One of the highlights of the BME NYE festivities was the suspensions that occurred on new year’s day. We saw Britt’s suicide suspension earlier in the week, so today we’re going to take a look at a suspension that may or may not have caused a group of people to get something in their eyes all at the same time.
In what was her very first suspension ever Janet, TrickyDick’s better half, went up in a lotus suspension. What started as a simple suspension quickly turned into something emotionally powerful that everyone present felt lucky to be there.
I e-mailed Janet earlier this week and asked her to describe the experience from her point of view. After the break, you can read what she had to say, as well as check out a few more photos from the suspension.
The suspension started out like any other, with Cere, Richard and ChrisB facilitating the hooks and the rigging. Once in position and everything cleared, Janet was slowly lifted off the ground. From that moment on, everyone watching became very still. At first she was in pain, and we could all feel it. Richard dropped to his knee (as you can see in the above photo), and spoke with his bride-to-be. I didn’t catch much of the exchange, as it was a private moment between the two of them, but he was able to get her to bring her arms up into her lap, which helped relax her.
With the initial uncertainty out of the way, Janet became much more relaxed, but was still a little hesitant about the experience. That all changed the moment one of her dogs came to her side. The smile that crossed her face at that moment will be with me forever. We all knew at that moment that not only was she alright, but she was in a fantastic place. I’m pretty sure it was around this time that quite a few people suddenly had dirt fly into their eyes, as a good number of them suddenly started to get tears forming.
The only place to go from there was up, and as she was slowly raised high in the air, all of us on the ground could feel the joy emanating from Janet. When asked later on about her experience, here’s what she had to say:
“I honestly thought my first suspension would double as my last. Now that I’ve been up and come back down, I have no idea why I thought that way for so long.
Lotuses are so beautiful and if I was going to suspend only once, I was going to make it count, even though the hooks were probably what I feared most. I had really had no interest in suspending until I saw pictures of a Lotus, and I told my fiancé, Richard, that I was going to do that one day, and mentally committed myself to try it… eventually. On NYE, after we left Rachel’s, I brought it up again in the car on our way to the hotel – that maybe I wanted to hang the next day – but I was so nervous about it that I debated back and forth until really the moment that I took my first set of hooks. I really wanted to start the year of with a bang, moving forward, and I had so many wonderful people around me who were super supportive and encouraging. The experience was amazing. The hooks were cake, especially compared to how I had imagined them, and once I was off the ground, I felt better than I ever have. And after hanging in the lotus for awhile, I decided I was done with the natural, self-containment of the lotus and that I wanted to cut my legs down and hang suicide. It didn’t go super smoothly and then it started to rain, but it felt great to allow my legs some freedom, even if it was just on my way back down to the ground.
So, a huge thanks to Richard, Cere, Chris B. for putting me up! to Rachel for hosting the event! and to all the BMEers who were there and shared the experience! because it was really the Best. Thing. Ever.”
As someone who was on the ground, I can safely speak for everyone there when I say thank you to Janet for allowing not only us to be present, but also for being willing to share your experience with the ModBlog readers.
The photos were all taken by Jen, and you can check out many more of them in the BME BBQ and events gallery.
