With
just two rungs to go, I’m stuck. The ladder, the sort normally propped
against a house by a painter, is leaning against a blue-carpeted
platform that is 23 feet in the air. The platform has no walls and,
aside from a wobbly looking (or so it seems) black metal thing sticking
up from it, offers no apparent place to hold on.
“What do I do now?” In my not-panicked-but-not-exactly-clear-thinking state, it seems like a perfectly reasonable question.
“Keep climbing,” says the instructor, peering down at me with a bit of an amused grin from atop the platform.
Gee, thanks.
“Can I grab that?” I ask, pointing at the black metal thing.
“Yes.”
Well, that’s really all he had to tell me in the first place.
I
have been at trapeze school for less than 30 minutes, and already I
have dealt with my two odd fears: stepping over the top of a ladder and
anything that reminds me of grade school gym class (just the thought of
the President’s Challenge Physical Fitness Test is enough to send this
35-year-old back to bed with a pretend fever).
Read the story on the American Way site.