I think some parents will do all kinds of things in order to spend time with our kids. We schlep them ourselves to soccer tournaments, rather than car-pooling, maybe, for that priceless car-talk-time. We sit on the edges of their beds in the dark, listening despite our (and her) late-night fatigue, because now is the time she wants to tell us something.

Or we ride roller coasters.

That’s what I did yesterday, anyway. I drove Everett and a group of band-buddies up to Kings Dominion in Virginia for a band competition. It was a 2+ hour drive up there (for much of which the middle-school men in my vehicle wisely slept), then the set-up for competition, then the competition itself (2 songs, and they were excellent. They earned a high “Excellent” rating, in fact!)– all of it over by noon.

And then the amusement park was ours.

As chaperone, it was my charge to escort my small group of students through the park until our meet-up time at 6 p.m. I didn’t want to be a burden. I certainly didn’t want to slow anyone down. And I didn’t want my sensitive and considerate son to feel any hesitation about riding exactly what he wanted to ride.

I told him I would ride anything he did– and he seemed pleased.

No biggie. That was my thought. I’ve ridden tons of roller coasters in my life. I love roller coasters. At least, I want to be the kind of mother– er, person– who loves roller coasters. This was going to be awesome. It would be so fun.

So why not, right? Why not start with this one: Mom, this one’s so cool (he’s been to this park before, but I haven’t), and it’s inside.

An indoor roller coaster. Yes, cool. I rode Space Mountain at Disney World in 11th grade and I was pretty sure I mostly loved it. And so we entered the waiting line.

It wasn’t long, but it was fairly dark. And it was long enough to get me thinking. I mean, up to this point, I had just been busy mentally with the demands of getting the boys where they needed to be and doing so on time. The whole amusement-park-rest-of-the-day thing hadn’t entirely registered.

Here’s the thing: you shouldn’t be thinking in an amusement park. You really, really shouldn’t. The name tells you that much: “a-muse” means, literally, “without thought.”

But what I was thinking in that line was that this was going to be a scary ride. A scary, high-velocity, flip-my-body-in-ways-unnatural-to-man ride. And when we got to the end of the line, where you get to watch several train-loads of cars load their passengers, I became more certain of this fact.

What else can one make of the warnings, of the careful self-buckling, followed by the professional-amusement-park-worker individual-checking-of-the-seat-belts of every single passenger in that train?

We got in. We buckled up. And in the blast-off beginning, identified on the Kings Dominion website as “one of the most exciting accelerations” in roller coaster riding (not the slow and clanking ascension I had been expecting), I shut my eyes.

This ride lasts one minute and five seconds and moves at 54 miles per hour, facts I would not have done well knowing in advance. I don’t know what I held on to, but I know I held on tightly. Next to me, Everett laughed and shouted. He exclaimed that it was awesome. I saw a flash of light and metal through almost squeezed-shut lids and squeezed them shut again. I concentrated on breathing through my nose.

The boys loved the ride, of course. They talked about it in animated excitement as we made our way back into daylight, describing things I had experienced and vaguely remembered, underscoring what the website claims about this ride: that people “rave about the inversions.”

My quiet confession to Everett– the bit about the eyes-closed thing– was met with disappointment.  “Mom, you’ve got to keep your eyes open next time, okay?”

Only a fool would say okay to that. Which is what I went on to do. This day was about Everett, after all.

(I will add here that, for the remainder of the day, the boys had a collective uncertainty about what that ride was called. Some of them called it Area 51, others claimed it was called Bureau of Paranormal Activity. On the website I discovered its true identity: Flight of Fear.)

Next on the list was The Intimidator, “the tallest, fastest, most thrilling roller coaster on the East Coast.” It is 305 feet at its highest point, and its first drop (which hits immediately after you’ve reached that 305 foot height, which you’ve done slowly and in the open air with nothing but some sort of padded brace holding you in place and from which you can see– on a clear day, which this was– 18 miles of gorgeous Virginian landscape but which you aren’t really able to admire or even quite pay any attention to because your heart doesn’t belong in your mouth but surprise! there it is anyway) finds you plummeting towards earth at an 85-degree angle. This ride has you going 90 miles per hour, careening over steep hills and through sudden twists and also upside-down. It lasts for three very long minutes, and Everett and his friends loved it.

Quietly, I said to him, “It’s just that generally speaking I lead a quiet life.”

And he said, so understandingly, “You’re a writer,” as we made our way to the Anaconda.

The thing about the Anaconda is that it has, famously, an underwater tunnel. Everett commented that he never remembers the tunnel, and so we made a pact that this time we would pay attention to it. Even if it was quick, we would be sure to notice the underwater tunnel.

Meanwhile, we had a line to wait in, during which time we chatted and moved along and talked about the last roller coaster. During which I also reflected on a sign at The Intimidator that warned potential riders of the necessity of stable physical and emotional health and promised the experience of G-forces (and negative G-forces) on the body.

Negative G-forces. That’s what’s known as “air-time,” when one goes over a bump on one’s bicycle, say, or over a drop after a little hill in the car. But the negative G-force on the Intimidator was that feeling of being lifted from my seat, that very brief but entirely engaging sensation that I was leaving all that was secure in this life and about to be flung head-long into the stratosphere. It was what had me considering (remember, this is an “a-muse-ment” park) what God intended for us to do with our bodies and our understanding of physics and how this was Almost Certainly Not It.

Still, as we strapped ourselves in, Everett and I promised that we would remember the tunnel.

The Anaconda lasts for a whopping one minute and fifty seconds. The tunnel doesn’t show up until very nearly the end, and I’m sure I would have remembered it but for the fact that it is immediately followed by a 360-degree vertical loop that simultaneously erases one’s short-term memory.

We exited the ride and confessed to one another that we had forgotten to remember the tunnel. I also noticed (privately) that I was less trembly, inside and out, than I had been.

Which might have been why I suggested the Drop Tower for our next ride. It certrainly looked thrilling (it has a “High Thrill” rating on the website as opposed to “Aggressive Thrill,” which is what all the aforementioned ones share), but also relatively passive. I had been on the Demon Drop years ago at Cedar Point, which differed at least in this: the Demon Drop is an enclosed ride. But what difference could that make?

So once again I found myself strapping myself in, which was always a bit unsettling. Sometimes the buckle wouldn’t come together immediately– the strap was too short, or something– and a rising panic would ensue: I can’t get this! I can’t get this! What if I failed to close the buckle and the professionals decided not to help and we went shooting off anyway?

But every time– Every Time– I managed to close the buckle. And Every Time the friendly amusement-park-worker checked my belt and that of everyone else.

Phew.

And also, just a little bit, shouldn’t that make us a little bit nervous– that they even have to check the belts at all?

I digress.

The Drop Tower starts off pleasantly enough. There you sit in the warm sunshine, legs dangling, the padded brace resting over your shoulders and holding you securely in. You wait, squinting, dangling, chuckling with Everett who sits fearless beside you.

And then up you go. The waiting crowd recedes, disappears. You forget they ever existed. You forget everything other than the tops of the Virginian trees which are now so far below you, and the fact that this ride takes you up 27 stories (and you are still rising), and that you will shortly be plummeting at 72 miles per hour.

You consider taking a look down, but that seems unwise, as who wants to see one’s entire digestive tract dangling between one’s dangling ankles? And next will come the drop, which seems potentially worse, somehow, than the climb, but also infinitely more terrible than the waiting, the idle sitting that you do for maybe eternal split-seconds at that 27-story height.

Thinking– irresistable and pointless– is Such A Bad Idea.

You resort to earlier practices: you close your eyes. The wind that comes of such a rapid descent, that is all you know of this terrifying plunge, is absolutely unbelievable.

Then: terra firma. Two of the finest Latin words in the English language.

There now. Was that so bad?

We rode two other rides: a roller coaster for which you stand up the entire time (because, really, why not?) and a lovely little “high” not “aggressive thrill” coaster called Stunt Coaster, which I wish I could ride again and again and again. It was That Fun.

It was after leaving Stunt Coaster that I saw the woman’s t-shirt. She was probably in her fifties, leaving the same ride I was leaving, surrounded by a bunch of kids. The back of her shirt said: “Y.O.L.O,” and under that, for those of us requiring the interpretation: “You Only Live Once.”

Which might have been why, without knowing it, I was on those rides in the first place. Because I’ll only live once, and I will always be Everett’s only mother, and I’ll only have this once-more chance to be his driver and chaperone for his middle school’s band trip to Kings Dominion. Next year he’ll be in high school.

The second time (yes, there was a second time. Are you proud of me?) we rode The Intimidator, it was so much better than the first. I had been informed that the squinty-open-eyed approach I had taken during the first 300-foot climb was not good enough, and so this time I kept my eyes wide for the entirety of that ascent. Which Was Terrifying. And I kept my eyes open for the rest of it, too.

As on all the rides, Everett whooped and hollered and exclaimed that all of it was awesome– but he wants to be an airplane pilot. He wants to fly into the Alaskan bush. I, on the other hand, am a mother and a writer. I take deep pleasure in a cup of tea and a good pen. I find parenting to be Absolutely Breathtaking. Still, I shouted some on The Intimidator that time, and I laughed some, too.

At the end of that ride, the exit funnels everyone through a little gift shop, and the counter features screens of photographs taken on the ride you’ve just left. We found ourselves readily enough: three boys in their school colors, their faces plastered by the wind, hands raised, grins wild.

And there was me, next to Everett, holding for dear life to those padded braces over my shoulders. You can see my collar bones clearly and the strain in my windpipe, of all things. But, unlike the first picture, after our first ride on The Intimidator (the one in which my eyes are closed and I look mostly unconscious but for that strain in my throat), my eyes are wind-swept but open, and really, I think you can detect a little smile.