I’ve kinda wanted to go hot air ballooning for a long time, but also kinda had no interest. To me it was like that documentary everyone says you should watch. You know you should, and you know you’ll probably be moved in some epic, fundamental way. Or at least when people ask what you did last night you can say you watched a documentary film, which is basically the same thing as studying abroad. But every time you cue up the documentary on Netflix, you eject at the last minute and watch a movie with explosions and sex or one of those tear jerkers with talking pets. 

Some people’s bucket lists are other people’s maybe piles. 

Hot air ballooning never scared me enough, which is surprising because I’m not very brave. I’ve got medium courage. The sort of courage you might buy at Target. Not REI brand courage. I want to be scared a little bit to rev the nerves. Nothing makes you feel as acutely alive like the immediate possibility of death. But zero part of me wants to be Richard Branson (note: I’d like his money and his hair). 

I went parasailing once. I thought it would be a thrill ride. Taking off was kind of stomach-turning, but once up there it was just so peaceful and pretty. I felt totally safe. What a let down. 

So that’s what I thought ballooning would be. Just hanging there peacefully watching the sunset for $200. Pretty peaceful at the end of my street for free. 

Reality is, I’m a writer. Very few of us valet our Teslas. We’re more of a self-parking Honda people. We think it’s called a checking account because we’re always checking to see if there’s money in it. So I have to pick my big-ticket adventures wisely, and ballooning just seemed a tad boring. 

I’m not afraid of heights, though I am one of those weirdos who gets next to the edge of a cliff or a tall building and thinks, “Jump.” I also used to be terrified at weddings that I’d stand up and scream some unimaginable cuss word for no reason other than it’s the worst thing I could imagine doing. 

Brains are the worst. Lava? Brains say touch. Person with prison tat and drug teeth? Kiss them. Tax day? Skip it.

The French have a term for this dark impulse—l’apel du vide, which translates to “call of the void.” Basically, as you get close to the edge of a tall building, or find yourself 2,200 feet up held aloft by ropes and a balloon—you feel danger and the “void” calls to you. 

Plus, hot air ballooning got co-opted by the soft sweater crowd. It seemed a tad elitist, the adventure equivalent of a wine club. I like to imagine myself more of a cliff diving sort (never done it), or the wingsuit sort (never done it). 

But Claire is a lifelong New Yorker. I moved her out here to San Diego, away from her people and her thriving, filthy city to a beautiful, occasionally sleepy city. In the absence of jockeying a swarm of humanity and fighting for her life on a daily basis, she’s binge bucket-listing her west coast dreams. She bought a white convertible VW Beetle (it’s turbo, and it’s awesome). She made me paraglide over the cliffs above San Diego’s nudist beach full of eldery locals. And when her brother and his fiance came out to visit us for the first time, she sheepishly told me she’d paid to have us lifted into the clouds in a picnic basket. 

So I was in. I try to always at least be in. 

Next up I’ll tell you everything I think you need to know about being on a hot air balloon. Gonna keep hammering this story out this week as my morning writing exercise. Thanks for reading, guys.