Memories from skydiving

With only a few jumps in my logbook, I am still a newbie at skydiving, still far from losing the dazzle and the fear and the whole incredulity of it. It has been a long while since my 16th and last (for now) jump and sometimes I wonder when or if I'll ever jump again. But the memories are all still very fresh. The strange ethereal quality of the air at 16 thousand feet, the biting cold when the air rushed in as the door was thrown ajar and the pilot cried "Exit! Exit! Exit!" (for a while I associated the cold and the fear) and all the pros rushed out the door, making the plane oscilate around its axis for a second, leaving us newbies to make our way ponderously towards the door, for the ok signal and the mad plunge into the blue abyss, beautiful and harsh and void as death itself. Such beautiful pictures in my retina, and yet I have been unable to draw any that don't seem trivial and bogus and kitsch and useless. Yet here they are, with the hope that my own shame will lead me soon to do better.