I stepped into a cat’s cradle of belts and buckles of the harness that have to be adjusted around the groin and middle. It’s not a great look. I shuffled closer to the precipice I was going to leap from, yet absurdly, in my hyper-adrenalized state, all I was thinking was, does my butt look big in this?
10 years earlier, that thought alone would have held me back—my self-consciousness would have prevented me from seeking out adventure or thrilling experiences. While that feeling had clearly not dissipated entirely, I focused on controlling my breathing and being in the moment.
It was a 350-foot drop, the longest abseil in the world. I could just about make out the white horses of the endless, wild Cape seaboard, with the smudge of Robben Island and Lions Head in my eyeline. Every fiber of my being wondered what had made me, at the sensible age of 54, sign up to abseil Cape Town’s Table Mountain? Vertigo is not just a fear of heights, but a compulsion to hurl yourself off. This was my chance to do something I had waited to do all my life.
I obeyed the command and counted down from five, leaning backwards into the blue void. I was attached to planet Earth with a single rope-and-pulley system. I took the final step, released the catch, and glided quite smoothly down the rock face, before a hitch from above suddenly jerked me upwards, dangling over the abyss. I tried to focus on what I could see, desperate to soak it all up—I spied a rock hyrax scampering across a ledge, the sun bouncing off Camps Bay.
Time loses all meaning when you’re hovering in space. I felt giddy and giggly. I hadn’t expected a jump to stir up the sense of exhilaration that had eluded me since I was a teenager; the smile that couldn’t be wiped from my face. I thought to myself, this is the ultimate in liberation; this sense of untethering. It is a little like falling in love—you feel so alive your heart could burst out of your chest and expand to fill the entire horizon.