When our friend Karrolyn Belkis turned 80, she said was so full of joy, she felt like LEAPING. “Wherever I was, I just wanted to jump around and say YESSSSS. Isn’t it beautiful????” She thought people might think she was crazy if she leaped for joy on the streets of New York City.

“I had to do something to be joyous…I had the feeling of needing to jump, leap, make a leap into nothing.” 

“Skydiving seemed like it would kind of pull all that together” so she secretly researched places she could do it safely.

Karrolyn Belkis + SkyDiveMiami
Karrolyn Belkis + SkyDiveMiami

Not wanting to hear people telling her how dangerous it was, and “what was she doing???” Karrolyn didn’t tell anyone her plan until the very last-minute. She arrived in Miami and she told her grandchildren, then headed to SkyDive Miami where she had arranged a tandem dive. When asked how high she want to go, she asked what the max was. 13,500 feet. “I’ll take that one“, she said.

The video of her 80th birthday dive is pure joy (we like it best with the sound off). (Video link here.)

When we asked Karrolyn what the “after effect” of the jump was, she said:

Before I did the jump, I had the sense of a transition, of walking through a door… the sense of a making a transformation from one place to another. I head no fear, no wishes for the past. The trials, tribulations and blessings made me who I am. I felt grateful for it yet was leaving it there. Stepping into something new gave me the sense that there is more and…the more is wonderful.

Karrolyn leap 1

…”there is more and the more is wonderful”…

Karrolyn leap chute

Thanks Karrolyn!!!

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2 replies on “Skydiving at 80: ‘There is More + the More is Wonderful’

  1. So much to enjoy, savor at Improvised Life. But image of cell phone chained to wrist completely depressing. Yikes! Put it away.

  2. What you savor at Improvised Life often often from my photographing the many ideas I see every day, around the city, in the park, at people’s homes. THAT’s why the rig is so useful to me… not to check emails or text or talk, all of which I do little of.

    It’s interesting to see what we attach to the image of a phone…

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