1964 was the year I tried to jump off Lookout Mountain. We were up there, my mother, my brother and I, touring the caverns and seeing Rock City with all its strange art and were just then hearing a tour guide explain the legend of Lover’s Leap. Two lovers from warring tribes, it was said, met by a stream one day and found a love most dear. They were determined to spend all their days together despite the enmity from their warring clans. So the young man went up to his bride’s father, the chief of her clan, on the mountain most high to declare one day his devotion to her always. But angered by this lad’s audacity the chief had his tribesmen hurl the boy to his death on the rocks below. Distraught, his daughter also jumped to her death off that fabled cliff. Thence afterwards, that remote outpost was known by the name Lover’s Leap.
It’s then that we come to the gist of our story. Caught up in this tale of starcrossed lovers as surely as the fans of Shakespeare’s theatre were by the Romeo And Juliet of his day, I piped up in a high pitched squeal, “I’m a lover and I’m gonna leap!” and ran towards those rocks below. My shoes clattered over the rocks and pebbles as I ran towards the cliff’s edge and, panting, I could hear my brother’s footsteps behind me. Finally just a foot or two from the cliff’s edge, my brother tackled me. He pinned me down with those strong arms of his that he still possesses today, and said:
“You can’t jump because you’re not a lover. You’re not even old enough to be a lover. Now, c’mon, Momma’s gonna buy us some rock candy.”
“Rock candy!” I squealed with delight, my mind diverted by yet another tale fit to be told. And off we were onto yet another exciting adventure.
Now, some 50 years later, after countless attempts on my life and a number of fabled lovers of my own, I wonder how it is that I am still among the world of the living. Perhaps I’ve yet to find my match. No matter. The spheres turn in their compass and we begin again.
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