"The Fall Will Probably Kill Ya!"

Ice blue eyes squeezed shut. Head thrown back against the rock. Tan and tawny Adam's apple raised to the sky in an expression of unabashed glee. "Whaddaya crazy? Can't swim? The fall will probably kill ya!" Paul Newman - in the cliff jump scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ...

Evocative and monumental, this scene, this moment never fails to thrill me. I've seen it a hundred times in re-runs on t.v., repeats on YouTube, but it's fresh each time. I am transported back to the moment when I stole downstairs for some illicit, late night t.v. time. I was twelve. My parents were asleep. It was about 3:00 a.m. and Butch and Sundance lit up the flickering screen of the old t.v. At twelve, love is a tangible thing - a crush of emotions that is palpable in every fibre. But at twelve, sex is still a mystery. Sure, I knew about the mechanics. I had listened to the lesson with a lot of curiosity and a little disgust. Why anyone would bother remained the obvious question in my young mind.

Until Butch.

Head thrown back, tawny neck open to the sky and I wanted to ... kiss that neck ... sniff that skin ... feel that pulsing laugh under my hand. Something changed in that moment. I felt a flutter in my lower belly sending a shiver of near-fear through me. In that moment, around 3:00 a.m., on an early morning in 1977, I knew. Butch was the trigger.

Butch was right. The fall will probably kill ya. The descent is swift and the plunge is cold, but if you survive, the water's fine. Those icy-blues were part of my awakening, those tiny, halting steps made from childhood to womanhood. Sweeter than my first real kiss, Butch stays with me forever - forever on the brink, forever at the edge, forever pushing risk in the face of insurmountable danger.

Thanks, Paul Newman. For...ahem ... everything.