Rose's Guide to the Chestnut Ridge Zipline

So on that Friday I planned in my complacency, Here goes, I'll sign up for Zipline & Archery and do archery the whole time. Like last year.
And when we get there Alaister says, "Everyone is going to try the zipline."
! thought I.
So I buckled on a harness and waited by the picnic table, among the other doomed campers. I got out my poetry book and tried to find something encouraging. Nikki saw. (Nikki is an amazing counselor from England, who likes snakes.) And I find out she also likes Literature. Especially poetry! We shared the book. It helped to stay my extreme trepidation and trembling.
So then I said "I'll bag rope for Hailey." Which means I go down the steps and into the trees, to the little clearing where the zipline tree is, and stick the loose belaying rope into a bag while the belayer . . . uh . . . belays. Nikki swaps into being the belayer, and Hailey starts the climb. WELLLLLL the poor child starts crying almost as soon as she gets off the ladder and onto the climbing staples. And cries the whole way up. And at the top, on the platform, she's scared of going off. She stays there for maybe 20 minutes while I'm standing there at the bottom next to Nikki, like an idiot, nuttily frightened of the whole thing myself. We're all shouting advice up to her, and encouragement, and safety statistics (those last from the counselors). Then she wants to go back down the tree, and nearly does it, but gets too scared and goes back to the platform.
We aren't getting to archery today, thought I.
And finally the poor girl gets her courage up and, with a scream, actually slides off the platform. Whew.
Then there's a new problem. It's my turn.
Just then the camp photographer comes up and says he wants a video of someone going off the zipline. So we send up the video cam equipment, and I'm given an extra tape to put in my pocket, in case it's run out.

And I begin to climb.
I climb the staples. I don't look up. I don't look down. I don't look sideways. I look at the tree. It's a nice tree. I like it. I like the staples, too, and my belaying rope that keeps me safe. And the belayer at the bottom. Same.
I get to where I have to pull myself up onto this little platform 45 feet up in the tree. Alaister is waiting for there.
"Alaister," I say. "As a fellow Lord of the Rings fan, I beg you - say something encouraging."
"You're nearly there," he says, or something like that.
I reach out my hand. "Help me," I say. He helps me. I shut my eyes. And keep them shut.
Up on the platform Alaister takes my pulley, the one that each of us carries up. He hooks it onto the zipline. At least I think that's what he does - my eyes are closed. He spins the lock and hooks it onto my harness. Then he takes off my belaying ropes.
He tells me to sit down. (I must have told him I wanted to sit off the platform, not step off standing.) I try, but the pulley's not long enough. He hooks me back onto the belay rope and does something (I didn't look) with the pulley. I think he might have given me a new one. Then he spins the lock and puts the carabiner back onto my harness.

Somewhere during all this: "Alaister," I say, "pardon my word choice - pardon my colloquialism - but would I be the first person to throw up, up here?"
Alaister thinks for a second. "Probably not," he says in his crisp accent. "But you'd be the first one I've seen do it."
I ponder. "I wouldn't like to go down in history as that."

I sit down on the platform and scoot forward till I'm on the edge. I'm rattling off the 23rd Psalm under my breath. Alaister tinkers with the camera. Then he says, "Go whenever you like." By then I've moved on to Psalm 91.
My feet swing into nothing. Blindly, eyes shut, I face outwards. I know it must be very high. My pulley is hooked to the zipline, my hands grasp it, my helmet is fastened, my harness secure, my heart racing, fear cramping inside me.
Can I do it? I think. Or will I make a fool of myself at the last?
But then I push off.

And I open my eyes a split-half-second later.

I'm flying.
Over the dusty road, over the little trees by the lake . . .
The wind dazzling my face. I don't think of the pulley or the harness, or the height. It's not too fast - I can revel in flight. It's not too slow. It's perfect.
Over the green-glass lakewater . . .
The line is singing, humming.

At the catching-place Austin catches me. He pulls me up to the ladder where I can get off. As I get up, as he unhooks me, I'm trembling, my legs shaking.
"Were you scared?" asks Austin. Or something of the sort.
"Why do you ask?" I say.
"You were screaming."
"That was . . . because it was wonderful," I answer.

Later I remember I never gave Alaister the extra video-tape.
Oops.