfall. And among them were even more adventurous thrill seekers, hiking up a very slippery slope to get to the top of the falls and jump off.
We had been there no more than five minutes when Ceci said:
"I want to do that."
She kicked off her flip-flops, and there she went.
She's such a badass.
I think it's a testament to the love and support Sarah has given her daughters that Ceci can take risks.
She yearns to spread her wings and fly.
And even fall.
But she knows she has a safe place to land.
🪂
And I think all kids do this.
I know I did.
We test the parachute.
Will you really come get me and bail me out of jail when I do something stupid?
Yes.
Will you really help me over a financial hump when I haven't followed your sound advice?
Yes.
Will you always have your door open and continue to love me even though I've pushed you away for years?
Yes.
Oh, how I tested the unconditional love of my parents.
Perhaps somewhere underneath all those questionable and irrational behaviors was a question I kept asking them:
Do you really mean it?
In some ways, I may have been testing them.
Because, you see, they chose to have me. There was no accident.
They adopted me.
Three days old, right out of the hospital where my birth mom had just had me.
When the doctor told my mom that she had 90 days to take me for a test drive, she said:
"NOPE! I'm taking him home and will NOT be bringing him back."
Who does that?
So Danny wanted to test the theory out.
I'm sure there were times Mom wanted to find that return receipt!
Whether I hit the ground hard or came in for a soft landing, they loved me just the same.
I'm sure they did not love some of the decisions I made.
They loved me just the same.
And every time I reached back and pulled that ripcord, there they were.
🪂
I now find myself in a place where it feels like I've jumped out of an airplane.
It feels like I'm free falling.
And that is an unfortunate metaphor for me because I am immeasurably afraid of heights.
When I get up into a high location, something strange happens to my body.
The people I love and trust the most—if they're around me, I watch them with deep suspicion.
You're not gonna push me off, are you?
That's the level of my fear when I feel like I have no agency.
Standing near the edge, I don't entirely trust what will happen next.
Lately, life has brought me some of those same sensations.
The ground feels farther away—yet it's rushing at me.
Some things don't feel certain. And I don't feel like I have control over everything that happens next.
It's me and the air.
But this time, during this particular fall, I looked around.
I saw my brother.
I saw my father.
I saw my son.
I saw my wife.
I saw my community.
People who have supported me in the past continue to support me now.
And I realized something.
I have parachute people.
When things get unsettled, when things get scary, when it feels like I'm falling off the face of the Earth, I reach back and give that ripcord a gentle yank.
The fall doesn't disappear.
But there's a much softer landing.
🪂
There is something else I have come to realize about parachute people.
The parachute doesn't prevent the fall.
As parents, sometimes we have to knowingly watch as our children make mistakes.
Sometimes they make the same mistakes we've spent years teaching them not to make.
If they would just listen...
Right??
But sometimes they have to free fall.
A true parachute person doesn't try to keep you in the airplane.
They don't say:
Don't jump.
Don't risk it.
Don't leave that job.
Don't start the business.
Don't love that person.
Don't screw up.
Don't change.
A true parachute person lets you jump.
And that may be one of the hardest balances in loving someone.
Wanting desperately to keep them safe while knowing that love sometimes requires that we let them fall.
Looking back, I'm not sure how much choice my parents had in the matter.
I was obstinate, stubborn and determined to make my own damn way, thank you very much.
Fortunately, some of my jumps weren't from very high up. I hit the ground a few times, but nothing broke beyond repair.
My parents couldn't choose whether I jumped.
What they could choose was whether they would still be there when I landed.
They were.
Maybe that's what I had been testing all along.
🪂
As I've gotten older, I've found other parachute people in my life.
My best friend.
My brother.
My wife.
My community.
My teachers.
And, in a different way, even my Yoga.
Because the people who love and teach us don't just wait around hoping they'll be there when we fall.
They help us pack.
They give us things we can reach for when they're nowhere around.
Practices.
Wisdom.
Experience.
Reminders of who we are when, for a moment, we've forgotten.
Sometimes I can almost hear my teacher Arun's voice.
I imagine myself standing near the open door of the plane, the wind whipping around me.
I can feel the anxiety.
The worry.
The fear.
And also the thrill of whatever this giant leap might have in store.
And somewhere in all that noise, I hear him:
Remember your strengths.
Remember your teachings.
Remember who you are.
And remember, I am here.
Maybe that's part of what a good teacher does.
They don't teach you how to avoid every fall.
They help you pack something strong enough to carry with you when you do.
🪂
One of my closest friends was a longtime skydiver.
He competed at a world-class level.
This fascinates me because I still can't entirely understand why anyone would take a perfectly functioning airplane several thousand feet into the sky and then willingly get out of it.
I've taken plenty of risks in my own life.
Some courageous.
Some careless.
And looking back, I think I sometimes confused trust with believing that everything would somehow work out.
Chris taught me something different.
You don't jump out of an airplane simply trusting that everything is going to be okay.
You know your gear.
You know how to pack your chute.
You know what to do when something goes wrong.
You prepare for the fall.
And then you jump.
There's something about that distinction that has stayed with me.
Faith isn't pretending gravity doesn't exist.
Courage isn't believing nothing will go wrong.
Maybe trust is knowing that when something does go wrong, you have resources to reach for.
You've packed your chute.
Isn't that parenthood right there?
We can't remove gravity from our children's lives.
We can't pack their parachutes forever, either.
But while they're growing up, we can teach them about their equipment.
We can help them recognize what keeps them steady.
Teach them what to reach for when things get scary.
Let them practice making decisions while the ground is still relatively close.
And eventually, we have to trust what we've helped them pack.
Then watch them jump.
🪂
A parachute person can't solve your problems for you.
A father can't live your life.
A brother can't make your decisions.
A son can't remove uncertainty.
A friend can't promise you everything is going to work out.
Nothing can stop gravity.
But maybe the people around us can change what gravity means.
The fall still happens.
We still get scared.
We still make mistakes.
Things still break.
Sometimes we land somewhere we never intended to be.
Having parachute people doesn't make us immune to any of that.
It means we don't hit the ground alone.
And maybe that's the soft landing.
Not being rescued from life.
Being loved through it.
🪂
I've spent a lot of my life wondering who has my back.
Who will be there?
Who will catch me?
Who can I call when things go sideways?
But somewhere along the way, the question turns around.
Who trusts me enough to jump?
That's a different question.
At some point, almost without realizing it, we become part of somebody else's parachute.
Maybe it's our children.
Our partner.
A friend.
A student.
Someone in our community.
Someone who takes a risk partly because they know that if things go badly, we'll still be there.
And here's the strange part:
We don't have to stop falling ourselves to be somebody else's parachute.
My father had his own struggles while he was catching me.
My teachers are human beings living their own complicated lives.
Sarah can have uncertainty of her own and still give her daughters a place of tremendous safety.
Parachute people need parachutes too.
Maybe that's how this really works.
We aren't divided into the people who fall and the people who catch them.
We're all doing a little of both.
Sometimes I'm reaching behind me for the ripcord.
Sometimes somebody else is reaching for me.
🪂
And so, very soon, Ceci will turn 18.
And sometime around that birthday, if all goes according to plan, my youngest daughter is going to climb into a perfectly functioning airplane, fly several thousand feet into the sky and, for reasons I will never completely understand, jump out of it.
I imagine Sarah watching.
I'm sure there will be some fear.
There always is when someone we love gets close to the edge.
But Ceci isn't being pushed.
She's choosing to jump.
And maybe that's what we've been preparing our children for all along.
Not a life without gravity.
Not a life without fear or mistakes or hard landings.
A life in which they know themselves well enough to stand at the open door, feel the wind against their face and decide when it's time to leap.
Ceci is ready.
She's full of fire.
She trusts herself.
And underneath that independence is the quiet knowledge that she is deeply loved.
She's ready to fly on her birthday.
And she's getting ready to jump into whatever comes next.
Sarah has spent 18 years helping her pack this parachute.
Now she has to watch her jump.
🪂
ROAR with Love,
Danny
The Emotional Driver
“Emotion Is the Note. You Are the Song.”
