Bucket List of an Idiot

by Dom Harvey

  It’s an imposing structure, the Sky Tower. Plain and simply, it is a beast. In the skyline of New Zealand’s largest city it is twice as tall as any other building and looks like a giant syringe. It is probably just good luck that it has not become some sort of a statue of worship for intravenous drug users from around the world.

  At 192 metres, the view from the top on a clear day is breathtaking. I have been up there many a time with friends and family from out of town (who somehow mistook me for a tour guide) and even though the option to do so is there, I have never had any interest at all in jumping off it. Riding the high speed lift up and down the tower and standing on the thick glass floor on the viewing level is about as daring as it gets for me these days. And if anybody ever tries to call me out and accuse me of being scared, I politely remind them that I have skydived. Twice. From a height far greater than this silly little tower. That is usually enough of an argument to get someone off my case.

  But the truth is, jumping from a lesser height like this actually scares me far more than jumping from a plane three kilometres up in the sky. I can’t explain why, it just does. Either way I suppose you are rooted if something goes wrong. But at least from up at a greater height there is a little bit more time to ask yourself, WWMD? What Would MacGyver Do?

  Some people have the nerve and courage to do these things in their childhood and then lose their nerve as they get older and more sensible. Sadly that is not me. As a young fella I was too afraid to even go on the rides on offer at the A&P show. So even though the option had been available for many years to jump from the Sky Tower, it was not something I had any desire to do. I am not scared of heights but I am scared beyond belief of falling from heights.

  I know this falling from heights is a stupid thing to be scared of. And yes, I’m well aware that I have a better chance of being killed by choking on a chicken bone, but that does not reassure me—they both sound like unpleasant ways to die.

  I thought the best way to manage this would be to make a booking, so I would have time to mentally prepare myself, psyche myself up and talk myself into this. It worked, too! In the days leading up to the jump I managed to keep calm.

  A good mate suggested I try a thing called positive reinforcement and visualisation. It all sounded a bit airy-fairy, like advice a sports psychologist would give the Black Caps when all they really need to do is stop being so crap at cricket, but I gave it a go and it appeared to work. I reminded myself of some useful facts:

  Nobody has ever died jumping off Sky Tower.

  The speed of the fall is only eighty-five kilometres per hour—slower than driving a car.

  The fall is only eleven seconds.

  The oldest jumper so far was an eighty-six-year-old woman, blah blah blah.

  It would be a filthy lie to say I was looking forward to it, but I wasn’t dreading it and never for one minute did I consider backing out. That is, until I pulled into the car park on jump day. This probably all sounds a bit melodramatic and over the top but the walk from the car park to the Sky Jump front desk felt like what I imagine the walk from your cell to the electric chair might feel like for inmates on death row. I was that big black dude in The Green Mile!

  I got to the payment and assembly area at the base of the giant tower; they call this area Mission Control. There is something quite absurd about going to a cashier and paying $225 of your own hard-earned dosh to do something you don’t really want to do. It defies all logic.

  I got handed a blue and yellow jumpsuit to put on. The suit looked ridiculous but I didn’t care. My mind was occupied by far more important thoughts.

  But somehow the simple act of putting this suit on transformed me from a spectator into a participant. I remember being surrounded by other jumpers who were beaming huge grins and laughing giddily in anticipation. There was even a family of four who had paid $700 for the opportunity.

  We were corralled to the lifts and escorted to level 53! For emphasis I will write that number again in word form, and in caps—FLOOR FIFTY-THREE!

  As the lift raced up my mouth went dry in the corners (usually a warning sign that vomit is in the departure lounge of the human body . . . and pretty keen to get out). Most jumpers were calm, relaxed and chatty. Seeing the young kids bouncing around in excited anticipation reminded me just how irrational my fear was. But this brief moment of common sense faded as soon as the lift doors opened and the view presented itself. Earlier in the chapter I described this view as ‘breathtaking’, but now it was an opponent, an enemy. Now any trace of bravery evaporated and all that was left was terror.

  We were given a full safety briefing. I paid close attention and hung off every word the supervisor said. I stepped into a safety harness which went on the outside of the jumpsuit. Since I had my bulky jeans on under the bright-coloured jumpsuit, the harness gathered up, causing mild discomfort around the genitals and making me look like I was wearing some sort of an adult nappy. It just added to the all-round embarrassment and feeling of total loss of control I was feeling right now.

  As soon as you step outside the tower the first thing that hits you is the change in temperature and just how bloody windy it is up at this height. On a clear day a gentle breeze at ground level can feel like a gale up there.

  They close the tower and cancel jumps on real windy days, so, in one final desperate attempt to avoid jumping, I enquired about the knots swirling around today.

  ‘This wind is nothing, bud,’ the sky jump experts informed me. ‘The tower has to be pretty much swaying before we stop doing jumps.’

  ‘Good to know. That’s great news,’ I lied.

  Before I was guided anywhere near the jump pad my harness was clipped onto the wires and equipment that would spare me a certain death. As I was being locked into place with the winches and buckles I ran a quick but thorough assessment of the two staff. Were they to be trusted? One of them was a good-looking girl in her twenties, and my brain asked and answered hundreds of questions about her in the span of a few seconds. Is she emotionally stable? Did her boyfriend dump her last night? What if Aunty Flo happens to be in town? Is she hung over from last night? In other words, if she is having a particularly bad day . . . will that mean that I am about to have a particularly bad day?

  Clips in. Safety check done. The staff, who I had determined were emotionally stable, sober, happy and reliable, were finished with me.

  ‘You’re good to go, mate!’ they told me with a thumbs up.

  I motioned back with the thumbs up. The problem was, I sure as hell did not feel good to go.

  The metal platform you stand on is about the size of an average apartment balcony and at that height it seems bloody tiny. There are handrails on both sides to guide your four-metre walk out to the edge.

  I shuffled out slowly. About a metre from where the platform ended and the abyss began, I dared to glance over the edge. What a dick move that was—the view sickened me and caused adrenaline to pulsate through my limbs, which were already partially paralysed by fear.

  ‘All right, mate, whenever you’re ready . . .’ the jump master informed me, which I think was a nice way of letting me know there were other customers behind me waiting to jump, so could I please stop procrastinating and just jump without mucking around.

  Outwardly I probably looked fine, maybe a bit nervous and pale but otherwise normal. The staff would have had no indication of my internal turmoil as I took the final couple of steps towards the edge. I was determined to jump on my first 3–2–1–jump countdown because I knew that with every countdown I failed to jump, the chance of me going through with it would diminish and I knew how much I would loathe myself if I had to make the walk of shame off the platform back into the tower to ride the elevator down to the ground floor.

  A few minutes earlier I had watched another man jump while I waited my turn and he had done it with vigour, grace and poise. It was as if he had picked out a cloud and aimed for it as he dived off the tower.

  I would love to tell
you I followed his lead, but sadly, my exit was way less impressive. In fact, it was downright awkward.

  I got myself into position and waited for the green light: ‘3–2–1–JUMP!’

  I obeyed, kind of. It was not exactly what you would classify as a jump. It looked more like the way someone might jump from a van roof to the ground below. I squatted down and placed one hand on the platform for support as I lightly tipped myself over. This move probably spared me one metre of height, which is not going to make any difference when you are 192 metres up, but my petrified brain was not to know that. The tower staff must have been wondering what on earth I was doing when I knelt down but I was actually unable to bring myself to jump while standing upright. What an idiot.

  After leaving the safety of the platform I fell for no more than a second before I came to a halt and started bouncing around, suspended 185 metres in the air. I had studied other jumpers and I knew this bit was coming. They do this so they can take a photo of each jumper but the six- to seven-second midair pause seems like a bloody long time when it is you bouncing on the wire!

  The bouncing around, the height and the knowledge that all that was keeping me alive was a not very impressive-looking wire was too much for me to stomach. I shut my eyes and just waited to start moving again.

  ‘For fuck sake, hurry up and take the fucking photo!’ I said under my breath as the time dragged on.

  I started moving again and as the giant ‘X’ on the landing pad got closer I actually started to enjoy myself. Or maybe it was just relief, like with my skydive experiences. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between those two emotions, relief and enjoyment.

  The feeling of falling through the air parallel to this giant tower was incredible. But even more incredible was the sensation of coming to a halt at the bottom. I had dodged a bullet, I had survived. I had ventured out of my comfort zone and made it back unscathed. What a feeling. The next few hours I felt invincible. I had killed the beast, tamed the tower. I now fully get the beer coaster slogan that says: ‘Do something every day that scares you.’

  The more scared you are of doing something, the better it feels when you do that something and come out the other end alive. I had just done something I would never forget. Every time I see that tower, and as an Auckland resident it is hard to go through the day without seeing it, I remember the moment I conquered it.

  I also remember that feeling of relief after days of anguish. I’ve been asked if I will do it again and the answer is easy. No bloody way—not a chance!

  LEARN TO MEDITATE

  I’m a sceptical type. Not a full-blown sceptic like those people who think the moon landing was done on a film set and the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job by the US government, but I do often mistrust people and ideas unless I can see some concrete proof. This is part of the reason I stopped going to church the day I left home. I was born and raised in a strict Catholic household but as soon as I became old enough to form my own ideas and opinions, I just found a lot of the stories that were shared in church too hard to believe—like the whole turning water into wine thing . . . not even a topnotch magician with a Vegas residency like David Copperfield can do that. I remember one Sunday in church leaning over to Mum and saying something like, ‘It would have been impossible for Noah to build a ship big enough to hold two of every animal in the world, wouldn’t it?’ Instead of giving thought to my reasonable question, Mum just gave me a discreet but incredibly painful pinch and warned me not to be naughty because God was watching. After that I didn’t dare ask her why Noah decided to take a pair of termites on his ark. Surely that was a silly move given the materials at the disposal of boat builders at that time.

  So when I left home I cut ties with my religious past, and since then I’ve tended to be a bit suspicious of anything to do with religion and spirituality. To earn the next tick on my bucket list, I decided to put my scepticism and preconceived ideas on the shelf and get a bit spiritual. I wasn’t sure exactly what this meant, where I was going to start or what I was going to do. I was hoping all that stuff would come to me, or as people who are into this stuff say, I would ‘ask the universe for the answer’.

  Funnily enough, even though I feel a bit sheepish writing this, I think that is what happened. By chance, an old mate of mine, Richie, came round to visit me. I hadn’t seen him for a while, a good few months, and he seemed different. Physically he looked just the same but his demeanour was more relaxed, calmer. Like a guy who had just had a good shoulder massage from one of those Chinese men at the mall with very nimble fingers. Richie was one of these blokes who was always wound up and stressed, so the change was obvious. I had to ask the question, ‘What’s got into you, bro?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he replied.

  I wasn’t sure how to elaborate. Something was definitely different but it was hard to explain exactly what it was. He just seemed less . . . angry, I suppose.

  ‘I dunno, mate,’ I said. ‘You just seem more chilled out than usual.’

  He seemed pleasantly surprised that I noticed a change in him and told me he had started a thing called TM—transcendental meditation.

  I laughed loudly. It was an instinctive reaction. Richie was cut from the same cloth as me. This is a guy who loves his Xbox so much he took it away on his honeymoon to Italy. This is not a guy you could imagine sitting on a mountain top with his legs crossed while wearing those comfy but ridiculous-looking drawstring meditation pants while thinking about being at one with the universe.

  Richie joined in my laughter with a courteous laugh of his own. That was when it became apparent my friend was serious.

  It all seemed a little bit kooky to me, this talk of transcend-something-or-other meditation. But the results were undeniable. My mate had changed and changed for the better. I pushed him for more details.

  ‘Real easy, bro’ he explained. ‘It costs $1800. It takes a few afternoons to learn. Then you mediate for twenty minutes twice a day. You should Google it.’

  Richie knows me pretty well, so I suspect he wanted to keep his answer brief for fear of being ridiculed.

  ‘Yeah, but what do you DO?’ I probed.

  ‘That’s the thing! You don’t do anything. Twice a day, you sit down in a chair and shut your eyes for twenty minutes.’

  ‘That sounds fucked up, mate.’ This is a bad habit I have—when I don’t understand something, I just write it off as being ‘fucked up’. This is an easier way to get through life than actually taking the time to understand stuff.

  I quizzed Richie some more, partly because I thought this could be the spirituality thing covered off for my list, but mainly because I could tell he was excited. I thought it was important to act like I was interested—it’s what a friend does.

  ‘But what do you do when you’re sitting with your eyes closed?’

  He told me he had his own personal mantra that was given to him in a ceremony by his teacher. When I asked, he refused to tell me what his mantra was, because sharing the mantra was forbidden.

  A secret mantra you are forbidden to share, a special ceremony? This was all starting to sound very much like some sort of cult or Hogwarts spell.

  ‘I’ll text you my teacher’s contact details,’ Richie said. ‘You should go to an introductory seminar.’

  ‘I might do that,’ I replied, and thought nothing more about it. I wanted to try something spiritual but this all sounded like a bit too much of a commitment, more effort and money than I really wanted to put in just to get another thing ticked off my bucket list.

  Then something started to happen. You know when you get a new car how you start to notice that same sort of car on the road all the time? These cars have always been on the road—the only difference is you are more aware of them now.

  This happened with me and transcendental meditation; I started hearing about it all the time. Evidently, it is popular with a lot of celebrities. But then again, so are scientology and heroin. I wasn’t going to try it jus
t because Jerry Seinfeld, Russell Brand, The Beatles, Oprah and Hugh Jackman all swear by it—but my interest had been tweaked enough that I decided to attend the free introductory session.

  Martin Jelley was the TM teacher Richie put me on to. I had expected to be taught by a man whose name was a bit less pudding and a bit more spiritual-sounding but Martin was impossible to dislike. He sounded friendly on the phone, warm and softly spoken. We chatted for a bit and he invited me along in a very non-threatening, no-pressure kind of way. I’m a hater of the hard sell so this approach was perfect.

  I assumed Martin would have a certain look. Like an unkempt grey beard and fingers that smelt like stale incense. Boy, was I wrong—Martin looked more accountant than spiritual teacher—clean-cut with grey hair that matched his trousers and shoes and a white short-sleeved shirt with all but one button done up. Even though he did not have one in his breast pocket, he looked like a man who would always have a ballpoint pen on stand-by somewhere.

  Then there was the meditation centre, which I imagined would be some sort of a hall with a wooden floor and no furniture, maybe some Persian rugs and cushions for comfort. In actual fact it was the lounge of a nice townhouse in the up-market Auckland suburb of Remuera.

  My snarky first thought was ‘Ahhh. So this is what that $1800 fee pays for!’

  My second thought was how I really must stop making sweeping generalisations about stuff I actually have no idea about.

  Maybe this meditation thing would be the cure.

  Martin sat in the lounge with his back facing the wall in a chair from a dining room set. Set around the room in a semicircle were a selection of armchairs and two-seater couches, enough seating for seven or eight people.

  There for the free introduction to TM were myself and five other people. Everyone seemed normal enough. There was a guy in his twenties who had been put onto TM by a mate at his work who promised him it would make him less stressed, a mother and daughter who were learning together hoping it might help the teenager’s insomnia, and a married couple who ran their own business and had decided to learn more about TM after reading about it in a book by celebrity jeweller Michael Hill.