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Enjoy this YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her v349 9/24 cc&d issue/book “Autumn” & the CyberWit Summer 2024 Janet Kuypers poetry book “The Universe is in Your Hands” poems “September 11, 2001 (The Universe is in your Hands edit)” (+ showing NYC city skyline image & 9/6/09 WTC construction image 4623), “Equinox Concert” (+ showing an Aurora Borealis image), & “Just Far Enough to Feel Free” (+ showing a tandem-free 6/18/07 skydiving image) to start her “Poetic License 9/1/24 global open mic” she hosted through Zoom & a Facebook event page (this video was filmed from a Panasonic Lumix 2500 camera; on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). Also enjoy this as a Facebook live video stream that was filmed & streamed from a Samsung S9 camera w/ a Bad Signal-B filter; posted on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, and Tumblr. #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetry #janetkuypersbookreading #janetkuyperstheuniverseisinyourhands #janetkuyperspoeticlicense

Just Far Enough to Feel Free Janet Kuypers 2/13/24 Living around high rises in such a big city, I knew that if I jumped out of an airplane here, I wouldn’t be falling between skyscrapers, but they’d escort me to farmland past the suburbs for safety, welcome to rural America, the flattest lands in this country. So, I said no, I’m flying to Colorado for my first time, and I wanna see the Rocky Mountains as I fall. I know, I know, I’ve been here before, sat alone with my laptop and my beer at bars in Denver, seen amazing sights in Boulder, managed the inclines of Colorado Springs... but Longmont? Sure, it’s a little bit closer to those mountains... why not. Time to train, wait through the afternoon rain sprinkles, and remember: you’re being filmed for this, and they asked you to do “jazz hands” if you were having fun. You’ve been trained, you waited for hours, so when the time comes and you’re in the air, over 18,000 feet above sea level, they say, “Your turn.” News flash: if this is your first time, like me, you might go numb. I suddenly had no memory of what to do, my brain was jelly, just a complete blank. But my internal automatic response kicked in; I went over as told to the side of the airplane with no door.        You jump — but no one says that you won’t be able to breathe, that whole 120-mile-per-hour thing makes it impossible to catch your breath. Turning your head to the side doesn’t help when the pressure is on your neck, your chest, your mouth, your cheek. Stop freaking out, you’ll survive this... wait, the cameraman is there, pointing a camera at you. Be a good lemming and do “jazz hands” like you were told. Oh, wait, then you realize when moving one hand out a little, the wind shoots your arm into a straight line, try to correct it, don’t extend it, but terminal velocity it making it impossible to control your arms when you jump out of an airplane for the first time. Well, the effort has to count for something... Once on terra firma, the videographer will ask you, “What were you doing with your arms?” Just look at them matter-of-factly, point-blank and say, “I was doing jazz hands,” because really, how could you not tell.    After, go to the Left- Hand Brewery in Longmont and get your free you’ve-jumped-out-of-an-airplane beer, because, left-handed like me or not...        you deserve it. Then go to Golden, not for Jaco John’s Tex-Mex, not for the free tour at Coors Brewery, but start going up the mountain with Buffalo Bill’s grave. (My husband swears his ancestor killed more buffalo than Bill... wow, this vegetarian didn’t know they married into slaughter “royalty”.) Don’t get to his grave, but stop part-way up the mountain instead. Turn off the road part-way up and just park, walk to where bushes and brush clear, and stop, have a seat on the ground. Look down at tiny cars driving along the snaking roads below, like spiders on strings, with such pretty colors. You’re above it all now, though not like when you’re jumping out of the sky. You’re still close to civilization, but just far enough to feel free.

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