The Sky is a Matador

Are you the ocean, or are you the sky?

My mother had always taught me to grab life by the horns. Take reality into my own hands if I wanted it to truly mean something.

“You grip those two horns in each of your hands, and you ride life as if it’s a wild animal. And you know what? Life’ll always try to buck you off, kick you, throw you to the dirt and smash your spirit. That’s the nature of existence. Some people say life is kill or be killed. I say it’s ride or be ridden.”

Ride or be ridden.

Those words echoed in my mind as I sat there behind the gate, waiting for life to commence. The life I’d chosen. I wasn’t like my mother. My mother was an impressive woman. She gave new meaning to the idea of the ride. I guess some would call her an adrenaline junkie, though for me that doesn’t quite sum her up. Anything to do with the sky, she was there for it. Skydiving, base jumping, paragliding, and everything in between.

“The sky represents freedom, never forget that. Name one other thing in existence that is as vast and as free as the open skies? The ocean, maybe one could argue. But even the ocean is a slave to the sky. If you were to take a cup of water from any ocean in the world and bring it back here, to me, what colour would it be? It wouldn’t be any colour, of course. Water is clear. Colourless. Transparent. It reflects what it sees. Like a mirror. An adaptive membrane, you could call it. Though unlike a mirror, the ocean is living, moving and pulsing to its own rhythm. A truly powerful entity. So then how is the ocean blue if water is colourless? It’s because it reflects the sky. That’s a scientific certainty. The colour of the ocean is a reflection of the sky, just as a human is a reflection of their God. So then, couldn’t one argue that the sky is the God of the ocean, a matador manipulating the water to its will?”

The sky is a matador.

The last time my mother ever dove out of a plane was when I was 12 years old. It was with a small group of skydivers, seven in total, all wearing GoPros on their helmets or strapped to their hands. They’d been asked to be a part of a small video project. The film was going to be called Adrenalines Peak. Though it was never released. On the day of the jump, the parachute of one of the boys didn’t open. A streamer of rope set off like signal fire into the skies, but no parachute emerged. My mother was the last to exit the plane. Before pulling her chute, she noticed something was wrong with one of the jumpers. He was flailing like a gelatine doll being thrown off a building, his unopened parachute rope swirling like a dancing stream behind him. She knew what was happening immediately, holding off her release to manoeuvre herself towards the writhing dot in the sky. Time was of the essence, and she worked out the mathematics in her head as she moved.

At minimum, it takes 600 feet of free fall for the parachute to open. 400 feet worth of glide time to land without injury. Which means the parachute will need to be deployed by at least 1000 feet.

But knowing the maths didn’t help her implement the necessities required to prevent a catastrophe, and by the time she got to the young 20 year old jumper, he was in a state of hysteria, trying everything he could to make something work. His reserve chute seemed to be faulty too. A double whammy of disasters, like destiny had determined his fate before he’d even jumped out of the plane. A slave to his own nemesis.

The ocean is a slave to the sky.

Luckily, my mother never believed in fate. She was not the ocean. She was the sky. She was not the ridden, she was the rider. And so she rode on, a member of the enslaved breaking her human shackles to become a matador of the sky.

Voices don’t exist when you’re falling from the heavens. The only audible sound is the rushing of wind and air going against your fall, opposing you like there’s a battle being waged for your soul. Gravity fighting against the air. Spoken words are left behind to echo at an altitude beyond human ears, vanishing into the ether. So my mother attempted to calm the hysterical jumper through action, quickly working to remove his backpack and toss it to the gaping sky. An oblation in exchange for success in her pursuit. Being my mother, she never did anything without risk, that was her physical aphorism, acted rather than spoken, so she began removing the latches of her own chute strapped around her waist. Something you should never do while plummeting towards the earth.

1500 feet.

Being an avid, experienced skydiver, she was able to estimate how high above the ground she was at any given moment using her eyes alone. She had time. With the straps undone and loosened as wide as they’d go, she grabbed the young man from behind, using the belt latch to strap him to her like a helpless infant. A plan of wit and danger, and everything my mother stood for.

1200 feet.

Taking his hands, she clasped them around her shoulder straps, a forceful inference for him to hold on tightly, then she wrapped her legs around his waist. 1000 feet to go and she was ready. She released the parachute and they both held on for life.

You grip those horns, and you ride life as if it’s a wild animal.

By this point, they were already closer to the ground than all their peers who were parachuting to safety, floating above them like helpless little balloons, watching like spectators at a theatre performance. Or a bullfight. My mother versus the sky. The parachute released without any issues. They were home free. They’d conquered gravity, the ridden turning the tides to become the riders.

Unfortunately the ordeal was not over. They were approaching the ground too quickly, my mother realising that her calculations were wrong. They were much lower than she’d thought when she’d first released the parachute. A miscalculation by at least a few hundred feet.

The sky always wins against the ocean.

My mother isn’t the kind to give up, even in the face of defeat. Of death. She knew she needed to counterbalance the weight. They were going over a small body of water. A lake of some kind. It’s depths weren’t clear from their vantage point but she knew she needed to take action. So she undid the strap from around her counterparts waist and dropped the hysteric jumper from about 100 feet. He landed with a small splash into the blue that reflected the sky. It was over for him. He’d been saved by a rider. A matador. But it wasn’t over for her. She was unable to get herself free of the parachute, now heading for the cold, hard, unforgiving ground still too fast, the transparent, flowing membrane of water now behind her, like a bad joke. The one thing that could’ve saved her was the opposite of what she wanted to be.

The ocean reflects the sky.

She’d been expelled from the sky and thrown back down to earth, a fallen angel, as if God himself needed to prove to her that she was a mere mortal, never to be anything more. But my mother was a hero. She was the sky.

Miraculously, she survived and came out of the ordeal with a broken leg and an avulsion fracture in her groin. The boy suffered from mild post traumatic stress, but my mother was back to full health within six months. A hero. That’s what my mother was. A true hero. She’d cheated death and saved another man all while riding life like a bull, against the fate of a higher power. She was the sky dressed in an earth dwellers cloak.

“Maybe I am just a woman. But I’m a woman who beat God in one small moment. A human who defied gravity. And you can be that too. Just remember all the things I’ve told you. It all comes with a single decision. A will to defy fate. For you to go along at the head of the ride. Like a conductor. Don’t let the ride drag you along on its coattails. Never forget that.”

And I never did.

Seven months after the jump, my mother was celebrating a friends wedding in a remote farm area along the countryside. Standing in the field with a few friends, sipping champagne, and wearing her nicest aqua silk dress, she looked the epitome of a fallen angel straight from the skies. A drunken guest had found his way into a paddock and was terrorising one of the horses, attempting to make it drink whiskey for the amusement of his friends. The horse spun into a frenzy and came galloping out of the paddock. My mother didn’t even see it coming. The horse kicked her from behind, straight in the back. She broke her spine and her ribs, damaging her organs and perforating her kidneys. She died in the hospital. The name of the horse that killed my mother was Sky.

Ironic, to leave this life under such random circumstances after living a life spent defying death and chasing the rush of adrenaline that can only be fuelled by risk. My mother was a hero. I always thought she’d die as such. Protecting her view of the world. A faulty skydive couldn’t even beat my mum.

Ride or be ridden.

My mum always rode. She took the horns in both her hands and steered the bull with all her might. I’ve never forgotten the way she lived.

“Are you ready?”

My trainer was looking into my eyes. I nodded and looked out past the gate again. The smell of freshly mowed grass, hay and grain mixed in with an aroma of animal faeces hit me like a warm memory.

“Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. We’ve done the work. Put your faith in him.” He nodded down to my partner. “Just remember, life is just one big ride. All you have to do now is just that. Ride.”

Just ride.

I looked down at my partner, straddled between my legs and gave him a pat on his mane. The obstacles beyond the gate stared at us.

“We’re in this together,” I said, rubbing his neck. He blew a calm breath of air form his nose.

My mother fought against fate. I realise now that she mistook herself for the sky. She wasn’t the sky. She was an adaptive membrane all along. A reflection of the sky. She was the Ocean. Who’s to say who’s the God of who? Is it the sky that rides the ocean, or does the ocean ride the sky? Either way, my mother was a hero.

My trainer petted the soft line of the horses jaw beneath me.

“Don’t worry, he knows what he’s got to do, don’t you Ocean?”

A horse named Ocean.

My mother, a matador of the sky.

My mother rode life like a bull. But I’m not like my mother. And I don’t think I’ll ever be.