This saying – “build your parachute on the way down” – has a deep history in my family. It was passed down from my great grandma Kate, through my mom to me. Grandma Kate was a badass. My daughter’s middle name is partly an homage to her and the incredible women of our families. She ran a ranch, taught my mom to rope cattle and ride a dirt bike, survived breast and ovarian cancer with small children, constantly danced and let her grandkids run wild when they visited. Some of my mom’s best memories were exploring that ranch.
My mom went on to live her own badass moments, from forester in tented camps of men to road engineer with me in her pregnant belly, bumping against the drafting table onsite. Then onto the evolving world of IT in the 70s. When I moved halfway across the world to build a career out of my passion, she told me I was building my parachute on the way down. She said it again when I left that same career and the organization that had been my home for over a decade to build a new business while pregnant in a pandemic.
That evocative phrase has become code for “it’s ok, you’re figuring it out as you go”, and more. There’s a lightness in it that helps manage the fear, you don’t have to have all the answers now. You get the sense that you were meant to leap off the cliff, it was time, no more waiting, crafting an elaborate plan, pausing for the elusive right moment to jump. No, it’s better to move now, adapt along the way, staying open and learning from what I experience. This is not about building the most elaborate parachute over ten years, only to have that dream change or moths chew holes in the fabric. There is no perfect time, she told me when I worried about changing careers while pregnant. In fact, she had made the same change while pregnant with me.
There’s an exhilarating joy, a wild freedom to jumping and just figuring it out. I carry this image of a skydiver, crafting a colorful patchwork parachute, as they drift with the wind. They’re calmly breathing in the fresh air blowing around them, their hands quilting the pieces together. It’s an apt metaphor for my family of quilters. I can remember working with my cousins and aunts to sew such a quilt for my grandparent’s anniversary. This billowing safety net can be woven with others.
Build your parachute on the way down. What a beautiful reminder to take the adventure now and not wait for any perfect moment. What better motivator to find the answers than on your way down.